Three months after Tropical Storm Helene hit Western North Carolina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved $288 million in recovery assistance to more than 142,000 household and individuals, the agency said in a Dec. 27 release.
An additional $307 million in public assistance funding has been approved so far to support community recovery, FEMA said.
The announcement comes after Congress approved a bipartisan spending bill that will deliver another $29 billion to FEMA’s relief fund, which provides individual assistance to disaster survivors and reimburses states and municipalities for debris removal and other post-disaster response. More than 2.4 million cubic yards of debris have been removed from public rights of way by FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its contractors, according to FEMA.
The bill’s passage came weeks after a delegation of state and local elected officials , which included Gov. Roy Cooper and Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer, visited Washington, D.C., to lobby for $25.5 billion just for North Carolina, where Helene killed 103 and caused nearly $60 billion in damage, according to a revised estimate from the N.C. Office of State Budget and Management.