Voters in North Carolina and Georgia have bigger problems than politics. Helene changed everything

VILAS, NC — Brad Farrington stops to grab a case of water bottles being distributed in Vilas, a small rural community tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains. He is on his way to help a friend who has lost many of his belongings Hurricane Helene blew through last weekend.

His friend, like countless others in western North Carolina, is starting over, which explains why Farrington isn’t thinking too much about politics or the White House race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris right now.

“I don’t believe people’s hopes are in the people who are elected,” he said.

Farrington pauses for a moment, then gestures to a dozen volunteers loading water and other supplies into cars and trucks.

“I believe we find much more hope with these types of people,” he said.

In the final weeks of the election, people in North Carolina and Georgia, influential swing states, are dealing with more immediate concerns: widespread storm damage. As if that weren’t enough, voters in Watauga County, an Appalachian county that has become more Democratic in recent years, must contend with politicians lay blame and offer support at the same time as they campaign in a race that could be decided by a small shift.

Large uprooted trees are scattered along the roads and sometimes block the driveways. Some houses in Vilas are inaccessible after bridges collapsed and roads collapsed. More populated areas such as Beanhome to Appalachian State University, saw major flooding.

Residents wonder where they are missing friends and relatives, is there enough food and water to last until new supplies arrive and how will they be rebuilt?

The focus is on survival, not politics – and it could remain that way for weeks.

Trump and Harris have done that visited North Carolina and Georgia five times since the storm hit. Trump was in North Carolina on Friday, and Harris was there the next day.

After Trump went to Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, 20-year-old Fermin Herrera said the former president won his vote with his show of caring, not out of any frustration with the way President Joe Biden and Harris, the vice president, deal with the federal disaster relief. Herrera was already leaning toward voting for Trump.

“I feel like everyone is friendly and doing what they can,” he said. “All local residents appreciate the help that is coming.”

Trump, who has his own mixed record in responding to natural disastersattacked Biden and Harris for saying it was a slow response to Helene’s destruction. Trump accused Democrats of “going out of their way not to help people in Republican areas” and said there was not enough money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency because it was issued to illegal immigrants. There is no evidence to support either claim.

“I’m not thinking about the voters right now,” Trump emphasized after a meeting with the governor. Brian KempR-Ga., on Friday. “I think about lives.”

Biden has pushed back hard, saying he is “committed to the presidency of all America” and has not ordered aid to be distributed along party lines. The White House cited statements from the Republican governors of Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee expressing satisfaction with the federal government’s response.

The head of FEMA, Deanne Criswell, told ABC’s “This Week” that this “truly dangerous story” of untruths is “demoralizing” for first responders and “creating fear among our own workers.”

Criticism of relief efforts so soon after a natural disaster is “inappropriate,” especially when you consider the enormous logistical problems in western North Carolina, said Gavin Smith, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in disaster recovery. He said the dangerous terrain of compromised roads and bridges and the widespread lack of electricity and cell phone services make disaster response in the region particularly challenging.

Democratic Government Roy Cooper made several stops in western North Carolina, including Watauga County and surrounding areas, and Biden viewed the extensive damage via an aerial tour.

In Watauga County, Jessica Dixon used a shovel to scrape dirt and broken furniture off the ground, then toss it into the bucket of a whirring backhoe. The 29-year-old was standing in a house she bought two years ago. It has now been gutted after a flood of water forced Dixon, her boyfriend and their two dogs to flee to safety.

Without flood insurance, Dixon isn’t sure what will happen in the next month. She said she filled out a FEMA application but hasn’t checked her email since. She had already been thinking about the presidential elections before Helene, but now she is busy cleaning her house.

“It wouldn’t change my opinion on anything,” said Dixon, who planned to vote for Harris.

The presidential elections are also not top of mind for 47-year-old Bobby Cordell. He’s trying to get help from neighbors in western Watauga County, which has become inaccessible in some parts.

His home near Beech Mountain is one of those places, he said, after a bridge was washed away. Cordell rescued his aunt from a mudslide, then traveled to Boone and stayed at Appalachian State’s Holmes Convocation Center, which now serves as a Red Cross emergency shelter.

He’s trying to send disaster relief back to where he lives by contacting officials, including from FEMA. That conversation, he said, “went very well.”

Accepting help is not easy for people in the mountains, he said, because they are used to fending for themselves.

But now the people trapped “need all they can get.”

Over the past week of volunteering at Skateworld, where Farrington stopped to get water, it has become harder for Nancy Crawford to smile. She’s helped serve more than 1,000 people, she said, but the emotional toll is starting to get used to “a lot of us who are normally difficult.”

That burden added to the weight she already felt about the election, which she said was “scary to begin with.” Crawford, a registered Republican, said she plans to vote for Harris. As a Latina of Mexican descent, she believes Trump’s immigration policies would have detrimental effects on her community.

The storm, she said, probably won’t change her vote, but has made one thing clear.

“It doesn’t matter what party you are from, we all need help,” she said.

Jan Wellborn had a similar thought as she walked through the Watauga High School gym collecting items to take to colleagues in need. As a 69-year-old bus driver for the school district, she said the outpouring of support she has seen from the community has been a “gift from heaven.”

She takes comfort in the province’s ability to work together. The elections are important, she said, but helping people through a harrowing time is more important.

“The election should be important,” Wellborn said. “But right now we need to focus on making sure everyone in the province is taken care of.”

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Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.