The Town of Canton’s temporary operations hub on Summer Street, home to town hall and the police department since shortly after deadly flooding in 2021, is about to get a little bigger. 

The deadline for North Carolinians in 39 counties to apply for FEMA Individual Assistance after Hurricane Helene has been extended to Jan. 7, 2025. 

To the Editor:

Donald Trump has been guilty of spewing so many fact-free statements over the years that ‘fact checking’ has become a ritual after every Trump pronouncement. No one, including the people that support him, denies this fact.

To the Editor:

A vote for Trump is a vote for Project 2025, the incredibly dangerous game plan for a far-right authoritarian government that would strip away vital protections enjoyed by the American people today.

North Carolinians who lost access to water through a private well or damaged septic system as a result of Hurricane Helene may be eligible for FEMA assistance. 

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack visited Asheville to hear firsthand from local, state and Tribal officials, emergency managers, food bank staff and volunteers, and impacted producers on the region’s relief and recovery efforts and highlighted resources from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help producers, families and communities in the Tarheel State recover from the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene. 

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is offering initial emergency loans to 20 local governments for emergency projects to rehabilitate drinking water and/or wastewater systems in response to damages caused by Hurricane Helene. 

As the rain from Hurricane Helene mercifully subsided around noon on Sept. 27, smaller creeks in Haywood County receded fairly quickly, the extra water from each flowing into larger tributaries before combining into the Pigeon River as it heads through a narrow gorge into Tennessee. 

With the North Carolina General Assembly’s preliminary $273 million relief bill in the rearview mirror, Western North Carolina Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) is looking down the road at the General Assembly’s next move — a billion-dollar relief bill coming Oct. 24. During a recent meeting with Haywood County officials, Corbin spent about an hour trying to learn what, exactly, the needs are.  

“I can promise you what you won't get,” Corbin said. “You won't get things you don't ask for.”

Let’s not sugarcoat it anymore. To call it “misinformation” is, in itself, misinformation. Let’s just call it what it is — straight-up lies, of the sort that would earn you a whoopin’ by meemaw if you repeated them to her face instead of spreading them from behind a keyboard like a coward.