Months after disaster struck, Congress was finally poised to vote on funding to aid residents whose lives have been upended by recent storms. And then President-elect Donald Trump weighed in.
Trump panned the stopgap funding bill after it was unveiled Wednesday and urged Republicans in Congress to vote against the measure, which would fund the government through March and deliver $100 billion in federal aid to states that experienced widespread destruction from Hurricane Helene and other disasters.
“Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025. The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling,” Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday evening. “Anything else is a betrayal of our country.”
Congress will need to vote on the bill by midnight Friday to avoid a government shutdown.
Both of Virginia’s Democratic U.S. senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, have been pushing for disaster relief to be included in the funding bill, along with Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, who represents the congressional district hardest hit by Hurricane Helene in Virginia.
“Hard to imagine anything more heartless than shutting down the government and leaving disaster victims out in the cold just days before Christmas,” Warner posted on X in response to Trump’s opposition to the bipartisan funding bill. “Absolutely outrageous this is even a possibility.”
“Virginians know how painful and costly government shutdowns can be. It is imperative that we fund the government in a bipartisan way that includes aid for communities that have been ravaged by natural disasters before the Friday deadline,” Kaine said in a post.
A message to Griffith’s office seeking comment Wednesday night wasn’t returned.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin had requested $4.4 billion in federal aid in November for recovery following the widespread flooding and wind damage that Hurricane Helene brought to Southwest Virginia in late September.
In his request, he noted that roughly 10,000 Virginia residents had applied for individual assistance by mid-November, and about 3,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. Many homes in the region were not initially built to withstand floods. That, and a lack of flood insurance in the region, has created a unique set of challenges in the effort to rebuild.
The deadline for individuals to apply for assistance to rebuild or repair homes was Dec. 2. Both the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration said they are accepting applications during a 60-day grace period after that deadline.
In the immediate aftermath of Helene, 310,000 Virginia residents were without power, and the infrastructure used to deliver electricity was significantly damaged.
The Virginia Department of Transportation has determined that the storm damaged 735 roadways, 89 structures, 26 bridges and 63 culverts. After the storm, 484 primary and secondary roads and 118 bridges were closed. Most of those have since reopened.
Critical infrastructure in Southwest Virginia, including water treatment facilities, sewage lines, municipal buildings and drainage systems, was damaged in the storm. FEMA has received 93 requests for public assistance from localities to repair damage to that infrastructure.
As of late October, nearly 3,700 farms in Virginia were determined to have been affected by the storm, with hundreds of millions of dollars estimated in financial impact to farmers and their communities, Youngkin noted. Regarding small and local businesses, Youngkin’s office estimated that the region suffered an economic impact of billions of dollars across the region due to Helene-related disruptions.
The Virginia Creeper Trail, an economic artery in the region, had also been cut off by Helene. Seventeen miles of the trail, known as the lifeblood of the town of Damascus and other localities, had been closed due to extensive flood damage. New River State Park also sustained significant damage.
