Helene Anniversary Messaging Highlights Divisions

One year after Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina, the storm’s anniversary on Sept. 27 drew sharply different responses from the state’s U.S. Senate candidates — and renewed questions about how aid was handled under then-Gov. Roy Cooper.

Cooper, now a Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate, marked the date in a social media post that blamed Washington for slow recovery.

“It has been 365 days since Hurricane Helene hit our mountains, destroying roads, flooding businesses and homes and tragically taking the lives of 108 North Carolinians,” Cooper said on social media. “Today, in spite of a broken Washington, communities are stepping up and supporting each other as they rebuild.”

But records show that after Helene, Washington had approved federal troop assistance that was cut short after Cooper first asked for them and later intervened to rescind them.

On Oct. 2, 2024, President Joe Biden authorized Title 10 active-duty troops to North Carolina. By Oct. 10, U.S. Army units were photographed in Chimney Rock clearing mud and debris from village shops. Yet by Oct. 28, Biden announced in a press release that Cooper told him the federal troops were “no longer needed,” even as parts of the mountains remained without water, sewer, power or access to basic services.

The decision has remained controversial, with local leaders and residents questioning why federal resources were pulled back so soon as recovery has lagged.

Chimney Rock State Park re-opened in June after being closed since the storm. 21 businesses have re-opened as of Sept. 27, 2025, according to a social media post by Chimney Rock Village. Town officials say full recovery will take years.

Michael Whatley, former chairman of the Republican party, has been head of the FEMA Review Council since President Donald Trump appointed him earlier this year after Trump took office for the second time in January.

Jonathan Felts, spokesman for Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley, said Cooper and then-President Biden failed storm victims.

“Roy Cooper’s hurricane responses were a disaster from the beginning to the end of his administration,” Felts told WCAB News. “The people of Western North Carolina were devastated by Hurricane Helene and then by the failed response from Joe Biden and Roy Cooper. Thankfully, President Trump and Michael Whatley are working to reform FEMA, cut red tape, and get much needed relief into Western North Carolina so that the region can recover and rebuild.”

The anniversary messaging underscores a widening political divide: Cooper pointing to “broken Washington,” and Whatley pointing directly at Cooper’s own actions during Helene.