In storm-battered North Carolina, lives and elections at stake

One of the fortunate whose homes remained intact when Hurricane Helene tore through the western region of North Carolina in late September was Chris Heath, a resident.

But he and his wife packed their three children into the car and drove nine hours south to Florida to stay with friends after three days without power or water and no apparent relief.

“There were a lot of trees down the road.” We had to cut our way out”, Heath, an executive chef in North Carolina’s mountain city of Asheville, told Al Jazeera.

However, less than a week later, Heath’s family was traveling once more, this time escaping Hurricane Milton, which was expected to pass close to their Orlando, central Florida, home.

“It’s pretty grim”, Heath said after he returned home from Florida, where Milton made landfall late on Wednesday.

The political storm after the hurricane

Little has changed since Heath left, aside from the unwelcome intrusion of politics and the disinformation war that has erupted around the election results, in Asheville, which is one of the hardest hit by Helene and the torrential flooding it unleashed.

For many people, the last thing on their minds is party politics. Because of the once-in-a-century flooding, tens of thousands of people in the area are still without power or clean water. This situation may take weeks to resolve.

Schools are closed indefinitely, and residents are hauling tanks of water from creeks to flush toilets.

Statewide, at least 91 people have lost their lives and hundreds are still missing – many in remote, mountainous areas hard for rescuers to reach. The villages’ borders have all but disappeared.

“It’s pushed the imagination as to what’s possible from such a storm”, Parker Sloan – a commissioner in North Carolina’s Buncombe County, where Asheville is located – told Al Jazeera.

Playing politics

Even so, the fallout from Helene – which also claimed lives in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – has spilled into the political arena just a month before the US presidential election.

Republican nominee Donald Trump has reportedly sounded one of the loudest voices criticizing Democratic leaders for the state’s pivotal swing state, North Carolina, which could determine the outcome of the election.

Trump accused Vice President Kamala Harris of abandoning North Carolina and leaving victims of hurricanes “to drown” in a social media post on September 30. He claimed that Democratic officials had stopped providing aid to Republican-stricken areas and that FEMA had sent “billions of dollars” of hurricane relief funds to undocumented immigrants.

The unfounded assertions have been echoed and amplified by Trump’s allies in Washington, DC. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican-backed congresswoman, claimed that the Category 4 storm may have been caused by nature to hit predominantly Republican-areas.

“Conspiracy junk”

On TikTok, conspiracies abound with bizarre claims that Helene was “geo-engineered” by the government to disrupt voting in Republican districts. According to scientists, there is no technology that can cause a storm.

According to emergency responders and officials, including President Joe Biden, the flurry of conspiracies about Helene is not only creating confusion but also undermines relief efforts.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell stated to the ABC TV network on Sunday, “This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people.” “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do. The state has backed us without a doubt.

Republican state Senator Kevin Corbin pleaded in a Facebook post on October 3 to “Please stop this conspiracy theory junk.” People trying to do their jobs are merely distracted by it.

North Carolina Congressman Chuck Edwards, also a Republican, sent out a detailed news release on Tuesday dispelling many of the “outrageous rumours”, particularly regarding FEMA, which has been central to relief efforts.

The organization has so far provided $40,000 in relief funds to 30, 000 homes in North Carolina and assisted in finding shelter for thousands of people who had been evacuated from their homes.

Around 1,500 active-duty soldiers are stationed in the state, and $100 million in federal funds are available for road and bridge repairs.

The White House and FEMA have “appreciated and praised our state’s willingness to help it respond, recover, and rebuild,” according to North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper.

Real-life problems

Locals are not without legitimate complaints because of the abundance of federal support.

Many irritable residents in North Carolina referred to Helene’s clobbered, aging pipelines and water infrastructure. Given the magnitude of the disaster, some claim that the federal response was slow and underwhelming.

“If you want me to tell you how people feel today – day nine without water – it’s frustrating”, Sloan said.

Heath worries that if most restaurants close because there isn’t enough water, the government will have to take action.

He appreciates the $750 check FEMA has already given him, but he is aware that without a job and three children to provide for them, it won’t go far. “They eat like horses”, he said.

He was able to negotiate a three-month reprieve from his mortgage payments, but he worries that finding a new job will take some time. The food and beverage sector doesn’t currently have any jobs. All the hotels and restaurants are out of business”, he said.

He added that some of his friends found it ironic that Americans were using billions of dollars to fund wars in Ukraine and the Middle East while domestic sufferers were being harmed.

‘ Harder to vote ‘

Beyond its humanitarian toll, Helene has added uncertainty to the electoral outlook of North Carolina, where Trump has a razor-tight edge on Harris, according to the latest polls.

However, there is concern that voter turnout could be halted by persistent blackouts and roadworks, according to analysts.

“It is simply going to be much harder for people to vote in the more rural, outlying communities, which tend to be heavily Republican”, Steven Greene, professor of political science at North Carolina State University, told Al Jazeera. “And when it’s harder to vote, fewer people do”.

Betina Wilkinson, associate chairwoman of Wake Forest University’s Department of Politics and International Affairs, noted that 11 of the 13 hardest-hit counties in North Carolina are predominately Republican.

One of the two others, Buncombe County, is home to the state’s Democratic stronghold of Asheville.

Still, according to Wilkinson, “Hayden will probably have a slight advantage over Trump” based on “low voter turnout in mostly red districts.”

While the election board of North Carolina has approved emergency measures to facilitate voting, such as authorizing officials to set up new voting locations and extending early voting hours, it remains to be seen how effective they will be.

According to Greene, “I anticipate the county boards of elections to make heroic efforts to ensure that all of their citizens have the right to vote.” “But it would be genuinely surprising if this did not depress turnout,” he said, “but with all the damage and chaos.”

There is no sign that this trend will end, according to Wilkinson, adding that “North Carolina has a history of very close presidential elections.”

Source: Aljazeera