NC hurricane recovery officials tout progress under questioning from House committee
House Republicans continued to question how quickly North Carolina is spending disaster recovery money Tuesday even as the state office that oversees the funds prepares to ask legislators for permission to hire additional staff.
The N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency, which is housed in the N.C. Department of Emergency Management, oversees North Carolina’s recovery efforts from 2016’s Hurricane Matthew, 2018’s Hurricane Florence and last year’s Hurricane Dorian. During a hearing of the House Select Committee on Disaster Relief at UNC-Pembroke in hard-hit Robeson County, the office’s chief operations officer described the increased pace of disaster fund spending.
Laura Hogshead said that in December 2018, right before she started at the recovery office, 154 homeowners had been notified that their Matthew-damaged homes would be repaired and construction was underway at 19 more. Today, she said, 1,368 homeowners have received award letters and repairs on 640 homes are either underway or complete.
“We’re enormously proud of the progress,” Hogshead said. “We hope that you see the progress in your communities and that you hear more about it very soon.”
The state recovery office is currently managing $236.5 million in U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development disaster recovery grants for Hurricane Matthew — a pot of money that is known as “the funding of last resort” in disaster recovery. It is awaiting a $168 million mitigation grant and working on a plan for a $542 Hurricane Florence grant. Hogshead said the office will need to hire additional staff to manage those funds.
Following Tuesday’s hearing, Brenden Jones, a Tabor City Republican who chairs the committee, was unwilling to commit to additional slots. Jones remains frustrated at the pace of North Carolina’s recovery, shaped by the devastation wrought throughout his district, which includes hard-hit Fair Bluff. There, the Lumber River rose during both storms to devastate a downtown that Jones and others acknowledge is unlikely to recover.
“My frustration is the timeframe that we’re at. South Carolina has beat us leaps and bounds not just with one storm, but with two storms,” Jones said. “So I think we have to just step back and see what they’re (NCORR) doing and how they’re allocating at this time before we make any decisions to add in staff or funding for staffing.”
Had recovery money moved faster after Matthew, Jones added, Fair Bluff would have stood a better chance of withstanding the flooding from Hurricane Florence, less than two years later.
South Carolina’s spending
HUD defines both North Carolina and South Carolina’s spending for Hurricane Matthew as “on pace,” meaning the states are projected to spend all of their grant funds before their time limits expire. The federal agency long described North Carolina as a “slow spender,” but the state made its way to the on pace list in October 2019 and has now committed about $180 million of the Matthew grant.
Jones described being able to drive across the border from North Carolina into South Carolina to see damage from Hurricane Matthew that has already been repaired. He asked Hogshead why North Carolina hasn’t made such progress.
Hogshead pointed to Hurricane Joaquin. The October 2015 storm caused heavy rain throughout South Carolina and caused significant flooding, particularly around Columbia. In managing the response to that storm, South Carolina received HUD recovery funds and put staff in place to manage them. By contrast, North Carolina hadn’t received HUD recovery money since 2003, before the program became a staple of disaster recovery efforts.
“They were about a year ahead of us in terms of standing up the infrastructure to spend the Hurricane Matthew money, and that made all the difference,” Hogshead said.
More staff for recovery?
North Carolina, Hogshead added, was the first state to submit its action plan for the mitigation funds. The $168 million grant that would be used to buy out homes at risk of flooding and develop affordable housing. And, Hogshead said, the office is answering public comments on its plans for a $542 million Hurricane Florence grant and expects to submit it to HUD this week.
HUD did not publish a Federal Register notice for the Florence money until 500 days after the storm made landfall. The notices are important because they describe the rules around a given recovery grant program, rules that can vary from storm to storm. In the case of the Florence plan, Hogshead said, North Carolina’s regular conversations with HUD put it in a position to move the complicated process along as quickly as possible.
“We were ready,” Hogshead said. “We had written the action plan in anticipation of HUD telling us the rules of the road and we turned that action plan around the same day.
“That’s the difference that having an office that is staffed can make.”
The recovery office is currently authorized to hire 45 employees, slots that have all been filled, Hogshead said. An additional 14 experts have been hired in contract roles, while 130 other contractors help deliver programs throughout the state. All of the positions are paid for out of the administration portion of the HUD recovery dollars, funds that typically total 5% of each grant.
Mike Sprayberry, North Carolina’s director of Emergency Management, also spoke at Tuesday’s hearing, providing a rundown of his department’s efforts to implement state-funded disaster programs and the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.
Near the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Jones asked Sprayberry if the current process with the N.C. Office of Recovery and Resiliency is working better than the former process where federal recovery dollars came to the state through the Department of Commerce before being managed by Emergency Management.
Sprayberry chuckled.
“That’s a gimme right there. I’m so proud of NCORR. ... When y’all made that decision to create NCORR, that was fantastic, and I’m not just going to say fantastic for me, it was fantastic for the people of North Carolina and made all the difference,” Sprayberry said.
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