An underwater arts district. Health-care workers and patients stranded on hospital rooftops. Isolated residents pointing mirrors at the sky to catch rescue helicopters’ attention. The tragic scenes from Hurricane Helene’s path of destruction are nothing short of heartbreaking. In the week and a half since it made landfall, subjecting coastlines across the Southeast to storm surges and downpours, the tempest struck forcefully where few expect such events: inland, high in the Blue Ridge mountains. Consequently, even “climate haven” cities such as Asheville, N.C., felt the impact.
Dubbed the deadliest hurricane to hit the United States since Maria in 2017, Helene has already claimed 232 lives, with many more still unaccounted for. Making matters worse, only a small fraction of households in the hardest-hit counties had flood insurance. Policies are not cheap, and many living on high ground might have thought the risks were too minor to warrant the expense. As Helene makes clear, tropical storms are no longer an exclusively coastal threat. Heavy rains can rapidly flood hill-country streams and ravines, and there is only so much federal aid can do to compensate for homeowners’ and businesses’ losses. This disaster should spur long-overdue reforms in the federal government’s troubled flood insurance programs.
According to some early analyses, the storm could have caused $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage across the Southeast, along with $5 billion to $8 billion in lost economic output. The storm’s impact on human life could be magnified by the supply chain disruptions it is causing: Hospitals across the country are already experiencing a shortage of intravenous solutions after flooding from Helene caused a Marion, N.C., plant to shut down.
Affected communities remain in the early stages of recuperation, in many cases still lacking access to water, power, food and other necessities. Even as search-and-recovery efforts continue, officials in the coming weeks need to treat this humanitarian crisis with the urgency that phrase implies. We have no doubt they intend to do so, but as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Guard and other aid organizations navigate downed trees and mud-choked roads to reach affected residents, they face yet another challenge: rampant misinformation.
Because it plowed through two swing states just over a month before Election Day, politicians were bound to pay extra attention to this disaster. Both presidential candidates rerouted their campaign trails to visit Georgia and North Carolina. This is par for the course in a democracy. What is neither normal nor acceptable is for former president Donald Trump to exploit the situation with inflammatory falsehoods. He claimed that his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, diverted FEMA funding to house illegal immigrants; and he accused North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, also a Democrat, of withholding aid from Republican-leaning counties. Misinformation about FEMA’s actions has become so widespread that the agency created a webpage dedicated to “rumor response.” The agency should not have to spend scarce resources dispelling misinformation spread in part by someone running for our highest office.
No doubt, FEMA has its limitations. The Post spent a year chronicling how the agency is struggling to keep up with the demands of disasters intensified, in part, by a changing climate. Destructive storms always spotlight both the strengths and weakness of government’s disaster-response capabilities. Even as Helene provides lessons for policymakers, though, it highlights the country’s profound capacity for spontaneous, empathetic, often heroic actions by individuals and communities. Tying political accusations to disaster response is doubly unseemly in light of so much selflessness by ordinary people.
For now, affected communities from the Gulf Coast to the Carolinas deserve swift and generous support from government and the private sector alike. Indeed, new research shows that the lingering effects can indirectly lead to excess deaths in the months and years after storms occur. A consistent flow of resources even after immediate relief efforts could help stem those impacts. Experts might not be able to predict which storms become the next Katrina or Helene. But one thing we do know is that they will happen, possibly with greater intensity because of climate change. Indeed, the current Atlantic hurricane season, which had been relatively mild until recent weeks, is not yet over — and indeed coincides with the stretch run of the presidential campaign. Effective government will help everyone in the storms’ paths get through it. Demagoguery will not.
The Washington Post
