A pretty comprehensive report at the Daily Signal discusses the response to Hurricane Helene. I am excerpting the sections related to the state of North Carolina’s response. Keep in mind that Governor Cooper is in charge of the National Guard in our state:
On Sept. 25, one day before Helene stormed ashore, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency as the storm’s path showed it churning northward toward Appalachia after making landfall in Florida.
Yet that advance declaration was not followed by any state evacuation orders, and the population largely sheltered in place as Helene hit the steep, wooded hills of Western North Carolina, squatting over the area, unleashing more than an inch of water an hour for more than a day.
The unprecedented, relentless downpour, falling on ground already saturated by rain the week before, tore old pines and hardwoods out by the roots, creating arboreal torpedoes that rocketed down the steep inclines; water that turned photogenic stony creeks into whitewater torrents, lifting ancient streambed boulders and tossing them like chips on to roads and into homes and buildings…
As residents in Asheville, Chimney Creek, and other smaller communities continue to pick up from the carnage, after-action reports indicate government agencies at the federal and state levels were slow to react.
Interviews with several private relief groups that sprang into action after Helene, along with statistics provided by congressional sources, indicate that Cooper’s office and the Biden administration were slow to activate military personnel and assets like helicopters that were critical in the days after the storm…
Some Republican officials in Washington have grumbled that Cooper and the Biden administration moved too slowly in terms of activating the National Guard or the huge U.S. Army assets at Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, in North Carolina.
Information provided by the state to Congress and shared with RealClearInvestigations shows the state’s “rotor and fixed-wing aircraft” made available rose from fewer than 10 in the storm’s initial 48 hours to 20 by Sept. 30, but it stayed at that number for three full days. North Carolina Highway Patrol provided fewer than five helicopters through Oct. 9…
In addition, although many National Guardsmen in the area are native Tar Heels and were chomping at the bit to help, they were repeatedly snarled by delays in orders, according to several people familiar with the first days of response…
At one point, Robinson said there were people marooned on a hilltop, and his group asked the National Guard to handle the job. Though more than willing, the guardsmen had to wait more than three hours for their orders. “We just went and got them in the meantime,” he said…
Cooper’s office also pushed back against reports it may have been tardy in calling up the National Guard or responding to hard-hit zones.
“The North Carolina National Guard was activated and on the ground before, during and after the storm and we believe this was the fastest and largest integration of active-duty military soldiers under Title 10 working with the National Guard in North Carolina history,” said Jordan Monaghan, a spokesman for the governor. “Immediately following the storm, staged equipment and personnel began moving into Western N.C., using Asheville’s airport as a staging area where supplies were flown in, loaded onto helicopters and flown into counties that couldn’t be reached by road. Where roads were passable, supplies were delivered by truck.”
On Sept. 30, Cooper asked Biden to “make all necessary federal resources available,” and that so-called “Title 10” request was approved by the Defense Department on Oct. 2, according to Monaghan. At that point, helicopters and other key assets took to wing.
Both FEMA and Cooper’s office stressed the unprecedented nature of Helene, and that view was echoed by Trascher, who said some of the areas the Cajun Navy serviced were “the worst I’d seen since Katrina.”
As of early November, power outages had fallen from more than 1 million to fewer than 900, while roughly 1,000 of the 1,300 closed roads have been opened, according to Cooper’s office. All told, there have been “2,024 FEMA workers and thousands of Department of Transportation workers, utility workers, law enforcement officers and volunteers on the ground.”
Cooper fumbled the ball. He is a loser .
Yes, he did, Fred. Incredibly bad leadership. But in the eyes of the NC electorate, he is a winner– i.e., if you believe his elections were honest.
And once again, there is no accountability.