CHARLOTTE, NC – When asked by WBTV on Wednesday why the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) didn’t bring dozens of trailers to North Carolina residents who had to leave their homes because of Hurricane Helene, a FEMA spokesperson said they were sorry.
A FEMA representative told WBTV the week of Thanksgiving that the agency would bring 103 temporary or portable trailer homes to families in North Carolina by the end of that week. This is when we asked our questions. Before that, FEMA had given away 27 houses.
As of Wednesday, December 4, FEMA had only delivered 46 homes, which is a long way short of the number of trailers they said they would bring.
While Helene was still going on, WBTV learned that more than 500 people had been permitted by FEMA to get a travel trailer or manufactured home. Because the agency is taking so long to deliver the homes, hundreds of families are having to deal with the snow and cold weather in the North Carolina mountains right now.
Even so, a FEMA spokesman started on a positive note in an interview with WBTV on November 26. The spokesperson then said they would keep their word to give homes to the more than 500 families who have asked for them.
“Could 500 of these be given out in the end?” a WBTV reporter asked.
“The good news is that the answer is “yes,” and we’ve done even more.” That’s why we can handle it, said La-Tanga Hopes, a specialist in FEMA media relations.
On Wednesday, after WBTV kept asking why FEMA hadn’t delivered the 103 trailers it said it would by the end of the week before Thanksgiving, a spokesman called and said they were sorry.
A spokesperson for FEMA said that there was a misunderstanding within the agency and that they would make sure that information is only shared through written contact in the future.
A FEMA official also told WBTV that the agency will stop giving out dates for when the homes will be delivered because it is too hard to be sure. According to them, that was partly because the planned spot didn’t have all the necessary utilities, the roads were open, and the recipient didn’t show up at the right time.
As of Wednesday, FEMA said there were 100 move-in-ready homes in North Carolina. The 46th had been brought, and the keys had been given to the survivor. Some homes were either getting their final inspection, on their way to being delivered or waiting for the location to be ready.
WBTV will keep asking the agency questions and keeping an eye on how many homes they give to families in Western North Carolina.
