Four Vials at a Time

Two years after Helene, western North Carolina is still doing the math its government refuses to do.

The first trailer I reached had a wall of downed trees between it and the road. I climbed over them with a bag of insulin.

That was the fall of 2024. Hurricane Helene had just torn through western North Carolina, and people who needed insulin to stay alive could not get to a pharmacy. A lot of the pharmacies were closed. A lot of the roads to them were gone.

Here is something most people don't know. Walmart sells human insulin over the counter. No prescription needed. But every store capped me at four vials. So I went to the next Walmart. And the next one. Four vials at a time, I built up a supply and drove it into the mountains. After that first trailer, I got the rest to relief groups doing the same work in places I couldn't reach.

I wasn't a volunteer driving in from somewhere safe. My own home was destroyed in that storm. I was a first-year law student, and I left school to help. My life went a different direction after that. I'll get to that part. But this story is not about me. It's about the people I was driving toward, and what their government has done for them in the two years since.

What the storm did

Helene killed 108 people in North Carolina. More than 230 people died across all the states it hit. Buncombe County, home to Asheville, lost at least 72 on its own.

It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the lower 48 since Katrina in 2005, and the costliest storm in North Carolina history. The state puts the damage and recovery needs at $59.6 billion. That includes $44.4 billion in direct damage to homes, roads, businesses, farms, and public buildings.

The damage didn't stay in the mountains. Baxter International's plant in Marion, less than an hour east of Asheville, flooded. That one plant made about 60 percent of the country's IV fluids. Hospitals across America started rationing IV bags and putting off surgeries. A flood in one small North Carolina town reached into operating rooms in Boston.

What the government has actually paid

FEMA says it has now put more than $7.5 billion into North Carolina for Helene. That includes more than $2.5 billion for about 3,000 recovery projects, like clearing debris and rebuilding roads and water plants. It includes about $568 million sent straight to around 161,000 families for home repairs, rent, and other needs. HUD has added $1.4 billion for the state and $225 million for Asheville for long-term rebuilding.

Those are real numbers. Help did come.

Now put them next to the damage. By the state's own count, as of June 30 the federal government had approved about $9.7 billion total for Helene. That is about 16 percent of what the storm cost.

Compare that to past disasters. After Hurricane Sandy, federal aid covered about 78 percent of the damage. After Katrina, about 73 percent. Helene is sitting at 16. Federal aid has covered a pitiful 16% of the damage repair.

Congress passed about $110 billion in disaster aid in December 2024, split across Helene, Hurricane Milton, and other disasters. In June 2026, Gov. Josh Stein went back to Washington and asked for $10.2 billion more. Even if Congress handed over every dollar, federal money would still cover only about a third of the damage.

North Carolina has been filling the gap with its own money. The state budget includes more than $700 million for Helene recovery this year alone.

The promises

During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump made Helene a centerpiece. He claimed, without evidence, that the Biden administration was going out of its way to hurt his voters in rural North Carolina. He repeated a false claim that FEMA's money had been spent on people who crossed the border illegally.

And he made a promise. Standing in western North Carolina, he said: “When I'm president, I will stand with you until the communities are fully rebuilt. Every single inch of every property will be fully rebuilt greater and more beautiful than it was before.”

Here is what happened after he took office.

In April 2025, FEMA turned down North Carolina's request to keep paying 100 percent of debris removal and emergency costs. The letter from FEMA's acting head said the extra money was “not warranted.” FEMA still pays 90 percent, more than the usual 75. But the state lost a share of help it was counting on for a rebuild measured in years, not months.

That same spring, CNN reported that while North Carolina waited on more than $150 million in disaster money, FEMA sped up payments to some Republican-led states. One FEMA official told CNN it was politicization of disaster aid “like we've never seen before.”

The joke is on us

On Sept. 16, 2026, Trump held a rally in Gastonia for Michael Whatley, the Republican running for U.S. Senate against Roy Cooper. He brought up Helene.

“We spent more than $2 billion in FEMA funding,” he told the crowd. “And you know, you're waiting for some additional money to take care of some of the back. And I'm going to get that to you, Michael. Now, if Michael loses, I'm not sending it, okay?”

The crowd groaned. Then he added: “No, I'm only kidding. You're getting it.”

Maybe it was a joke. But think about who it landed on. People still living without a real home. Small towns waiting to be paid back for clearing roads they couldn't afford to clear in the first place. For them, disaster money that shows up or doesn't depending on an election isn't funny. It's the exact thing they're already afraid of.

The other institution

I said I'd get back to this part.

Campbell Law School spent three years trying to get me to enroll. After I finished my master's degree, I said yes and moved to Raleigh for the fall 2024 semester.

Campbell has a rule that full-time first-year students are not allowed to work. So I moved to a new city where I couldn't hold a job, and I lived on student loans.

Then Helene came, and my home was gone. I left campus and went into the mountains. The dean knew where I was. He messaged me while I was out there. Nearly two years later, he wrote a letter describing my relief work, the National Guard coordination and the insulin runs, and said I did it “at real personal cost.”

He was fucking right about that. I expected my grades to take a hit, and they did. I failed one exam, Torts. I passed the other three. I also expected the school to work with me. It didn't. Campbell dropped me after that one semester, and with that, the loans stopped too.

Campbell also runs a Flex program with no work restrictions at all. Nobody told me it existed. Later, the school told me it wished it had. They wished they had told me. A lot of fucking good that does me.

The only guidance I got from the school that semester came after a run-in with a classmate. He lied to me, and I asked him to his face whether he had. He went to the dean first and said I threatened him. What I got was a note to be kinder to the younger students. The subtext being that the children of school donors come first, always.

My roommate, also a Campbell student, confronted the dean about how the school handled me.

I'm not telling this for sympathy. I can look back now and be grateful I'm not surrounded by lawyers. I'm telling it because it's the same pattern, just smaller. An institution makes a promise when it wants something from you. Then the storm comes, and you find out what the promise was worth.

Four vials

Walmart had a rule too. Four vials per store. I understood that one. It kept one person from clearing the shelf.

What I learned that fall is that you can beat a four-vial limit. You just keep driving. You go to the next store and the next one, and you add it up yourself.

That's what western North Carolina has been doing for two years. Families, churches, volunteer fire departments, and small towns stacking up help four vials at a time, because the big delivery never came in full. The state has chipped in what it can. Neighbors have done the rest. North Carolina will recover, not because of the federal government, but because of the people. The people are what make North Carolina special, and it will take a whole lot more than Hurricane Helene to break the spirit of the people n North Carolina.

The people in those mountains don't need jokes about whether the money will show up. They need what they were promised. Every single dollar.

Sources

NC OSBM, Hurricane Helene Damage and Needs Assessment: https://www.osbm.nc.gov/hurricane-helene-dna/open

ABC News, FEMA denies NC 100% cost share request: https://abcnews.com/Politics/fema-denies-north-carolina-request-100-cost-sharing/story?id=122270931

NC Budget & Tax Center, Helene after two years: https://ncbudget.org/tax-cuts-amendments-and-disaster-recovery-helene-after-two-years/

Opinion: Two years after Helene, federal recovery funds fall far short: https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/opinion-two-years-helene-federal-100311186.html

EdNC, Helene recovery hearing (GROW NC federal share comparison): https://www.ednc.org/09-25-2025-hurricane-helene-recovery-hearing-highlights-delays-uncertainty-in-federal-aid/

WataugaOnline, FEMA recovery funding tops $7.5 billion: https://wataugaonline.com/two-years-after-helene-fema-recovery-funding-tops-7-5-billion/

Carolina Journal, FEMA approves additional $137M: https://www.carolinajournal.com/fema-approves-an-additional-137m-for-helene-recovery/

Boston Globe, Mass General Brigham IV fluid shortage: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/10/02/metro/mass-general-brigham-warns-of-iv-fluid-shortage-due-to-helene

CNN via ABC17, hospitals ration IV fluids after Helene: https://abc17news.com/?p=1382451

NBC News, Trump claims on Helene assistance (Sept. 30, 2024): https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/live-blog/harris-trump-presidential-election-live-updates-rcna173047

PBS/AP, Trump repeats false claims about FEMA response: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/in-north-carolina-trump-attacks-fema-and-repeats-false-claims-about-its-response-to-helene

Facing South, Institute Index: FEMA chaos and Helene recovery: https://www.facingsouth.org/2026/03/institute-index-fema-chaos-and-north-carolinas-helene-recovery

News & Observer via Yahoo, FEMA denies 100% reimbursement extension: https://www.yahoo.com/news/fema-head-denies-nc-request-162932338.html

WRAL, Fact check: Did Trump reject Helene relief?: https://www.wral.com/story/fact-check-did-trump-reject-helene-relief-for-north-carolina/21973922/

CNN, FEMA money sped to some GOP-led states: https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/22/politics/fema-money-slowed-trump

HuffPost, Trump Gastonia FEMA remark: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-north-carolina-speech-fema-money_n_6aab479de4b00c07b744a29a

WLOS, WNC reaction to Trump FEMA joke: https://wlos.com/news/local/joke-trump-fema-funding-president-donald-trump-north-carolina-western-helene-reaction-whatley-cooper-election-candidates-politics-gov-josh-stein-community

Campbell Law, Employment During Law School policy: https://law.campbell.edu/apply/apply-online/requirements/

Campbell Law, Flex Program: https://law.campbell.edu/apply/campbell-flex/

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