During an interview on WWNC 570 with Mark Starling yesterday, Michael Whatley was pushed multiple times to answer for his failure to deliver federal relief to Western North Carolina.
The pressure is building on Whatley to account for the delays in recovery funding after reporting in the Smoky Mountain News exposed how Hurricane Helene recovery funds have slowed dramatically since Whatley was tapped by Trump to lead efforts as “recovery czar.” Here’s a reminder of how Whatley failed WNC:
- In January, the President put DC insider Michael Whatley in charge of the federal government’s Helene recovery and “making sure everything goes well.”
- Nearly nine months later, the federal government is reportedly withholding hundreds of millions of dollars of relief.
- According to the Asheville Citizen-Times, only 6% of needs have been met.
- Now, Whatley is being held accountable for being “rarely, if ever, been visible in Helene’s disaster zone” and doing “little to alter the fundamental trajectory of Helene recovery.”
Read More On Whatley Being Held Accountable On WWNC:
Mark Starling: There’s a bunch of funding that has been allocated for hurricane recovery, and yet very little of that money has actually kind of made it into the hands of the people that really need it most. And I’m kind of wondering, you know, why is that, and how is it even possible considering what all of us here in Western North Carolina went through? And is it an issue on the federal side, or is it an issue on the state side?
Michael Whatley: Well, I think it’s an issue on every side, you know. […]
Starling: You know, when can we expect this bureaucracy though and these holdups to stop? Because, as it stands right now, we’ve only gotten about 6% of the money. And as you said, I mean, there’s been billions that have been approved. And it’s like, you know, we’ve tried to be pretty vigilant in holding people and agencies accountable for this recovery because it matters. And there’s a lot of people here that still haven’t been made whole, when they were told that they would be made whole by the federal government. So I just want to make sure that hurricane recovery is really still a prime focus. So can we expect a change in this?
“DC insider Michael Whatley can’t hide from Western North Carolinians after completely disregarding them while they wait for federal disaster relief,” said Mallory Payne, senior communications advisor at the North Carolina Democratic Party. “Whatley, per usual, put North Carolina last, and he’ll have to answer for it on the campaign trail.”
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