Exposing the ONGOING Hurricane Helene Disaster
“We pulled into a FEMA area at a church and a guy came at me with a 45 [gun]," volunteer tells us. We're ON-THE-GROUND exposing alarming government failures and DESPERATE displaced victims
Hey folks, it’s Jordan.
Over the last few days, independent journalist Jason Peters and videojournalist Jon Farina have traveled around western North Carolina for Status Coup speaking with volunteers and displaced victims four months after Hurricane Helene barreled through North Carolina and destroyed large swaths of the community (and they will be LIVE from a relief drive this afternoon).
This ON-THE-GROUND reporting is important—and takes a lot of resources—which makes Status Coup unique amongst an endless sea of other media outlets providing hot takes and analysis on stories that ultimately don’t really matter. It is VERY IMPORTANT that we get more viewers to sign up as paying Status Coup members so that we can continue funding these ON-THE-GROUND reporting trips (on average, 4-5 days on the ground cost us $3-4K).
During one interview, James Lunsford, a local farmer who has been housing dozens of displaced families on his land, described the mountain of red-tape that victims had been dealing with from their local government…only to get immediate relief when new NC Governor Josh Stein entered office.
“The county wasn’t helping with anything so I just went to the state level—now the county’s helping,” Lunsford told Peters. “They [the county] weren’t providing anything, they would give somebody a hotel voucher for about a week or something like that, we would suggest putting [RV] parks like this and they said no, we would suggest tiny homes they said no, so we went to the state and the state approved and then the new governor stepped in and really approved,”
Peters also spoke with Nathan and Kristin Cerepak, an Arizona couple who has been volunteering on-the-ground in North Carolina for months following Hurricane Helene. Together, they formed Redneck Housing Relief, and have been receiving hundreds of calls A DAY from hurricane victims seeking help.
“These people need help, they’ve been forgotten…it’s not OK, they’re fellow Americans,” Nathan said. He also shared an infuriating story about officials from FEMA stopping him from using the bathroom because it was past 7 p.m.
“We pulled into a FEMA area at a church and a guy came at me with a 45 [gun]. Why in the hell are you guarding toilets? He asked me can I help you and I told him ‘no I’m OK I just need to use the restroom.’ And he said no you can’t…it’s after 7 p.m. And I said, ‘you guys are timing when people can use the restroom’? It’s a disaster area, you’re FEMA, the E stands for emergency I’m pretty sure!”
And TUNE IN this afternoon as we go LIVE from a Winter Disaster Relief Drive—where free propane will be provided to many displaced residents in desperate need of obtaining heat amidst the frigid and arctic winter weather there.
TUNE IN LIVE below:
PLEASE spread the word about our reporting and share these videos to folks who likely don’t know residents in North Carolina are still experiencing an ACTIVE disaster.
As always, thanks for your support,
Jordan