DAMASCUS, Va. – Vice President JD Vance on Monday traveled to Damascus, Virginia, a town on the southwestern edge of the state that was hit hard by Hurricane Helene in September.
The visit was Vance’s second time to Damascus and his first official trip as vice president, coming just days after President Donald Trump traveled to western North Carolina on Jan. 24 to tour areas still struggling to recover after the hurricane.
“The local government’s working, the state government is working as hard as it can, the local communities and the nonprofits and the churches are working at breakneck speed, and yet you have the federal government out there — the biggest institution with the most money — that’s not doing its job. It just drives home how much better we can do,” Vance told Fox News Digital when asked about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) response to hurricane-damaged areas across the Southeast.
Vance met Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, State Sen. Todd Pillion, Damascus Mayor Katie Lamb, as well as local law enforcement officers and firefighters for a private round table discussion upon arrival at the Damascus Fire Department just before 1 p.m. Youngkin and Lamb described blown-up photos showing streets in downtown Damascus that were flooded over after Helene swept through the area on Sept. 27, causing a creek that runs through town to overflow.
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While speaking to the press afterward, the vice president noted stories about locals who came together to help those in need after the disaster, saying he is grateful to live in a country that prides itself on charitable work.
Trump and Vance have been vocal in their criticism of FEMA’s handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene before and soon after taking office. The White House announced plans last week to create a council to assess the agency and how it manages assistance for Americans during disasters.
In mid-January, FEMA had plans to end temporary housing assistance — which gave FEMA-funded hotel vouchers to those impacted by the hurricane — for some 2,000 North Carolina residents on the same weekend a snowstorm was blowing through the area, but the agency has since extended that deadline multiple times after public outcry, the most recent extension being a May 26 deadline.
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“The thing that I heard most when I was in western North Carolina before the inauguration, but it was after the election, is that there are people who wanted to put trailers or other temporary housing in particular areas of western North Carolina, but they couldn’t because FEMA designated these particular areas to be ineligible for the type of assistance that would allow people to put that temporary housing in the first place. That’s another example of the sort of thing that’s broken about the federal response,” Vance said.
Trump stopped in Fletcher and Swanannoa, North Carolina, on Jan. 24 to share his plans for the area and hear from locals who lost everything in the hurricane.
Several Swannanoa residents who spoke to Fox News Digital during the president’s visit complained of government red tape that has made it difficult for them to get monetary or housing assistance in a reasonable amount of time. Others expressed that while they did receive assistance from FEMA after the hurricane took everything they had, it was not quite enough to help them get back on their feet.
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Vance said “one of the takeaways” from his first week as vice president is that Americans “should have higher expectations for their federal government.”
“Government is as fallible as the people who run it. But we can do a heck of a lot better than we have over the last few years.”
“I talked to so many people who will say, in effect, ‘Well, it’s the federal government, all the bureaucracy, all the red tape.’ No, no, no, no. The bureaucracy and the red tape is not an excuse for the government to not do its job,” Vance said. “We’re not going to be perfect. We never will be. Government is as fallible as the people who run it. But we can do a heck of a lot better than we have over the last few years.”
The vice president, who has familial ties to Appalachia, noted that the region has been “ignored and left behind for decades, for generations in this country.”
“Again, we’re never going to be perfect, but I promise you that this administration will not forget you. We love you. We’re rooting for you,” Vance said. “And we want to be part of this incredible recovery here in southwest Virginia. God bless you guys.”
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More than 200 people died as a result of Hurricane Helene across six states, including Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Recovery is a massive and ongoing undertaking in many areas of the Appalachian region that were destroyed by historic flooding and heavy winds in late September, and many residents in these areas who lost their homes in the storm are still living in campers and tents four months later.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says only half of the debris recovery from Hurricane Helene is complete.
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