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Disaster funding coming as Ocracoke residents call for help

A $230 million recovery bill, with money for Ocracoke School, is set for a green light at the General Assembly.

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People from Ocracoke visited the N.C. General Assembly Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019, and called on lawmakers to approve disaster funding that will help their island recover from Hurricane Dorian. Some of their posters are letters from school children, whose school was destroyed.
By
Travis Fain
, WRAL statehouse reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — People on Ocracoke Island, where Hurricane Dorian destroyed homes, businesses and the island's only public school, are worried about winter.
The island remains closed to tourists more than two months after Dorian inundated it. Hyde County commissioners decided Wednesday to remove the access restrictions on Nov. 22, or whenever N.C. Highway 12 reopens.
More than 150 homes on the island are uninhabitable, and schoolchildren attend classes in makeshift locations. A nightly curfew was lifted just within the last month, and contractors just finished the first of three debris removal phases on an island accessible only by boat.

A handful of residents were in Raleigh on Wednesday, handing lawmakers an open letter quoting schoolchildren and asking them to pass a disaster funding bill this week, before a session break planned to last until January.

"My mom lost her job, and she was already working two jobs before," Gabriel, a seventh-grader, wrote. "Lots of people lost their jobs. You should support us in this time of need."

"My dad owns a snowball truck," a third-grader named Sayde wrote, according to the letter. "It got ruined. You should come by and eat one when we get it fixed. I just want to tell you it feels weird talking to you guys, because I'm only in 3rd grade."

Lawmakers expect to pass a major funding bill, possibly as soon as Thursday. Negotiators for the House and the Senate seem to have worked out the basics of a $230 million bill to cover recovery costs around the state tied to hurricanes Matthew, Florence and Dorian.

Update: The Senate approved this measure unanimously Thursday and House nearly unanimously.

The bill includes $1.7 million for Ocracoke School, as well as $5 million to refill a state grant program that could be used to help repair people's homes.

Separately, the state plans to spend $600,000 to bring 35 trailers to the island and set them up on people's lots, as well as to help people pay rent. Gov. Roy Cooper's administration is finalizing that deal, which doesn't depend on new funding from the legislature.

Hyde County Commissioner Tom Pahl, who represents Ocracoke Township on the board, put housing needs on the island between $3 million and $5 million, just to "get folks moved along in the right direction."

"Winter is coming," he said, "and there are still plenty of places, even where people have been able to stay in their home, that they don't have heat."

Home repairs after a major disaster end up getting paid for through a hodgepodge of pots, including private insurance policies and personal funds. But insurance doesn't always cover the loss, and the federal government declined individual assistance post-Dorian, saying the damage on Ocracoke didn't meet thresholds needed to qualify for home repair funding.

Essentially, the Cooper administration has said, the island is too small for there to be enough damage to trigger those grants.

Low-interest loans are available through the Small Business Administration though, and there will be some new state housing money once the latest disaster bill moves through the legislature. The Outer Banks Community Foundation has given assistance, as have other groups.

Beyond the housing hit, the loss of the tourist trade has hit the island hard, even though it's fall. That's a key season for fishing charters, and people visit the island in numbers for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Pahl said.

Usually, tourism "slows down, it doesn't stop," Pahl said. "Right now, it's at a dead stop."

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