Haywood still waiting on millions in FEMA reimbursements
Cory Vaillancourt photo
It’s beginning to sound like a broken record — nearly a year after Hurricane Helene tore through Western North Carolina, Haywood County government has received only 4% of the money it is owed from the federal government, leaving officials frustrated and taxpayers effectively footing the bill.
“The next is update on FEMA projects and reimbursement progress,” Chair Kevin Ensley said to open a discussion on the matter at the Sept. 15 Haywood County Commission meeting. “Our finance director, Kristian Owen, is here to give us the bad news on that.”
Owen told Haywood County commissioners during the meeting that while FEMA has approved some small projects, the largest and costliest reimbursements remain tied up in a bureaucratic maze.
According to Owen, the county has about $15.8 million in total eligible expenses. So far, FEMA has reimbursed only $623,288.
Some projects have been fully approved. Lodging and meals for emergency responders, totaling about $610,000, and law enforcement mutual aid reimbursements for Clay County, just under $13,000, have been paid. FEMA has also obligated $1.07 million for right-of-way debris removal and nearly $100,000 for emergency operations center materials.
But the real money is elsewhere. A single line item — waterway debris removal — totals nearly $13.9 million and is still marked “pending application completion.”
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Another $19,500 in private property debris removal is also pending.
Owen explained that these projects face round after round of “RFIs,” or requests for information. Each packet can contain 30 to 50 questions, many of them repetitive.
“Debris is debris. It’s all the same answers, but we have to answer those each time we get an email,” she said. “It’s very inefficient.”
Commissioners have been frustrated by the magnitude of the delay. Commissioner Brandon Rogers calculated that the unpaid balance was equivalent to about 15 cents on the county’s 55-cent property tax rate.
“That kind of puts it into perspective on what we’re lacking,” Rogers said. “It’s truly unfair. It probably sounds like we’re throwing some rocks, but I guess we are. When we’re owed this much money, we need our money — and we need it quicker.”
Rogers, who traveled with the American Flood Coalition to Washington, D.C. on Sept. 16 to meet with federal officials, said he planned to make the county’s case directly.
“The only thing I care about leaving with is a check,” he said.
Commissioners also asked Owen to compare Helene’s reimbursement process to that of Tropical Storm Fred in 2021. That disaster cost the county less than $5 million, and FEMA denied only $76.
“We did see some payment lag with Fred as well,” Owen said. “But there was not the upfront delay like there is with Helene. We’re getting immediate kickbacks with all those RFIs, and that really slows the process down.”
Beyond debris removal, the county is still tallying expenses for labor, equipment and emergency protective measures. Hundreds of staff timesheets must be reconciled with FEMA’s granular reporting requirements, and every county vehicle used in the response — from patrol cars to forklifts — must be logged with hours and rates.
Even the loss of roughly 80 road signs is an open project, with an estimated replacement cost of $40,000 still awaiting FEMA development.
On top of that, FEMA allows up to 5% of total project costs for management. With $15.8 million in play, Haywood expects to claim about $790,000 for staff time and outside contractors who have been working the paperwork.
While the presentation was steeped in numbers, commissioners returned again and again to the human and financial toll of waiting on Washington.
“We’ve been decimated by this hurricane, so what I want to say is, ’Why don’t you help us some more with this?’” Ensley offered.
Commissioner Jennifer Best voiced a mix of empathy and exasperation.
“Who would have ever thought in the mountains of Western North Carolina, we would have such a vocabulary for hurricanes and floods?” Best asked. “It’s difficult for folks who make decisions at higher levels than us to understand how impactful the damage to the river is, because it’s so different than what we expect on the coast.”
Rogers added another sharp note of irony about FEMA’s duplicative demands.
“We already had a project that was approved, the check is on the way, and they still sent a request for information,” he said.
For now, Haywood continues to bridge the gap with local funds, a rainy-day reserve and a short-term loan approved earlier this summer. But the longer FEMA takes, the longer county taxpayers bear the risk.
“If we don’t have proper documentation and follow procurement processes, then we don’t get reimbursed,” Owen said. “We don’t try to slow things down, but sometimes we have to stop, take a breath and say, we’ve got to have this or we won’t get reimbursed.”
