Is FEMA ready for hurricane season?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Chris Bentley** (0:16)
WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

**William Ray** (0:22)
There are still areas that very much look like they have just recently experienced the event. There are towns that may have been along rivers that still no longer exist.

**Chris Bentley** (0:32)
It's been almost two years since Hurricane Helene devastated parts of North Carolina. The state's emergency management director says they're preparing for the next big one. It's Wednesday, June 3rd, and this is Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley.
Today on the show, Israel's invasion of Lebanon has killed thousands and displaced more than a million people. But it could get even worse.

**Michael Koplow** (1:08)
The IDF doesn't have any great solutions as to what to do, but there is a lot of pressure coming from Israelis and coming from IDF leadership to expand IDF operations in Lebanon, including airstrikes in Beirut. I think that's what we see Prime Minister Netanyahu wanting to do, and President Trump is clearly restraining it.

**Chris Bentley** (1:28)
War, peace and US-Israel relations coming up in about 10 minutes. Before we get to that story though, it is officially hurricane season. The National Weather Service forecasts 8 to 14 named storms through the end of November. That's slightly lower than normal, but they say at least one of those storms is likely to be a major hurricane. And this year, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which responds to hurricanes, starts the season with its smallest disaster workforce in five years.
In a few minutes, we'll ask the acting administrator of FEMA about that. But first, parts of North Carolina are still recovering from Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 100 people in September 2024
William Ray is Director of Emergency Management for the state of North Carolina. He told Scott Tong, they're prepared for the worst this season.

**William Ray** (2:27)
I think here in North Carolina, we know regardless of forecast, we know it really just takes one storm. We are looking at both natural hazards, threats and risks like hurricanes and tropical weather, but also other types of events that could impact the 11 million people we serve here in North Carolina and how we can respond in an all hazards way.

**Scott Tong** (2:49)
Well, Western North Carolina, the mountains are some of the most beautiful parts of the country I've been to. That area is of course still recovering from Helene, which hit in the fall of 2024 The heavy wind, the flooding, the homes destroyed, we've seen those images. What were the key lessons learned after Helene?
Do you prepare a little differently?

**William Ray** (3:14)
I think certainly the impact of Helene continues to weigh on all of our minds.
At the same time, we had power, water, transportations and comm systems all down concurrently for a number of days. I think that while that event was catastrophic in nature, I think there's certainly some lessons that we learned from that. A lot of it focused on how can we support better local capability and capacity for redundant communications or redundant data connections.

**Scott Tong** (3:46)
What does redundancy in practical terms look like? Say, if you live in Asheville and the power's gone out, the Internet's gone out, phone's gone out before. Is there a redundant network now or is it a matter of putting up more towers?

**William Ray** (4:03)
A lot of those local governments have taken steps to procure things like Starlink and other low-earth orbit satellite based technology.

**Scott Tong** (4:13)
Well, Helene was such an awful storm for Western North Carolina. Is there a snapshot from Helene for you personally that stays in your mind?

**William Ray** (4:24)
We had fundamentally communities in Western North Carolina were changed for a generation or more.
There has been absolutely amazing work done in Western North Carolina in many of those communities led by those local communities. But I think as you have traveled out there, I'm sure have seen, there are still areas that very much look like they have just recently experienced the event. There are towns that may have been along rivers that still no longer exist. So that I think is very much the forefront of all of our minds here at North Carolina Emergency Management in doing what we do every day.

**Scott Tong** (5:02)
In my towns that are no longer there, I mean, just so much work to be done.
Which brings me to the question of federal aid. In many states, including North Carolina, have over the last year or more reported backlogs because of the partial federal government shutdown and impacting DHS, the parent organization of FEMA, because large disbursements of federal money, over $100,000 for a while had to get the approval of the Secretary of Homeland Security before going out. What is the backlog situation in North Carolina now?