News

County ‘in precarious position’ as it awaits FEMA reimbursement

By Bill Moss, Published: September 24, 2025

Bill Lapsley was wary when he was first presented with a contract that state officials said Henderson County had to sign in order to get reimbursed for Hurricane Helene debris removal. Back last January, everyone knew that the job would cost tens of millions of dollars.

“I raised the question, ‘Who’s taking on the liability for this?’” he said. “My question at the time was, ‘Whoa! Is Henderson County going to be on the hook for 60, 70, 80 million dollars or more?’ And the answer we got was yes.”

Bill LapsleyAnd it’s come to pass that the county is on the hook, Lapsley, the county commission chair, warned last week during a 45-minute discussion of the problem at a board meeting. A year after Helene, the federal government’s performance in reimbursing towns and counties for work they’ve already contracted out has been at two speeds: slow or zero miles an hour.

Henderson County has received just $15.4 million in FEMA reimbursement for debris removal — by far the biggest recovery cost the county itself is paying for.

“We’re sitting out here in a very vulnerable position,” Lapsley said. “I have in front of me $32 million of invoices that our county is obligated to under the contract that we were told we had to sign in order to get reimbursement, and I don’t take that lightly. I think Henderson County is in a very precarious position, and it’s not at all due to lack of effort from the staff or this board in trying to address this but it’s a lack of action from the federal government.”

County officials have expressed their displeasure to every FEMA official they can reach, to Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and to their congressman and senators. Sen. Ted Budd tried to call attention to the problem by using a procedural maneuver to delay Homeland Security appointments.

“Which we appreciate very much,” Lapsley said. “But as far as I’m concerned, I’ve reached the end of my rope … and I’m not comfortable with it, and I don’t think it’s fair, I don’t think it’s right.”

Commissioner Rebecca McCall also said it’s time for all of Western North Carolina to rise up and demand action.

“Sen. Budd has basically gone out on a limb to get the point across and bring some attention to this,” she said. “We are at the point that we need to make some noise about this. It’s time we did something drastic before we get to the point where we’re affected in our loans and our credit rating.”

4,000 911 calls in 24 hours

In its last meeting before the one-year anniversary of Helene’s devastation, commissioners also heard  updates from Public Safety Director Jimmy Brissie and county Response and Recovery Director Natalia Santana-Pollard:

• The county 911 center received more than 4,000 911 calls in the 24-hour period after Helene struck. “At one point in time, we had over 1,000 active emergencies on the computer-aided dispatch system,” Brissie said.
• The non-emergency call operation at the Emergency Operations Center has received more than 11,500 calls since Sept. 27. “They were taking calls that maybe should have gone to 911 (from) folks in immediate need that couldn’t get through to 911,” Brissie said.
• Contractors have spent 331 days on debris removal and hauled off almost a million cubic yards — 65,000 tons — of debris. Inspectors have identified 1,157 waterway debris sites in need of cleanup.
• Of 1,800 applications for private property debris removal, 767 jobs, or 42 percent, are complete.
• In homes and businesses,1,400 suffered major damaged, 1,700 incurred minor damage and 288 were destroyed. The county has issued 722 permits for building repairs and demolitions related to Helene, and issued nearly 300 certificate of occupancies for completed work.

In reporting on the FEMA program to help families whose homes were destroyed, Santana-Pollard, whom the county hired from FEMA, said those cases typically take years — a revelation that triggered Lapsley again.

“To be told it could be several years, I don’t understand that. That is unacceptable,” he said. “It’s been a year. I think that’s plenty of time. I just can’t fathom sitting here two years, three years from now, trying to help these people get this devastation behind them. It’s really bad.”

County Manager John Mitchell pledged to the board that Helene recovery will continue to be the county staff’s highest priority.

“The Henderson County Board of Commissioners has kept this issue at the very front of their agenda for the whole year, and we talk about it at every meeting. We talk about it daily,” he said. “You can go around this community and see a lot of healing. I’m very proud of the commerce that’s returned. I’m exceedingly proud of the way that our staff here at Henderson County responded to this disaster — the business community, the hospital, I could go on and on.

“I’m reminded of what Churchill said — I think it was after Second Battle of El Alamein: ‘This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, I think, the end of the beginning.’”