This is one of the nicest stories that you’ll hear this year—up to a certain point. It’s the kind of story we all love, especially around the holidays. Americans pulling together and lifting each other up with “can do” spirit, kindness, and generosity.
This is one of those kinds of stories until an America-hating, communist ratbag named Joe Biden steps in and ruins everything. From that point on, it’s a truly awful story.
Hurricane Helene was one of the worst storms we’ve had in modern history. More than 126,000 homes in western North Carolina were damaged or destroyed. More than 200,000 of our fellow Americans were displaced. Many have been living in shelters this whole time. Others have been living in makeshift trailers, tents, or their bombed-out houses.
State and federal disaster relief help has been nothing short of a disappointment. Kamala Harris’s offer of $750 from FEMA was so insulting that it probably cost her North Carolina in the presidential election. The state agency that is helping out is the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR). The North Carolina legislature appropriated $273 million for the program in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
NCORR has helped place about 2,700 North Carolinians back into their homes, or in some cases, has given them reimbursement funds to hire contractors for repairs. Another 1,600 people are still waiting for help all these weeks later. About 4,000 people dropped out of the program because they were so frustrated with the delays and slow process.
The bottom line is that six weeks after the storm, we still don’t even have an accurate headcount as to how many people are still living in tents or makeshift trailers after the storm. FEMA and NCORR haven’t lived up to their duties. Imagine what the headlines would be like if a Republican were in the White House!
Anyway, Americans have been hard at work helping out the hurricane victims, even though the federal and state governments are basically worthless. To quote one of the Appalachian good ol’ boys who showed up to help, “Who’s FEMA?”
We’re Americans. We can handle this ourselves.
One of the most heartwarming and surprising stories that’s happened in western North Carolina hasn’t had much media coverage. A whole bunch of Amish carpenters from Lancaster County, PA, have been riding the bus down to North Carolina and staying for a week at a time to help out. One week, 56 passenger buses loaded with Amish carpenters will show up with all their own supplies. They stay Monday through Friday, and then another shift of Amish volunteers shows up the next week.
A small crew of Amish carpenters can put up a humble Amish “tiny home” in just a five-day work week. That’s what they’ve been doing. In the last month that they’ve been doing this, some estimate that they’ve built well over 100 new tiny homes for people to move into.
They’re Amish tiny homes, so they lack a lot of modern amenities. But they’re certain to be warmer and more comfortable than sleeping on the ground in a tent as winter sets in. They’ve already had snow in the mountains in western North Carolina. For most of us, if we had a choice between sleeping in a tent versus sleeping in an expertly built Amish cottage, we wouldn’t need to flip a coin to make the decision. We’d take the Amish cottage every time. The Amish aren’t known for shoddy workmanship, so these tiny homes will probably last 150 years if they’re well cared for.
Imagine the relief and gratitude that those families must have felt to finally have roofs over their heads after weeks of waiting for help. The Amish came through. We really do live in the greatest country on earth.
Oh, and then FEMA under Joe Biden’s leadership and North Carolina authorities (under the leadership of a Democrat governor) kicked all the families out and condemned their tiny homes. The homes were not “up to code.” Those people are back to living in tents and staring wistfully at their cottages that were just built as an act of charity and kindness by their fellow Americans.
We should all pray that those people can hang in there for a few more weeks. Things are going to change as soon as we have an American president back in office for the first time in four years.
