After Hurricane Helene, North Carolina's holiday tourist season grinds to a halt

So far, nearly half of the 10,129 displaced households the Federal Emergency Management Agency has worked with have been placed in temporary shelters across the state, such as hotels, apartments and mobile homes, FEMA said. The remaining households have already found long-term housing, a spokesperson said.

While the temporary housing program was scheduled to end on Dec. 12, federal officials said that FEMA caseworkers wouldn’t force people from their temporary quarters and that they would work urgently to find them permanent shelter.

FEMA has spent $262 million on individual rental assistance and home repairs for Helene survivors in North Carolina, a spokesperson said. Another $274 million went to repairing infrastructure and removing debris. More financial help will be coming, the spokesperson said, but how much hasn’t been established yet.

Local officials said they are grateful for the assistance, but much more aid will be needed to restore Asheville, Biltmore Village and surrounding areas to their former condition.

Manheimer and other North Carolina officials traveled to Washington last month to ask President Joe Biden and members of Congress for $25 billion to repair homes, roads, bridges and other infrastructure in western North Carolina.

“We’re asking for so many exceptions and rules [to be] interpreted broadly, because this was an abnormal hurricane because of landslides, massive flooding, wind damage and large amounts of debris,” Manheimer said.

Private road and bridge repairs are costly, and there isn’t a specific federal program designed to repair them, she said.