(The Center Square) – More than 2,000 households remain in FEMA transitional housing as western North Carolina this weekend begins its 22nd week of recovery from Hurricane Helene.
Another 173 are licensed in the mobile housing units of the agency.
Money and volunteer help has poured in and has at the same time not been enough. Lawmakers on the federal and state levels continue to work on legislation to appropriate more. Interstate 40, a key commerce route between Asheville and Knoxville, Tenn., is scheduled to reopen to two-way traffic a week from Saturday.
In the update provided Thursday by the Office of Emergency Management, $385.7 million has been approved for individual assistance and $9.7 million for FEMA rental assistance funding. The update says 3,529 households are receiving rental assistance.
Disaster unemployment assistance disbursed to date is $21 million.
There have been 6,507 private roadway and bridge projects awarded; 4.4 million cubic yards of debris removed; and 231,813 cubic yards of waterway debris removed.
National Flood Insurance Program payments are $127.1 million.
The storm made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in Dekle Beach, Fla., on Sept. 26. It dissipated over the mountains of the state and Tennessee, dropping more than 30 inches in some places and over 24 consistently across more.
The storm killed 106 in the state and is estimated to have caused $53 billion in damage.
Lawmakers in Raleigh have appropriated three installments totaling $1.1 billion and are working on the fourth. Early consideration is about $500 million.
Congress sent to the state about $9 billion of the $110 billion package it approved in December.
