Gov. Roy Cooper addresses threats against FEMA workers in Helene update

All right good morning

And thanks for joining us today

We continue to coordinate a massive and unprecedented response to

the damage in Western North Carolina by hurricane Helene Federal

State and local partners along with our volunteers and private

sector have made significant progress in restoring power water and

cell service opening roads distributing critical supplies and providing support

to those who need it

Power outages are now a little under 13,000 down from

a million at the beginning closed roads are at 580

down from about 1200 many water systems and wells are

now operational

However challenges do remain in restoring water to Asheville and

some other communities fema has approved 77,000 people for individual

assistance with more than $99 million already paid out

Fema is paying for temporary stays for more than 1900

people in hotels

And together we're working on more temporary housing

We're thankful to our National Guard and our active duty

military personnel who partnered on this critical mission

North Carolina's National Guard was in Western North Carolina before

during and after the storm

And we believe this was the fastest and largest integration

of active military soldiers working with the National Guard in

North Carolina history

Their work has been critical at a key moment in

the response

And thanks to this strong operation significant progress has been

made in search and rescue getting supplies where they're needed

and transportation assistance

I am so grateful for the thousands of state workers

and first responders nonprofit volunteers who remain on the ground

working to assist in the recovery

North Carolinians are resilient and our response to this disaster

is strong

However there's still a persistent and dangerous flow of misinformation

about recovery efforts in Western North Carolina that can lead

to threats and intimidation breeds confusion and demoralizes storm survivors

and response workers alike

If you're participating and spreading this stuff stop it

Whatever your aim is the people you are really hurting

are those in Western North Carolina who need help the

safety of our government and volunteer response workers including FEMA

remains a top priority

I've directed the Department of Public Safety to coordinate law

enforcement assistance for fema and other responders who need it

to help ensure their safety and security so people can

keep getting the help that they desperately need

We also know that there are many people looking for

ways to help

We've activated the North Carolina disaster release fund managed by

the United Way of North Carolina

Donations to this fund go directly to organization providing relief

on the on the ground for more information and to

make a donation

You can visit nc.gov backslash donate

Work continues on repairing our damaged roads and bridges

Secretary Hopkins is gonna give you an update uh on

that progress but some roads are closed because they're too

damaged and dangerous to travel

There are other roads that still need to be reserved

for a central traffic like utility vehicles construction equipment and

supply trucks

However some parts of the area are open and ready

to welcome visitors which is critical for the revival of

Western North Carolina's economy

So if you're considering a visit to the area consult

drive nc.gov for open roads and reach out to the

community and the businesses you wanna visit to see if

they are welcoming visitors back yet in the immediate aftermath

of the storm because of massive communication outages in Western

North Carolina many people called 211 to report friends or

family they couldn't get in touch with when phone service

began to return

Many people located their loved ones

But that information doesn't usually make it back to 211

The Department of Public Safety formed a task force to

find who is still unaccounted for and focus efforts where

needed

I want to caution that this is not a definitive

count because the task force is continuing its work

The number will continue to fluctuate as more reports come

in and others are resolved

As of the day the task force number of unaccounted

for people is 92 the task force law enforcement and

other partners will continue working to locate those who are

unaccounted for and I am thankful for their efforts

This storm brought historic rain and damage to one of

the most beautiful regions in our state in the face

of this catastrophic disaster

North Carolinians have come together to help each other and

begin to move forward

The road to recovery will be long and we will

be with Western North Carolina every step of the way

today I'm joined with by emergency management director Will Ray

Fema administrator Deanne Criswell Major General Todd Hunt the Adjutant

General of the North Carolina National Guard the Secretary of

the Department of Transportation Joey Hopkins our Secretary of Department

of Public Safety Eddie Buffalo the commander of the North

Carolina State Highway Patrol Colonel Freddie Johnson the Secretary of

the Department of Health and Human Services Cody Kinsley our

sign language interpreters are Mark Leinberger and Nicole Fox

And behind the scenes are Spanish language interpreters are Tamara

Cabrera and Erica Kugler

We'll first hear from emergency management

Will Ray Thank you Governor Cooper and good morning everyone

The response and recovery efforts following Helene are ongoing across

western North Carolina

I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to everyone that

has responded to assist our state and to support our

local communities during this challenging time

Over 1500 responders from 38 states have responded to assist

North Carolina in our response and recovery efforts

It's been inspiring to see the collaboration and support of

partners from across the country converging on our state with

one shared mission to help Western North Carolina recovery efforts

are continuing and increasing across the impacted area with local

state and federal resources deployed into the counties

Over 170,000 North Carolinians have applied for FEMA individual assistance

with nearly $100 million dispersed directly to survivors

Disaster recovery centers have begun operation and impacted counties and

more are coming online before weeks end 4600 individuals are

housed in hotels through Fema's transitional housing assistance program

Disaster recovery centers provide critical in person assistance for survivors

that need resources to recover

Applicants can also check on their application status or seek

answers to their questions at these locations

Fema has over 1200 personnel on the ground with many

distributing information in the impacted communities

As a reminder fema personnel can be identified by their

FEMA logo apparel and federal government identification

While many communities have begun the transition from response to

recovery there are still North Carolina fire personnel and trucks

state and federal search and rescue teams emergency medical services

assets and disaster medical support deployed across the mountains

14 county emergency operation centers remain activated with 26 county

states of emergency in place and 54 municipal states of

emergency that remain in place

There are 13 shelters open with over 500 residents being

served along with over 80 pets

Our mass feeding task force has two sites operational to

assist in feeding operations in concert with local emergency management

including the operations of 45 mobile sites across 13 counties

There are approximately 11,000 hot meals being served every day

because of their efforts

The North Carolina Department of Transportation has been hard at

work around the clock to get roadways opened and passable

with a team of more than 2100 personnel working on

more than 6000 damaged roadways

I wanna say thank you for their determination and dedication

As a key partner of the North Carolina State emergency

response team safe drinking water and functioning wastewater systems continues

to be by a priority in the impacted communities

There are 150 wastewater treatment plants in the impacted area

that are now operating under normal processes

43 facilities are partially operating with some continuing to operate

on backup power

I extend again

My sincere thank you to NC Water warn to the

United States Army Corps of Engineers and our local partners

for their work to assist our local facility operators with

addressing problems and for quickly finding solutions

Telecommunications continues to improve across the mountains with both cell

and data service continuing to be restored daily

Our telecommunications partners report that 90% of coverage has been

restored across the impacted area

Our law enforcement partners have played a critical role in

the response and recovery efforts from Helene their dedication to

maintaining safety and security in our communities cannot be emphasized

enough from aviation missions to swift water rescue teams to

providing security at distribution sites and shelters to providing backup

to local law enforcement

Their response has been critical to the mission's success

The state emergency response team has been in regular communication

with our county and municipal leaders and I wanna thank

all of our local leaders for their dedication and focus

on the mission as we navigate our state's worst disaster

Finally as we move forward I want to again thank

the thousands of people that have converged on Western North

Carolina to assist in this massive effort in response

And also as we look over the horizon at long

term recovery I urge all North Carolinians to remain focused

on the mission of supporting Western North Carolina and in

a spirit of partnership and collaboration

Our shared goal is to help Western North Carolina communities

rebuild stronger and more resilient

As we've said before this is a whole of community

effort that will take investment from all sectors to be

successful and together we will accomplish this mission to those

in western North Carolina

We are here

We remain with you

Thank you Governor

Mhm

Thank you Director Ray

And now I'd like to ask fema administrator Deanne Criswell

to share an update

Thank you Governor Cooper

As you all know hurricane Helene charted an unprecedented path

across six states followed only two weeks later by hurricane

Milton

The destruction left by these storms has been catastrophic fema

and the entire federal family have been on the ground

across the region since before the storm made impact

And I remain here in North Carolina directing the response

and the recovery efforts across all affected states as well

as our tribal nations

But I need everyone listening to hear this from me

The ongoing spread of misinformation about operations is not ok

It has got to stop the Federal family has been

here working side by side with the state since day

one

These are people who put their lives on hold to

help those who have lost everything

The FEMA workforce

They are dedicated dedicated to putting people first to serving

communities and extending a helping hand when disasters like hurricane

Helene strike

And frankly it's heartbreaking to see words or act of

acts of hatred toward anyone let alone federal responders who

are here to help people in this critical time

So let me be clear I take these threats seriously

and the safety of these responders is and will remain

a priority for me and my team

Now over the weekend out of an abundance of caution

we made operational changes to keep FEMA personnel safe but

none of the changes we made impacted ongoing search and

rescue or other life safety operations

We started to resume canvassing operations yesterday and I was

in the field with them going door to door and

our disaster survivor assistance teams will continue to go door

to door in impacted communities

So let me be clear we are not going anywhere

We have over 2000 people from the Federal family in

North Carolina and misinformation will not deter us from our

mission of helping people

Period

This is what we are here to do and I

want to set the story straight

I have personally been here for over two weeks now

and I can tell you that I have felt nothing

but gratitude compassion and unity from all of the communities

that I have met with from Black Mountain to Colville

from Asheville to Canton

And today I'll be joining Governor Cooper again and his

team to go back out West to continue to meet

with communities to visit our disaster recovery centers and continue

the work of helping North Carolinians recover from hurricane Helene

fema and the entire federal family

We will continue to be here across the south supporting

the six states impacted by this storm and working directly

with survivors for long as long as it takes

And with that I'll turn it back to Governor Cooper

Thank you Administrator Chris

Well I now like to ask the Department of Public

Safety Secretary Eddie Buffalo to share in a report

Thank you Governor Cooper

Good morning

Our coordinate response to hurricane Helene reflects the strength of

our partnerships and the collaboration between local state and federal

agencies

Almost every division within the Department of Public Safety has

mobilized to support recovery efforts in western North Carolina

We are working together to ensure our communities receive the

help they need to date

We have over 177 personnel from the state highway patrol

deployed ensuring road safety assisting with evacuations and maintaining traffic

control so that emergency vehicles and essential supplies can move

quickly to where they are needed

In addition 37 agents from the North Carolina Alcohol law

enforcement are on the ground supporting local law enforcement and

public safety

While our state capitol police provides 24 hour security at

critical facilities

Our North Carolina National Guard personnel are also playing a

key role in delivering additional manpower and resources across the

state to support relief efforts in partnership with the North

Carolina Sheriff's Association

We have approximately 100 and 65 sheriff deputies deployed along

with 20 detention officers and 20 tele communicator officers

The North Carolina Association of Chiefs of Police has deployed

206 officers primarily focused on policing duties within communities

These local officers working along our state resources are critical

to ensuring public safety

We've also received support through the emergency management assistance compact

known as EMAC with 47 officers from Mississippi currently assisting

in Asheville as we have requested an additional 80 officers

to take over site security operations

This joint effort between local state and out of state

resources

Demonstrates our commitment to keeping North Carolina safe during this

challenging time specialized teams continue to play a critical role

in these efforts

Our swift water rescue personnel deployed early in the response

have conducted over 200 rescue missions

Our drone teams in collaboration with the North Carolina Department

of Transportation are conducting aerial damage assessments to help guide

recovery efforts

Our aviation units include four aircraft deployed since the beginning

of the response have been essential to transporting supplies and

conducting further damage assessments

Additionally our Viper teams are on the ground working tirelessly

to restore communication infrastructure ensuring that all responders remain connected

and operational

We have partnered closely with Fe Ma whom support has

been vital in ensuring our efforts as we continue to

deliver the necessary resources to help people of western North

Carolina recover while we make process progress in this recovery

We're also aware of the spread of misinformation on social

media which has led to confusion in some of our

communities in times like these

It is critical that the public receives accurate and reliable

information

We are working closely with local law enforcement to maintain

a safe and secure environment for both our first responders

and the storm survivors

The safety of everyone involved remains our top priority as

the situation continues to evolve

We will assess and adjust our deployments to meet the

challenging needs of our communities

The resilience and the determination of all those involved from

law enforcement to volunteers to locals have been truly inspiring

We remain steadfast in our commitment to supporting recovery efforts

and ensuring the safety of all North Carolinians affected by

this storm

Thank you sir

Thank you Secretary Buffalo

I now welcome Major General Todd Hunt the Adjutant General

of the North Carolina National Guard to share his report

Thank you Governor and good morning

First of all again I wanna thank the soldiers and

airmen of the North Carolina National Guard and active duty

for their dedication and continued efforts as they continue to

provide relief and support into Western North Carolina

Currently the National Guard and active duty have of approximately

3300 personnel in the area along with 1200 vehicles that

are that again working throughout the region

As of today we have delivered five tons I'm sorry

5000 tons of commodities and we've flown almost 1000 hours

uh on both army National Guard and active duty aircraft

Our delivery of commodities continues today

However we are establishing and managing some warehouses for commodity

distribution until the citizens and communities are able to take

that operation over

We are still working alongside dot To clear roads and

then currently we have removed almost 1400 obstacles to make

roadways safe

We are integrated with the higher patrol and the Department

of Agriculture and joint efforts to provide relief where needed

We have touched every county in western North Carolina to

include 100 fire stations actually a little more than 100

fire stations by our active duty partners and have liaisons

in each one of the counties to ensure our local

needs and their local needs are met

And a perfect example of this uh call collaboration with

the locals is we currently had yesterday uh from Haywood

County a request to clear 29 bus routes so the

Children can go back to school today

And that's a a true testament of our partnership with

the locals as we continue to provide search efforts commodity

distribution such as blankets coats fuel heaters and other items

in our warehouse management and support

Additionally we are engineering support

Our engineering support with dot is provide hasty road improvements

This is enabling our citizens that might be cut off

from the main road to gain access to a main

road and is a big big making a huge difference

within the region

We are beginning to see positive signs right now from

response to recovery and we hope this will continue as

we know it will

And in closing I want to thank the soldiers and

airmen on duty and their families left behind

I'm very proud of what the American soldier and airman

is accomplishing and they are making a positive difference within

the community

Thank you Governor

We're grateful to those soldiers and to their employers who

allow these soldiers to take time off from their jobs

to engage in active duty

Uh Now I'd like to ask Transportation Secretary Joey Hopkins

to share his report

Thank you Governor Cooper dot Staff from all across the

state

Crews from both Kentucky and Florida the North Carolina National

Guard the US Army and our contractors continue to work

hard to restore access to impacted sites in the mountains

We have now opened over 670 roads since before the

storm including more than 100 roads since last Friday

As of this morning we still have approximately 580 roads

closed and we're happy to see this number go down

as crews continue with their efforts

We have identified more than 7000 damage sites

This includes over 650 bridge sites and almost 700 covert

sites

And we still expect at least 100 bridges to require

full replacement damage estimates to repair our transportation infrastructure total

several billion dollars and an area of major interest of

course is I 40 in the pivot Pigeon River Gorge

We have awarded an $8 million contract which was below

our engineers estimate of $10 million to Wright Brothers construction

to stabilize the westbound lanes of I 40

And that contract includes incentives to have them completed by

January early January

At that same time we're moving forward with contracts to

design and construct the permanent repairs on I 40 we

plan to have a contractor on board in the next

few weeks

We've recently reopened the US 19 E bridge over the

Cane River in Burnsville to four lane traffic and that

prep provides improved access from I 26 into Yancey and

Mitchell counties

Our staff is coordinating closely with the utility companies to

run new lines along the US 74 A corridor from

Girton to Lake

Lure

This operation involves kayakers pulling lines by hand in the

river

Travel conditions continue to improve across much of Southwester North

Carolina including us 74 A and Girton and US 64

in Edney leading to Bat Cave as power and tree

companies continue their work while we're making progress and restoring

access throughout the region

I want to remind everyone that access to the area

still impacted by the storm is limited to essential travel

only again there are still 580 road closures

Many of the open roads have hazards like down trees

on the shoulders drop offs or even narrow lanes if

you have to travel in Western North Carolina

I urge you to use caution and slow down for

the many crews that are helping to restore the infrastructure

However some areas in Western North Carolina are accessible like

the governor mentioned and they're open for business

Appalachian State is back in session and many of the

public school systems have reopened

We will continue to monitor the essential travel zone and

update it as conditions improve and you can check out

the latest version on our map at Drive nc.gov

In addition to that we want to remind those in

the trucking industry to follow the detours

We have specifically designated for trucks over 30 ft in

length

We've had several instances of trucks trying to take routes

that are not built to handle large vehicles and we've

had trucks get stuck and getting them out takes resources

and getting them turned around is a challenge as of

yesterday afternoon

All but four driver's license offices Asheville Burnsville Marion and

Spruce Pine that were closed due to Helene have now

reopened

And the Marion driver's license office is scheduled to reopen

tomorrow

North Carolina DMV has also designated local driver's license offices

in Western North Carolina as credential pick up centers for

residents impacted by the hurricane with mail services temporary unavailable

These centers provide a solution for obtaining driver's licenses and

ID cards as recovery efforts continue

You can find more info on this at our website

at www dot NC dot dot gov slash WNC credential

pick up

I cannot emphasize enough how grateful we are to our

staff and the many partners who were pouring their time

and energy into this effort to help the families and

communities impacted by Helene

And most importantly before I leave please everyone remember to

use extreme caution if you're traveling in or near the

affected area

Many of the repairs we're making now are temporary and

traffic patterns may not be what people are used to

and what we certainly don't need right now is people

getting hurt or worse while we work to mend the

region Thank you

Ok we're gonna have a report from you Secretary Kinsley

today

Does that do it Ok

We'll now take questions from uh the mic over here

for anybody in the room

If anybody wants to ask any can you go the

line Yes sir

Yes sir

That that works

Yeah

Ok

Hey Governor

Uh thanks for taking the time and the questions uh

had a follow up from the last news conference uh

on just the number of people who have died due

to hurricane Helene

Can you share how many died directly from the impact

that the weather had directly on them versus reports of

of people who may be lacked basic necessities or or

food or water who may have passed away due to

that Kinsley our Department of Health and Human Services Secretary

to answer that question

Thank you governor

As of this morning we have 95 confirmed fatalities um

from the impacts of the storm

The vast majority of these were directly related to flooding

leading to landslides um blunt forest flooded cars etcetera

Um We are still going through the detailed review of

death records on other specific causes and and elements and

happy to follow up with you offline on that

And then I had one for a FEMA administrator

You had talked about uh issue of misinformation and that

prompting changes to how things have been operating operationally

Uh Is there any ongoing threat or any ongoing operational

challenges It sounded like you were alluding to what happened

in Rutherford County as past tense

Yeah

So what happened on Saturday is I received information that

I felt was important enough for me to uh pull

part of our services out the canvassing door to door

canvassing out of the field

Um But the rest of our operation maintained we still

had people at fixed facilities

We still had people working um with our EO CS

and uh we now have resumed all normal operations and

I have people going door to door and we continue

to be in the field

I had one final one sorry for for the governor

uh unrelated to Helene

Uh We've had news today of your second in command

filing a lawsuit uh for defamation for uh that story

from CNN

Would you call on him to to step down as

he is someone who could become acting governor whenever you're

out of the state So I would argue with your

characterization of what his position is

Uh But uh I I would say that uh I

have said for years that he should step down from

his position because of extreme positions that he has taken

in his attacks on people

I don't think he's qualified

governor

Thanks for taking my question again

I'm Baron James with CBS 17 News

Getting back to the disinformation and the misinformation that's out

there that in some cases leading to violent threats what's

being done to protect all of the personnel on the

ground as well as neighbors

And also what do you say to people like Lieutenant

Governor Robbins who are basically criticizing you for your e

efforts or lack thereof In his opinion this has been

an unprecedented response to the worst storm in North Carolina

history

And there are a lot of heroes on the ground

and a lot of resources that have been surged into

Western North Carolina

There is significant progress being made but we want to

make sure that we take all threats seriously

We wanna make sure that the disinformation that the lieutenant

governor is perpetuating and continuing to share on social media

that we are making sure that we protect people on

the ground and trying to get the true information to

people

He he needs to stop it and there are other

people who needs to stop uh this disinformation which is

ending up hurting people who've lost everything

Uh What we've done is we've got a coordinations of

law enforcement through the Department of Public Safety to work

with our officials who are on the ground including FEMA

workers to assist them to protect them when necessary

And there's a lot of coordinating going on to make

sure that everybody who's working on this storm is safe

and secure because it's critical that the people of Western

North Carolina get this help

You mentioned earlier

Second part of my question about the demoralizing effort or

parts of the disinformation can you cite incidents where this

misinformation is actually affecting responses And if so also morally

how are the people on the ground reacting to this

Well clearly when people assert that help is not coming

to Western North Carolina which is completely untrue which is

a lie the people who are actually on the ground

helping feel demoralized when those accusations are made because they

are working very hard to deliver help to people

Any specific delays in recovery missions or rescue missions because

people are working very hard to make sure that they

deliver these services

The FEMA administrator had to make a call for a

short time over the weekend uh to stop canvassing in

in certain areas

We don't want those kinds of things to happen

We don't know how many people are not going to

apply for FEMA because they have heard misinformation about fema

taking their property or other wild accusations that are out

there

People who desperately need this help but have been convinced

that they should be afraid of FEMA or other government

officials

That's something we may never know and why people need

to stop it because the people that you're hurting are

the very people who need the help the most quickly

lastly sorry

But have there been any arrest associated with the disinformation

campaigns that are out there there was an arrest in

Rutherford County

Yes I I don't I'm not aware of other arrests

that have been made in that in disinformation

Anybody else Oh yeah sure

Yeah

Thank you again for doing this uh Eric Miller with

Wral uh following up briefly there

You said you're not aware of any other arrests uh

governor

Are you aware of any other threats at this point

that have impacted either state operations or FEMA operations during

this recovery I I'm not aware of specific threats at

this

At this point

There's general conversation and disinformation on the internet but we

take every credible threat seriously and we also understand that

just because of the environment that it is created we

have made sure that this our Department of Public Safety

has law enforcement available to provide assistance and protection to

government workers and to those who are volunteering on the

ground to make sure people are safe

Uh Governor we've also heard from folks uh particularly in

the Canton area who were not able to access FEMA

aid after Fred a couple of years ago they're concerned

they're not gonna be able to access aid this time

around

Uh your message to those people that we're not able

to access aid from in Canton

What what what are you talking about now in Canton

Yes sir

And the uh this was a question coming from one

of my colleagues

Let me make sure I've got it exactly correct

One of the things we wanna make sure that we

do in in this storm is to turn on every

spigot of local state and federal private and nonprofit resources

that we can in order to be able to make

sure that people in western North Carolina recover

I've been in Canton since this storm and have talked

with them about trying to access those resources

Go thank you

Ok

Go Gober Adam Iron from the News and Observer

Um I I think one thing I have questions about

is it's getting cold here it's getting really cold in

the mountains

What's being done to make sure that people whose houses

are destroyed are safe

I know there's transitional housing but in addition to that

what else is happening it's critical to make sure that

we protect people when it does get cold

It's one of the reason we're working so hard on

temporary housing

It's another reason why we are working to bring in

supplies like blankets and coats and heaters and fuel oil

But I'm gonna turn that over to to director Ray

to see if he has any comments additional comments on

that

Thank you sir

Thank you for the question

I think as as the governor said we've seen a

shift from the type of commodities that were the focus

two weeks ago kind of food and water and are

now moving into more of that cold weather gear and

we're working with both the National Guard dot And and

other partners you see up here to make sure that

those uh individuals that have have lost their homes or

been impacted have those resources um working with with the

Department of Health and Human Services and making sure that

that those licensed care facilities that have those that are

vulnerable are are also supported

Um So we've really seen the the large transition working

with our local counties and towns and cities that we're

starting to see more of those types of resource requests

And so we're working to make sure either via ground

or air that we get those out as quickly as

possible

Um But I think it's also important note as as

the governor said and and as you've heard I mean

we're trying to get um every available option on the

table to support those that have been impacted particularly related

to housing

And so I would I would reiterate that there are

housing resources available for those that have been impacted if

they're unable to access them them online

Uh For whatever reason through fema or other partners please

take the opportunity to visit with with one of our

disaster recovery centers or with one of the teams that

are in the field so that we can get folks

into safe and secure housing as we look at um

what what the the long term horizon of this recovery

could be

And then this one's probably for administrator Chris

Well um sorry about my voice

Just get you over something

Um The y'all have mentioned concerns about the missing disinformation

impacting people getting aid

Does F ma have any kind of estimates as to

how many people should have applied at this point Based

on the areas that were impacted Is there any kind

of lag going on Uh That's a good question

It's something we we do look at and we usually

come up with an estimate of how many people we

think are going to apply versus how many have

Um We can certainly get with you offline

We know there's also communications challenges here which is why

we have people going door to door in DRC si

mean so we can look at where it's trending to

where we think it should be and happy to follow

up with you share that follow up

And then I guess this one last one is for

the governor and a administrator

The information environment here feels markedly different even than it

did during Matthew and Florence

I think we all feel that um why what are

you guys seeing that that might be perpetuating some of

that Well I think over the years we've seen social

media get more and more extreme filled with this information

This is happening in the middle of an election where

candidates are using people's misery to sow chaos for their

own political objectives and it's wrong and this is a

time where we all need to pull together to help

the people of Western North Carolina

And it's disappointing when candidates knowing full well what they're

doing are continuing this kind of of disinformation filled with

lies

Ok

Thank you very much