NC Council of State Republicans have made important announcements regarding the rebuild effort from Hurricane Helene's devastating impact in Western North Carolina.

State Treasurer Brad Briner

The Department of State Treasurer (DST) is poised to begin approving loans this month from a $100 million program created to help local governments still reeling from the ravages of Hurricane Helene.

“Our staff has performed Herculean work in short order to build the architecture of the cashflow loan program from the ground up. We are eager to begin approving loans later this month to potentially more than 140 local governments that were shattered by Helene. They have shown irrepressible grit as they continue to pick up the pieces. These loans will give them a cash infusion sorely needed to accelerate the road to recovery,” Treasurer Briner said. 

Local governments must provide damage assessments to the N.C. Department of Emergency Management no later than Feb. 14, as detailed in an earlier memo. Those assessments will be used to calculate loan amounts. Once the loan amount is determined, the governing board of impacted local governments will need to vote to approve acceptance of the loans. 

The cashflow loan program was created under the Disaster Recovery Act of 2024. The General Assembly designated DST to administer the program. The first loans could be issued as soon as Feb. 24. 

State Auditor Dave Boliek

The North Carolina Office of the State Auditor (OSA) has launched a new online dashboard that allows users to track Hurricane Helene recovery in Western North Carolina.

"On Day 1 the State Auditor’s Office committed to bringing transparency and accountability to hurricane recovery, and I’m proud of the work our team has done to produce the Helene Recovery Dashboard," said State Auditor Dave Boliek. "This is an easy-to-navigate tool that shows how many people are in hotels and how many people are displaced, and I look forward to building it out further as North Carolina continues to recover."

The Helene Recovery Dashboard tracks data by county, showing how many households are displaced, utilizing FEMA shelter assistance, still seeking assistance, and not utilizing assistance. FEMA data is updated automatically each week.

OSA has also included data on State Temporary Housing Units, and a Q&A section with common questions asked by the general public about recovery. Data and answers for these sections are dependent on data secured by OSA from the Stein Administration. OSA is currently working with the Stein Administration on the smooth transfer of real-time data in order to keep the dashboard updated regularly.

Visit the dashboard here.