North Carolinians forced to bury dead in their yards

The official death toll from Hurricane Helene rose yesterday to 227 across six states, with about half of the victims being in North Carolina. But sources on the ground in North Carolina tell The Spectator that the true scope of the death and devastation wrought by the storm is not even close to being understood. In addition, the rescue and recovery efforts have been largely undertaken by private citizens, as the state and federal responses have been hamstrung by incompetent public officials.  

“It’s so much worse than they’re saying,” said one individual who was in Asheville when Helene hit. “I think there’s a massive cover-up.”

A North Carolina official and former federal official confirmed that deaths have been severely undercounted thus far, partially because many bodies have not been recovered, but also because there are literally piles of the deceased who haven’t been identified and are being transported around the state to find open morgue space. Some North Carolinians have become so desperate that they are burying their own family members in their yards. 

“According to folks on the ground — fire, medical, law enforcement officials — they’re way underreporting the numbers. All the morgues are full and they’ve hauled a ton [of bodies] to Greensboro,” the state official said. “People are starting to bury them in their yards because they have no place to put them.” 

Locals are “pissed” at the seemingly lackadaisical response from state and federal officials, and many are pointing the finger at General Major Todd Hunt, director of the North Carolina National Guard. According to social media posts from the North Carolina National Guard, troops were not activated until the Sunday after the storm hit. There were 5,500 national guardsmen deployed to the area; only 500 came from North Carolina’s guard. 

“That’s why you saw the Florida National Guard and other units out there — and why private citizens stepped in, even as state and federal officials tried to shut down their efforts,” a source briefed on the situation in North Carolina explained. 

There were six confirmed tornados across southeastern North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina on the morning of September 27, two days before the guard was deployed. 

The director of the North Carolina National Guard is appointed by the governor, and sources think it should be a no-brainer for Governor Roy Cooper to fire and replace Hunt. That has not happened. The Biden administration can also supersede the state response and federalize operations. That also has not happened. 

President Joe Biden was at his beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware the weekend the storm hit and did not return to the White House until late Sunday night. He nonetheless defended his response, snarking to the press, “It’s called a telephone.”

Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in Las Vegas late Sunday night and decided to tape an episode of Call Her Daddy, a podcast that gained popularity for its unfiltered and graphic discussions about casual sex, before returning to the White House on Monday for an in-person briefing. 

While Biden and Harris were returning to the White House, former president Donald Trump visited a hurricane-ravaged town in Georgia. 

“A certain president, I will not name him, destroyed his reputation with Katrina,” Trump said during a rally in Michigan later in the week. “And this is going even worse. She’s doing even worse than he did.” 

Kanye West infamously claimed George W. Bush “doesn’t care about black people” due to his response to Katrina; now, some North Carolinians feel Hurricane Helene is an example of rural whites being left behind. More than 1,800 people were killed during Katrina; sources in North Carolina speculated that the death toll could be even higher from Helene when all is said and done. Harris announced affected families would receive just $750, far below the stimulus checks awarded during the Covid-19 pandemic and debit cards and housing vouchers distributed to illegal migrants in some states. 

Conservatives have criticized the Biden administration and FEMA for distributing $640 million through the Shelter and Services Program (SSP) to illegal migrants. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted that FEMA will likely not have enough money to make it through hurricane season, but the administration rejects the idea that the funding shortage has anything to do with the migrant assistance. They argue that the SSP is funded through Customs and Border Patrol and that the resources are merely distributed by FEMA; however, migrants received assistance from FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP), the predecessor to SSP, through fiscal year 2023. In 2023, the EFSP awarded $425 million. 

Mayorkas was also spotted Saturday afternoon at Sid Mashburn, an upscale men’s clothing store in Washington, DC, by Washington Free Beacon reporter Joe Simonson. “For context about all the FEMA stuff, I saw Alejandro Mayorkas this afternoon at Sid Mashburn, which is the second time I’ve seen him there on a Saturday afternoon in about a month. So, suffice to say, the guy isn’t working around the clock,” Simonson wrote on X. 

For comparison, secretary of state Condoleezza Rice was excoriated for shoe shopping at a department store in New York City after Katrina ripped through New Orleans. 

The North Carolina official noted, “I went to ten different counties  … FEMA was very limited, mostly to local and state agency resources.”

North Carolinians were further slapped in the face when during the vice-presidential debate, the candidates were asked about the storm, but in the context of climate change rather than the emergency response. And, as The Spectator reported last week, as private citizens have reported being denied landing requests for rescue operations or having their medical and supplies tents shut down, progressive groups are busy fielding donations for abortion services for Hurricane Helene victims.

Many are wondering how the Biden administration was capable of scraping together $320 million to build a pier to deliver aid in Gaza earlier this year and $157 million for Lebanon as FEMA is supposedly at risk of running low on funds; the Biden administration just announced that federal assistance for Helene victims has only surpassed $137 million, in comparison. 

As the people of North Carolina and surrounding states work to recover from this mass tragedy, they will not soon forget how they were treated by their government.