Guest Post: Stein says state moved too slowly on Helene aid; Cooper governed through 2024

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Annie Dance, who writes Cops and Congress, a Substack focused on serving Rutherford County. Check it out here!

Nearly two years after Hurricane Helene struck western North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Josh Stein says the state should have developed recovery programs faster and delivered more help to small businesses in the months when they needed it most.

Roy Cooper was governor when Helene hit in September 2024. Stein took office in January 2025 and made recovery a focus of his first executive orders. In an interview ahead of the storm’s second anniversary, Stein criticized the pace of the state’s recovery across that period.

“I wish we could have gone faster,” Stein said when asked what the state had done right and wrong. “Every time I would ask my staff, why are we not doing this faster? There usually is a reason. And sometimes it has to do with federal bureaucracy. Sometimes it has to do with state bureaucracy. Sometimes it has to just do with human capacity.”

“I think what we could do better is to develop these programs quicker and get them on the ground quicker,” he said.

The consequences of a slow recovery remain visible to families waiting on basic repairs, Stein said.

“There are people out there whose homes have not yet been rebuilt. People whose bridges that they need to access their property have not been rebuilt,” he said. “There are dams that need to be strengthened. There’s a lot of work that needs to happen.”

“I have 100% sympathy for people who are impatient and frustrated because if it were my property, I would be really upset,” he said.

Stein pointed to the state’s launch of Renew NC, a federally funded housing recovery program through U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and a state-funded private roads and bridges program as examples of work completed since he took office. But he said launching a program is different from getting help to everyone who needs it.

“Our objective is whatever dollars we get, whether it’s from the federal government or the state government, is to obligate those funds, expend those funds as quickly as we can,” he said. “Money in a bank in Raleigh does nobody any good.”

The timing was especially critical for small businesses. Stein said more than $100 million in grants and loans from state, private and foundation sources was available in the months after Helene, but demand far exceeded that amount.

“The need was almost infinitely more than what we were able to provide,” he said. “I tried to work with the legislature to get them to appropriate more funding to help small businesses, and we just — we were unsuccessful in that regard.”

“If you miss out on the first nine months after a storm, sometimes a business, they can only last so long before that bank account is totally depleted and they have to shut their doors,” Stein said. “When that happens, it’s heartbreaking.”

The state announced a new $5 million small-business initiative on Sept. 24, almost two years after the storm.

Stein said roughly 7,000 to 8,000 people initially applied for housing help through Renew NC and about 2,500 remain in its pipeline. He said the state cannot serve every applicant who might qualify under federal rules.

“Some people fix their house themselves. Some people weren’t eligible. Other people just gave up,” he said. “We would like to be able to serve everybody who is eligible under federal law. We just don’t have enough money.”

Renew NC says it processes applications in phases based on income, damage and household circumstances.

Asked to name a failure he could own as governor, Stein cited his inability to secure another major Helene recovery appropriation from Congress.

“I need to do a better job convincing this administration, convincing the Congress to not forget Western North Carolina,” he said.

Congress has not passed a new Helene recovery appropriation since 2024, although previously approved federal money has continued to reach the state. Stein praised the Republican-led General Assembly’s recovery appropriations and said state lawmakers of both parties have worked together on the region’s needs.

For families still living elsewhere while their homes are damaged, Stein offered no date by which the work would be finished.

“We are working hard to keep our promise. That does not mean we’re able to help everybody immediately at the same time,” he said. “We understand that it needs to be faster.”

Stein’s admission raises an accountability question for both administrations: which aid could have reached survivors sooner, and what decisions held it up? His interview does not answer that question or assign the delays to Cooper. It does establish that, two years after Helene, the governor considers the pace too slow for people still waiting.

Cooper, also a Democrat, has three opponents on the ballot, including Republican Michael Whatley.