"One Year After Helene: People who lost their homes turned to FEMA for aid. Some are still slogging through red tape. Wealthier Getting More: We found that in some North Carolina counties, homeowners with the highest incomes received two to three times as much FEMA housing assistance as lower-income ones."
"Slogging through a thick slop of mud and rock, Brian Hill passed the roof that Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters had just ripped off someone’s barn and dumped into his yard. Then he peered into the unrecognizable chaos inside what had been his family’s dream home.
The century-old white farmhouse, surrounded by the rugged peaks of western North Carolina, sat less than 15 yards from the normally tranquil Cattail Creek. As Helene’s rainfall barrelled down the Black Mountains last September, the creek swelled into a raging river that encircled the house. Its waves pounded the walls, tore off doors, smashed windows and devoured the front and back porches.
Brian and his wife, Susie, had just bought the house a year earlier. They had a 30-year mortgage — and, now, no house to live in. Because their home didn’t sit in the 100-year floodplain, they had not purchased flood insurance."
Jennifer Berry Hawes reports for ProPublica, and Ren Larson for The Assembly, September 27, 2025.
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