After Helene Flooding, FEMA Aid Is Arriving. But Some Are Still on Their Own.

In the western mountains of North Carolina outside of Asheville, the small communities of Cruso and Canton, wrecked by Hurricane Helene, were not waiting for help from the state or the federal government.

Local restaurants were dispatching food deliveries to homes each evening. Some residents were driving excavators and tractors to clear debris from roads, while others were checking on who had power and who did not. No one was sure whether any disaster relief was coming anytime soon.

“We’ve never depended on them before. Why should we depend on them now?” said Amber Capps, the president of the Cruso Community Center. “We’re independent.”

The overwhelming devastation wrought by Helene left many in western North Carolina without food, water or gas, cut off by impassable roads and isolated by crippled cellular networks. With each day that passes, frustration has grown in some areas over the disaster response.

In interviews on Wednesday, state and local officials described a prolonged and arduous effort that had been hampered by the scale of the devastation and the heavy damage to many roadways.

There appeared to be progress in some areas, with truckloads of relief supplies filling distribution centers. More remote areas remained cut off. Helicopters delivered airdrops of supplies in some places, many of them dispatched by governors of other states. Elsewhere, residents craned their necks to the sky to watch as military planes flew overhead.