President Joe Biden announced that the government will cover 100% of Hurricane Helene cleanup costs for the next several months to pay for the urgent work to clear the mud, remove downed trees and provide temporary housing.The federal support comes as residents in multiple Southeastern states are still struggling to return to normal following last week’s storm that killed over 200 people.
And as you probably know from your own reporting, many of these homes do not have flood insurance. They're going to have to rely on programs both at FEMA and the Small Business Administration, not to just rebuild their businesses, but rebuild their homes. And so our ability to ensure that the federal funds are available to do so, that the manpower is there to quickly assess the damage that has been done both to business and homes, is really important.