Three months ago, Hurricane Helene touched down in western North Carolina, leaving in its wake $53 billion in destruction. By some estimates, 40% of the housing stock was damaged. An untold number of roads, driveways and rural lanes were demolished. But the real toll was human. More than one hundred people died, 103 to be exact, swept up by rivers of mud and debris. Many people are still unaccounted for, though the exact number is hard to come by.

That Biden’s administration has done less than it could to alleviate the destruction in the wake of Helene is accepted wisdom. And, you know it’s true when you hear uncomplaining North Carolinians praise the private efforts by church groups and charitable organizations like Samaritan’s Purse, while they remain silent on whether the federal government has done enough. The unspoken criticism should sting Congress, but, of course, they are deaf to such tame censure.

I’ve followed this story closely. My family is from a small town called Spruce Pine located fifty miles northeast of Asheville perched on a mountain top along the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is just one of scores of communities in the region, but the cost of restoring just this small town of 2,400 people will be hundreds of millions of dollars. The biggest cost, an estimated $100 million, will be required to replace the town’s water treatment plant which was covered by a blanket of mud during the storm and is unreclaimable.

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Ironically, all of the developed world is dependent on this tiny, closeknit town because it is here that a rare super pure quartz is mined that is essential to the manufacture of semiconductor chips, solar panels and fiber-optic cables. Without Spruce Pine, much of modern life would be impossible. 

My 89-year-old mother, Betty Jean, and my sister, Frankie, were both living in Spruce Pine at the time of the storm. I had warned my sister that a hurricane-force storm was coming and that they should take precautions, but she discounted the warning just like almost everyone there did. No one had ever seen a hurricane breach the formidable wall of the Blue Ridge Mountains. That is until September 24th, when Helene doused the region with 20 inches of rain and battered it with high-force winds. I am lucky my brother rescued my sister and mother and their property was little damaged. 

My cousin, James, also a resident of Spruce Pine, moved his family to safer ground in Raleigh as soon as he could, and then, turned around, filling up his truck with supplies and headed right back into the carnage. Like so many, he just wanted to help. Paved roads fell off the sides of mountains, making travel nearly impossible. There was no water, no cell service for days.  When I finally reached James to find out how it was going, he said, “They’re picking bodies out of trees.” I tried to imagine what that was like.

The emotional scars left by this loss to long-time residents are inestimable. My mother, relocated to my brother’s home, says she still feels a deep sadness as if she was “betrayed by someone she loved.” She misses her friends, her church, her view of the mountains from her porch and the sense of security she had there. 

My sister, though, said it is the damage to the land itself that is most disturbing. She was shocked to see hundreds of acres of forest felled, mowed down by a wall of mud. I understand her reaction. More than fancy clothes or cars, land is the ultimate measure of wealth in western North Carolina. Everyone there wants an acre, or better yet, two or three or more. 

I still remember riding shotgun with my grandfather on a narrow and winding mountain road years ago, his Jeep barely clinging to the berm on the steepest corners. His lead foot turned the whole adventure into a roller-coaster ride. Too young to understand the possible consequences of falling from a Jeep down a mountainside, I giggled. He jammed the brakes, stopping at one particularly lovely vantage point, where he declared, “We own this land from here to that ridge over there.” I looked out over the view, stunning and still, just making out the far ridge in the summer haze. I remember being flattered hearing him say that “we” owned it. I had never thought about being a landowner as a child of nine but I was sure willing to start.

Our family’s roots in western North Carolina go back at least seven generations. My sister’s research on Ancestry.com turned up a fact I could never had guessed at: We settled in the area after the Revolutionary War, the land given to us as payment for military service. 

These memories crowded in on me as I watched our coverage of the aftermath of the storm. Our own Fox Weather network doggedly reported on the storm, the damage and the efforts to rescue those impacted and rebuild. Listening to our reporters say the names of the tiny towns I had known all of my life – Swannanoa, Burnsville, Blowing Rock – was heart-rending. 

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But it is Spruce Pine that I continue to think about especially at Christmas time. Business owners, elected officials, friends and family continue to reach out to share the latest on efforts at recovery there. David Niven is owner of DT’s Blue Ridge Java, an anchor of the downtown, which was demolished when the Toe River jumped its banks during the storm. He is praying that he and his wife, Tricia, can reopen in May, but he’s got a long way to go. 

His losses total more than $600,000 and getting a large enough, low-cost loan seems impossible to him. The Small Business Administration is out of loan money. Six-thousand applicants tried to get a handful of loans from the Chamber of Commerce. Winners were chosen by lottery. Niven wasn’t one of them. Meanwhile, the water plant has not been replaced, though temporary solutions have been found. The water has been deemed safe to drink, but many folks continue to sip bottled water anyway. 

“For western North Carolina to recover, it’s going to take free money,” Niven says.

State officials have anticipated this and on December 10, a delegation of state elected representatives went to Washington to ask for $25 billion to fund recovery and rebuilding. They arrived just as both the House and Senate were focused on averting a government shutdown. The package approved by both houses funds the government through March 14 and provides disaster aid for six states struck by Helene. That’ll be a start, but not enough to bail out North Carolina’s deep need. Whether Congress picks up the request for more funds is an open question as spending cuts become a bipartisan goal.

As temperatures drop, reports of people in western North Carolina living in tents continue to crop up, though officials say the reports are inaccurate. Still, housing is critical. North Carolina State Rep. Dudley Greene was one of the representatives who went to Washington to ask for money. “We have transitioned from the immediate need of food and water, and moved more toward housing. That is a big concern. A week before we had a six-degree night,” he said. And, as always, it’s the practical issues that make need more acute. Greene says FEMA’s hotel voucher program is only so helpful since there are few nearby hotels open, and the ones available are simply too far away for people with jobs in the area.

The question though, of course, is what will the next administration do? Vice President-elect J.D. Vance visited Fairview, N.C., early in December (Dec. 6), promising help. “We haven’t forgotten you,” he said. 

We can only hope he keeps his promise and pray that this Christmas will be followed by a 2025 in which the region gets the assistance it so desperately deserves.

An active-duty Marine was recently arrested after Google searches led Florida investigators to suspect he murdered a reality TV star and dumped her body in an Alabama pond.

Willie Ellington, 20, who was stationed onboard the Naval Air Station Pensacola, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with first-degree murder and possession of child pornography, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. 

Tshey Ronaie Bennett, 26, who was last seen meeting Ellington at the Sweet Dream Inn, was reported missing Saturday, according to the sheriff’s office. 

Authorities identified Bennett as an “escort,” but did not elaborate on the purpose of the meet-up.

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Bennett appeared on the first season of HollyHoodTV’s series “Skrippa Bootcamp,” which premiered earlier this year, according to her Facebook biography.

The show centered around a dozen “aspiring and elite dancers” living together while working to perfect their craft, according to the show’s website.

Due to the “suspicious circumstances” surrounding her disappearance, investigators worked the case as a potential homicide, authorities said.

Tshey Ronaie Bennett was reported missing Saturday, and her body was found Wednesday. (Escambia County Sheriff’s Office)

Bennett’s car and phone remained at the inn, but the bedding was missing, according to a report from Military.com.

Her body was found Wednesday inside a pond in an abandoned neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama, according to the sheriff’s office.

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The report noted Ellington attempted to skip town via bus and had Google searches on his phone “pertaining to ‘can someone scream when they’re strangled? What is the statistic of prostitutes homicides being solved …’ and ‘How does a dead body look in two days?’”

The sheriff’s office has not publicly commented on Bennett’s cause of death, as of Thursday afternoon. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office for comment, but did not immediately receive a response. 

The Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida. (U.S. Navy)

The District One Medical Examiner’s Office has not released Bennett’s cause of death, as of Friday afternoon.

One of Bennett’s friends, Muranda Newson, posted to Facebook, noting Bennett was a mother.

“I hate that I’m typing this,” Newson wrote in part. “I hate that handsome boy is hurting. I really really hate someone did this to you baby you didn’t deserve this at all.”

Fox News Digital reached out to HollyHood TV on Friday for comment.

EXCLUSIVE: Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears of Virginia could make history next year as the nation’s first Black woman to win election as a governor.

She would also make history as Virginia’s first female governor.

But Sears, in an exclusive national interview with Fox News Digital, emphasized that “I’m not really running to make history. I’m just trying to, as I’ve said before, leave it better than I found it, and I want everyone to have the same opportunities I had.”

Sears, who was born in the Caribbean island nation of Jamaica and immigrated to the U.S. as a 6-year-old, served in the Marines and is a former state lawmaker. She made history three years ago when she won election as Virginia’s first female lieutenant governor. 

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“You’ve got to remember that my father came to America in ‘63 just 17 days before Dr. King gave his ’I Have a Dream speech,’ she said.

Sears noted that her father “saw opportunity here, even though… you really couldn’t, as a Black person, live where you wanted.”

“And yet, here I am, here I am sitting right now as second in command in the former capital of the Confederate States,” she said. “With me, we can see once again, there are still opportunities, still opportunities to grow, still opportunities to do even better. We are going to be better, not bitter. We’re not going to be victims. We’re overcomers.”

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Sears has a major supporter in popular Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who three years ago became the first Republican in a dozen years to win a gubernatorial election in Virginia, a onetime key swing state that had shaded blue in recent cycles.

From left: Terrence Sears; Virginia Lieutenant Gov. Winsome Sears; Suzanne Youngkin; Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin; Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares; and Page Miyares hold hands as the governor leads the group in prayer at the State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, on Jan. 15, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

But Virginia is unique due to its state law preventing governors from serving two consecutive four-year terms, so Youngkin cannot run for re-election next year.

Youngkin told Fox News Digital last month that Sears “is going to be a fabulous governor of Virginia.”

“I have to make sure that we have Winsome Sears as our next governor,” he emphasized. “I’m going to be campaigning hard.”

Making the case that Youngkin as a “successful businessman” has “brought that success to government,” Sears highlighted that “we want to continue what he has begun.”

“There’s still much work to do, still regulations that we’ve got to get rid of, still educational opportunities that are needing to be taken advantage of, and I am the one to carry that, because I’ve been part of that,” she added.

Sears was interviewed in Virginia Beach on Thursday, with a month to go until President-elect Trump returns to the White House.

In late 2022, she described Trump as a liability after Republican candidates that the then-former president had backed underperformed in the midterm elections. And she said that she would remain neutral in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.

“I supported him in 16 and in 20 why? Because I saw that he was good for our country,” Sears noted.

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But she added that Trump “said some things, and it bothered me. And as I said, I come at this as a Christian. And so I figured, well, let’s see if there’s somebody else.”

Sears pointed to July’s attempted assassination of Trump as the moment that changed her mind.

“I was waiting to hear a change, and after he was shot and he was accepting the nomination, I heard him say, ‘miracles are happening every day. I am one of those. God has spared my life. And so, I humbly ask for your vote.’ I was on board right then,” she emphasized.

Former President Trump is joined by his wife Melania following his address at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 18. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

But a top Trump supporter in Virginia, conservative radio host John Fredericks, has continued to criticize Sears.

“She’ll ruin Republicans’ chances in Virginia in 2025 and we need a different GOP candidate that REALLY has President Trump’s back,” he argued last month on his radio program and in a social media post.

Asked if she’d like Trump to campaign with her over the next 10 months leading up to the 2025 election, Sears said, “I think he’s going to be having a lot to do in, well, in D.C. And if he wants to come here, fine. If he wants to help, fine. I mean, you know, we could use all the help that we can get.”

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Sears, who launched her gubernatorial bid in early September, avoided a competitive primary when Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares announced last month that he would seek re-election rather than run for governor.

Three-term Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer, is her party’s candidate for governor.

Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, speaks at a campaign rally in Virginia Beach, Virginia, on Nov. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston, File)

Spanberger announced 13 months ago that she would run for governor in 2025 rather than seek congressional re-election this year. While a Sears-Spanberger general election showdown is expected, recent reports indicate longtime Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott is mulling a gubernatorial run.

“We will see what shakes out on the Democrat side, but I will face whoever comes, because I believe that we have the better policies,” Sears said.

She is viewed by political pundits as more socially conservative than Youngkin, who hailed from the GOP’s business wing.

Asked if Sears was too far to the right for Virginia voters, Youngkin pushed back in his Fox News Digital interview, saying, “Not at all. And Winsome is a commonsense conservative leader. We have been partners literally from day one. We campaigned together. We were elected together. We have governed together.”

But the Democratic Governors Association (DGA), pointing to the criticism from Fredericks, who chaired Trump’s Virginia campaign in 2016 and 2020, argued that “Virginia Republicans are kicking off the 2025 election divided and already publicly calling out Winsome Sears.”

“This once again confirms that Sears will have to run even further to the right and take deeply harmful and out-of-touch positions to win the GOP nomination,” DGA national press secretary Devon Cruz claimed.

Sears, asked about the DGA criticism, which also includes spotlighting her stances on issues such as abortion and IVF, argued that “the Democrats are trying to figure out a way to hit me… I don’t worry about it. I let them say what they want to say. I am proven, proven to do the right thing.”

“I’ve always said I’m a Christian first and a Republican second. That’s always who I am,” she added. “So it must mean that I don’t care about politics. I care about serving.”