NC's abysmal failure at hurricane recovery (01-30-2025--Hour3)
The Pete Kaliner ShowJanuary 30, 202500:35:2932.54 MB

NC's abysmal failure at hurricane recovery (01-30-2025--Hour3)

This episode is presented by Create A Video – Nick Craig joins me to discuss the two North Carolina General Assembly hearings on recovery efforts in Eastern and Western parts of the state. Lawmakers are not happy.

Subscribe to the podcast at: https://ThePetePod.com/ 

All the links to Pete's Prep are free: https://patreon.com/petekalinershow 

Media Bias Check: If you choose to subscribe, get 15% off here!

Advertising and Booking inquiries: Pete@ThePeteKalinerShow.com

Get exclusive content here!: https://thepetekalinershow.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalinarshow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] You've got Kash Patel, you've got in front of the Senate confirmation hearing, RFK Jr. was back at it, Tulsi Gabbard was up there. We had the press conference from Donald Trump on the plane crash overnight. And then we also have two legislative hearings up in Raleigh yesterday and then another one today focusing on hurricane storm relief and specifically recovery.

[00:00:57] And I was watching on Twitter as my colleague, Nick Craig, the host of the Carolina Journal News Hour that's heard right here on WBT at 5 a.m. weekdays, also the host of the Nick Craig show. I saw Nick tweeting through the meeting. And so I said, hey, Nick, why don't you come on and talk about what you're watching so I don't have to. Nick, welcome, sir. Thank you for your service. Oh, hey, Pete, it's a true honor and pleasure to be able to post on X and provide folks with the information. Yeah. So so where do you want to you want to start with today? Is that freshest in your mind?

[00:01:26] You want to do that and then backtrack till to yesterday and talk about what happened yesterday or I'll just I'll take your lead. Let's start with today. And it's and it's pretty confusing because we've got two different things that we're talking about here. There's storm recovery for storms that hit the eastern half of North Carolina in 2016 and 2018.

[00:01:45] Those were hurricanes Matthew and Florence. And there's an agency in a group known as NCOR, the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency, also known as Rebuild NC, that is responsible for that situation in the east. And now we've got a new group under the new governor, Josh Stein, the former Democrat attorney general called Grow NC. That's the governor recovery's office for Western North Carolina. So, Pete, I know you love acronyms so much, a lot of a lot of acronyms all over the place.

[00:02:13] But the committee meeting that took place early this morning in Raleigh, around 830, focused on the storms from at this case almost a decade ago in the eastern half of the state. And this group, NCOR, Pete, really has had a huge amount of issues since the start. As it stands right now, we learned that they're needing about an additional $216 million if everything is supposed to go as planned.

[00:02:39] $216 million additional dollars to get more than 1,200 individuals back into their homes that have been waiting in some cases since 2016 to have their homes rebuilt by the state. The number continues to rise for how much money they need. They have a 200-plus person staff, and the work is not being done in a timely and efficient manner, and lawmakers are incredibly frustrated with it. Yeah, and so I said, okay, so I lied. Well, I didn't lie.

[00:03:08] I didn't have to watch it, but I did watch some of it. So I listened on the way in, and I caught some of the comments. And maybe you can correct the number, but I heard somewhere around 1,100 homes still to be built, and they are promising. Pryor Gibson is now in charge, although I'm more respectful. I call him Previous Gibson.

[00:03:30] But Pryor Gibson is in charge of this agency now because the previous head, Laura Hogshead, she was shown the door about a month or so ago because of the ineffectiveness of the agency under her leadership. And I think he said like 1,100 or so homes that they're trying to get built before the end of the year is the promise that he would like to make, but you never know. Well, and that's part of the issue here. There's so many different numbers that are being thrown out.

[00:03:59] If you look at certain set of screenshots in the presentation, it shows that there are 1,179 homes under construction or awaiting construction. But then you add up numbers in a different slide. It's closer to 1,200. So it's somewhere between 1,100 and 1,200 homes that still need some level of construction, whether that's a complete and total rebuild, which we found out costs the state about, or the taxpayers more accurately to say,

[00:04:26] about $200,000 or some sort of serious remediation, mold, water, whatever it might be. So somewhere between 1,100 and 1,200 homes. Now, one of the things that they focused on towards the end that I heard that I think is actually overlooked in a lot of these discussions, and I think Gibson is correct to hammer this, which is essentially the infrastructure of contractors, the vendors that the state is using to do the work.

[00:04:52] And in these types of trades, like you've got to keep the pipeline filled with work. And so this is what is jamming up the legislature is that Gibson keeps coming back saying we need more money because if there's no money in the pipeline, then the vendors, the contractors don't get paid or they're not going to be able to do the work because they're scheduling their jobs out into months into the future.

[00:05:16] So if you've got this sort of network, this infrastructure of builders that you have compiled for this work, and then the funding dries up, they're going to go and do other stuff. And then that delays it even further. But again, like you heard, the legislators do not like being put in the position where they basically have to say yes, right? Well, and that was one thing that was brought up. And I don't remember.

[00:05:41] I think it may have been Representative Pless brought this up right at the end is that you're going to start doing things and then you're going to come to the General Assembly and essentially force our hand into doing it. And you're right on the whole pipeline issue. Unfortunately, from the General Assembly standpoint, over just the last couple of months, they have given this agency a couple somewhere in the ballpark of like 80 or 90 million dollars.

[00:06:05] That was just for them to get their shortfall dealt with where they were not paying employees and contractors weren't getting invoices paid. They just gave them that money in October and November of last year. And here we are in the final week of January saying we need another $216 million for this project to be completed. Oh, and by the way, it's going to take a whole year. And as you noted, Pete, if you don't give us the money, none of the contractors are going to want to work with us.

[00:06:31] And all of these people in eastern North Carolina will never get their houses rebuilt is essentially what was said. Yeah. And then the infrastructure that you have built collapses if it hasn't already. And you've got to start from scratch and getting new vendors and everything else. So from there, let me pivot to the West, because as you mentioned, it's a different recovery effort. Grow NC, Governor's Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, that Josh Stein set up, probably recognizing the political hit he would take if he allowed NCOR to manage this problem.

[00:07:02] And Senator Tim Moffitt from Henderson County out West, he made a comment where he said something like, if you did to Western North Carolina what you have done to eastern North Carolina, he's like, we'd probably secede from the state. And so that is definitely in keeping with the Western North Carolina mindset. So let's shift over there. This was yesterday, right, that they took a presentation and held a hearing on the Western effort.

[00:07:32] Yes. So, yes, the House and the Senate were back in Raleigh for really the start of the 2025 session at noon yesterday. And around 2 o'clock, members of Destin Hall's new Helene Select Committee, which are members of the House, sat down and got a presentation from members of Grow NC. I've got to give Josh Stein credit, which may be hard for many people to do, but I've got to give Josh Stein credit for getting ahead of this. NCOR has been broken. It's been broken for years.

[00:08:00] Governor Roy Cooper was essentially silent about NCOR for the longest period of time. He never got in front of any of their issues. And to the new governor's credit, within a day of being in the governor's mansion, he admitted that this previous agency and group was not capable of doing the work and has spawned his own. The question and kind of the issue that is already arising with this, Pete, is now you are at training wheels again for a new state agency.

[00:08:27] You are starting at the absolute ground floor. While NCOR has its issues, at least it has six years plus worth of a track record that it likely is not to repeat some of those same mistakes over again versus Grow NC, which is brand new and could be susceptible, not guaranteed, but could be susceptible to causing some of the same issues that we saw in the eastern half of the state because it's a whole new group of people.

[00:08:53] Yeah, and Gibson mentioned some of this stuff where he talked about like these exceptional cases where, you know, you think, oh, it's just a rebuild of a house. And then it turns out, well, actually, no, like you don't own the house. It was your cousin's house and they let you put a trailer on it. And actually the lot lines were drawn incorrectly. Oh, and you're not permitted for this. Oh, and you owe back taxes. And so all of these other things start arising as you're going through these rebuild efforts.

[00:09:19] And yeah, like this is a concern that Grow NC is not going to be as prepared to identify those pitfalls because they are building from the ground up. Well, I mentioned this on my podcast this morning, not to take anything away. I'm, by the way, in the eastern half of the state. So not to take anything away from Florence and Matthew. I lived in Wilmington during Florence. It was a nasty storm. But Pete, you can't compare the flat, relatively low-lying coastline of the eastern half of the state to the geography out west.

[00:09:49] I mean, it's not even an apples to apples. You're not even comparing fruit to fruit. I mean, it's a completely different ballgame when you talk about septic sewer systems, piping, all of that stuff in the western half of the state. You can't even draw an analogy to some of that in the eastern half. So rightfully so, I think there's a lot of concern from lawmakers that we don't want. But today in the hearing is we can't keep doing the same thing over and over again.

[00:10:14] We heard that from Representative Brandon Jones, who was irate over what we had seen with Encore and doesn't want similar things to be done by Grow NC in the western half of the state. So finally, I'll just make one prediction. You're going to hear the term learning curve a lot in the recovery efforts in the west. That's my fear. I suspect we're going to hear that term or something similar as this thing gets underway. I hope not, but that's my suspicion. Well, yeah, Pete, it's a great point.

[00:10:44] I'll say real quickly to Laura Hogshead's credit, the former Encore director, she said on her way out of the door, we already made the mistakes. Don't let another group start up and create and have the same issues that we did. We made the mistakes. We learned our hard lesson and we don't want to repeat it. So there is some truth to that as well. Well, that explains it. And maybe she had a checklist of all the mistakes to make. And she was just going down the checklist. Did that one? Did that one. All right.

[00:11:10] Nick Craig, host of the Carolina Journal News Hour, heard right here on WBT every morning, 5 a.m. And also his own show, The Nick Craig Show. Where do people get that? You can get The Nick Craig Show over at nickcraig.com or give me a follow over on X as well. Just search for The Nick Craig Show. Thanks for the time, Pete. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. Thanks, Nick. Get some sleep. He'll be up with you bright and early tomorrow. And that's Nick Craig. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina, just a quick drive up the mountain?

[00:11:39] And Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breathtaking 14,000 acres of the Pisgah National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Asheville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park,

[00:12:08] it's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions. With hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi-Fi, grills, outdoor tables, and your own private covered porch. Choose from 13 cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a great lodge with 11 king-sized bedrooms. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion. And they have pet-friendly accommodations.

[00:12:34] Call or text 828-367-7068. Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Thanks again to Nick Craig for hopping on and joining me and giving us the lowdown on what happened up in Raleigh. Yesterday, obviously, I was on the air when the first hearing occurred. I did catch some of it today, but not all of it. And I know Nick was monitoring it.

[00:13:02] The thing went about, gosh, I don't know, two, two and a half, three hours or something. So this piece appeared in the McClatchy papers, Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News and Observer. North Carolina lawmakers opened the business of the 2025 legislative session Wednesday with a hearing on Hurricane Helene recovery efforts, attempting to sort out how much state funding is necessary and raising concerns over the disbursement of federal aid.

[00:13:30] Testifying before the House Committee on Helene recovery, Mark Calabria, the director of the Governor's Recovery Office for Western North Carolina, or GROW-NC, along with Jonathan Krebs, the Western North Carolina recovery advisor, outlined recovery efforts and funding. Governor Josh Stein created GROW-NC to focus on, you know, the western part of the state.

[00:13:54] According to the Office of State Budget and Management, damages and needs in western North Carolina are estimated at just under $60 billion. $60 billion. By comparison, the state budget, well, it used to be like $20. Now I think it's like, it may be like $30-something. This is twice our annual budget, more than twice our annual budget, if I recall.

[00:14:24] In December, Congress approved a $100 billion disaster relief package, and a portion of that is allocated to North Carolina. State lawmakers have also allocated about $900 million, so just under a billion, towards recovery efforts across three different relief bills, which was news to me because I kept hearing that the North Carolina Republican General Assembly hadn't given the West any money.

[00:14:52] But wait a minute, you're saying they have allocated like a billion dollars? That's interesting. The General Assembly is, in fact, expected to do more. There is the Rainy Day Fund, and if I recall correctly, that's got like $15 billion, I think, in it. But even that's not enough. And there are all sorts of rules when you're trying to get federal money.

[00:15:22] And so if you spend the state money on stuff, the feds may look at that and say, oh, well, then we're not going to give you reimbursement, basically, because you paid for it. So there's this whole game that gets played of, okay, yes, we know you need this money, so yes, we'll pay for this stuff. But if you already fixed it because it was such a high priority, well, then, you know, you paid for it already, so we'll just use it for other stuff.

[00:15:52] That guy Krebs outlined the top priorities, and right now their first priority is debris removal and then housing. Debris removal is really, really important because it is fuel for forest fires, which have actually now broken out in McDowell County. The Crooked Creek fire broke out, and I heard in one of our newscasts that it is now at like 50% contained.

[00:16:17] It's the downed trees, all of that debris, all of the wood, everything that's on the ground, it's dried out, and it's awesome fuel for forest fires. And two other fires then broke out over the last 24 hours, also in McDowell County. They're much smaller, but the Crooked Creek fire, the first one, had burned more than 250 acres.

[00:16:47] And hopefully, I mean, obviously they're out there fighting the fires and they're trying to clear some of the debris and make fire lines, that kind of stuff. But that was predicted, by the way. It was predicted that that would be a problem. Back in October, FoxWeather.com did a story predicting that this could occur because of all of the downed trees. And so now it has happened. Hopefully it'll be the last.

[00:17:13] All right, I hope you had a happy holiday season, but tell me if something like this happened at your house. Your family and friends are gathered around, maybe y'all are in the living room. You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing, and then somebody says, Hey, Dad, remember those old VHS tapes? Did you ever get them transferred? And then the room gets all quiet, all eyes are on Dad, who says, Oh, you know, well, I've been meaning to, but I just haven't gotten around to it.

[00:17:39] Look, don't let those priceless memories sit in a box for another year. All right, Create A Video has been helping families in the Charlotte area preserve their history since 1997. Simply bring in your old camcorder tapes and Create A Video will transfer them to a USB flash drive for just $14.95 per tape. You have a big collection? They've got a discount for you. And next year, instead of talking about those memories, imagine gathering the family to watch them together.

[00:18:07] Talk about a memorable gift. So do what I did. Trust the experts at Create A Video, conveniently located in Mint Hill, right off I-485, and online at createavideo.com. So the president has named four North Carolinians to be part of a panel evaluating FEMA. President Donald Trump, according to NCnewsline.com, a piece by Christine Zhu,

[00:18:36] President Donald Trump has designated Republican National Committee Chair Michael Watley and three other North Carolinians to serve on a panel charged with reviewing the work and the future of FEMA. Trump signed an executive order Friday that created the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council, or the FEMARC, or as I call it, the FEMA.

[00:19:02] The group analyzes the federal response to Hurricane Helene and other natural disasters. Later on in the piece, she writes that it's unclear what Trump's plan to reform FEMA would entail. Asked by reporters to elaborate on the proposal when he came to Western North Carolina last week, Trump said that he would prefer for states to get direct payouts from the federal government rather than coordinating with FEMA.

[00:19:29] By the way, just as an aside on this idea where a lot of our friends on the left don't understand, like, how this would even work. Well, just think of it in terms of, like, oh, I don't know, virtually every other federal program that you guys support, right? It's kind of like this blind spot that a lot of leftists have for school vouchers. And like, oh, my gosh, vouchers, vouchers are bad, vouchers are terrible and all this stuff. And it's like, yeah, but we use vouchers basically for, like, Medicare and Medicaid.

[00:19:58] You guys don't have any problem with that system, right? So how is it different? Same thing here, right? The federal government disperses all sorts of grants. I mean, haven't we heard over the last 48 hours, like, the meltdowns from the left and these NGOs, like, oh, we can't survive. The people will die. You know, children will starve and all this.

[00:20:20] If we don't get all of this grant money that Trump tried to freeze for review. You can't possibly do that. We rely on these grants. People will die. Well, why wouldn't you just apply that same defense of the grant making process over to the emergency response?

[00:20:44] Just as like these NGOs, I think you would argue, do this great work and probably do it better than GovCo does. Why wouldn't you just apply that same logic to FEMA? Right now, it does rely, admittedly so, on states being competent.

[00:21:03] And what we saw in North Carolina with Hurricanes Matthew and Florence, our governor was not very competent in disaster relief. Governor Roy Cooper was not good at statewide or even regional disasters. He wasn't. Matthew, Florence, COVID, right? He wasn't good at this.

[00:21:31] And it makes sense because he never had really any executive leadership. Right? He never had. He was in the attorney general's position for 16 years. And while you could say, yes, that's executive branch. But remember, he never did email. Remember that lie? I'm sorry. That story. He would only deal with people in person and on the phone.

[00:21:55] And that's so this way there's no public record of anything that he says or does except for like, hey, it's, you know, your coworker Joe's birthday today. Everybody wish Joe a happy birthday. You know, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. He had like, what was it, like 30 emails that he had sent over 16 years. Then that was all they could find when they did the FOIA request for his office. It was ridiculous. Like guys totally using a burner account. I do not believe that he does not use emails.

[00:22:24] Anyway, if we had a press corps that was interested in this up in Raleigh, I suspect there could have been a lot more pressure brought to bear to get the problems fixed down in eastern North Carolina. And so if you are going to do the block grant thing with FEMA going to, you know, send money to the states and let the states handle it, it's going to require governors to be better at disaster response.

[00:22:52] And when you elect a governor who is not good at disaster response, you end up with what we saw. And we're going to find out if Governor Josh Stein is good at disaster response now. We're going to find out. Right. And a lot of people will either benefit or suffer. All right. Let me jump over and get Steve. Hello, Steve. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Yeah.

[00:23:18] The reason they don't want to have money go directly to the states and they'd rather have it through an organization like FEMA is so they can launder it. They need to launder the money back to their whoever. That's why the Democrats don't ever like to have direct payments or vouchers. They want to be in control. Well, I mean, theoretically, the states would then be able to do the laundering, too, if that's the true motive.

[00:23:47] Well, I think it's trying to take one corrupt organization out of the equation completely, which would be FEMA. And hoping that the states will do a little bit of a better job. But, yeah, I mean, that's... Well, so I have heard this argument that FEMA funnels the money to their friends or whatever.

[00:24:09] Now, this goes to an aspect of the recovery efforts that they touched on in these hearings up in Raleigh, which is the infrastructure of your vendors, of your service providers, basically, your contractors. And if they are... If they're not given a sustained amount of work, they will go and get that work someplace else. And then when something happens and you've got to call them back, they're going to be busy.

[00:24:35] They've got other work that they're doing, you know, six, seven months planned out into the future. So it's hard to mobilize that. And so the idea was that, well, FEMA, with all of its money, they can mobilize that because they'll be able to send these people, these agents or these vendors, rather, you know, to all different areas of the country that need it. That was the idea. And if a state doesn't have a lot of disasters all the time, then maybe they can't mobilize as quickly. I don't know. I mean, I feel like that's a concern. I feel like it's a reasonable concern.

[00:25:05] And that needs to be addressed. Now, the flip side of that is that you end up with these companies that rely on that FEMA gravy train, right? And so are they doing the best work? If they get there first and they show up whenever FEMA calls, that's great. But maybe they're not doing the best job. And so FEMA then gives them like a preference for this work because they show up fast. But maybe the work isn't great. So it's a very complex problem when you're trying to rebuild homes for people.

[00:25:35] Steve, I do appreciate the call. It is. It's tough. It's tough to figure it out if you're in a state that doesn't see a lot of massive natural disasters. But I would point out, if you are of the mind that climate change is causing all sorts of massive natural disasters more and more frequently, then I kind of feel like you should have a system then put in place, right?

[00:25:57] I mean, if you believe that this was really happening, then you should stand up this kind of operation like an official state builder. Oh, crap. Did I just give somebody a bad idea? I apologize. That's a terrible idea. Don't do it.

[00:26:41] All right. I'll see you next time.

[00:27:16] So I mentioned Donald Trump. Donald Trump named four North Carolinians to this panel. I mentioned one. That's Michael Watley, former head of the North Carolina Republican Party. And then he went over and ran the National Republican Party. And he still is. He's the chairman of the RNC. Also on the committee. Or on the council, I should say, are members of Congress representing North Carolina.

[00:27:46] Republican representatives Virginia Fox of Banner Elk, Chuck Edwards from Flat Rock and Tim Moore of Kings Mountain. The panel will contain no more than 20 members and meet for one year to create a, quote, full scale review by individuals highly experienced at effective disaster response or recovery who shall recommend to the president improvements or structural changes to promote the national interest and enable national resilience.

[00:28:15] Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will oversee the committee. And again, that is from NC Newsline dot com. Got a message here from John. Oh, I love emails that start. This is a touchy question. John, are you stirring the pot here? OK. It's a touchy question.

[00:28:41] Not to sound cold hearted, but how much responsibility does the government have to make individuals whole for their loss? At what point does the government pick up the responsibility over the individuals? If I have a fire at my house and the insurance company does not cover all of the losses, government does not step in to make up the difference. Is there a limit to the losses?

[00:29:08] For instance, in California, those are multimillion dollar homes filled with probably a million dollars of personal items. Let's say is that the responsibility of the government to replace. I understand the urgency and need to get people into temporary housing. But is it the role of government to provide permanent housing to be in charge of the rebuilding process? We know government is probably the least efficient management out there.

[00:29:38] So, well, this raises the question, too, then. Why not? Why not cut the check to the individual people rather than wash it through the state government and have them deal with all of the permits and all that stuff? One of the things that came out, I mentioned this when I was chatting with Nick Craig at the beginning of the hour. I'm trying to remember the word that the guy in charge of Encore used. Guy's name is Pryor Gibson or previous Gibson, if you will.

[00:30:07] And he was saying that, like, there are like these unusual cases. It's one thing if like, OK, you know, you bought your home and it's in some subdivision and you've got everything properly platted and the deed is correct and the lot lines are drawn correctly and you're up to date on your taxes, all of that stuff.

[00:30:27] But when you and he warned Tim Moffitt, state senator from Henderson County, he said some he's like the case, the number of these unusual cases or something. And that's not the word that he used for it, but it's a class of the classification that they use. You're going to have way more of these out west. Up in the mountains, you are going to have way more because up there you have a lot of people that are land rich, cash poor.

[00:30:55] A lot of people that have land that's been in their family for generations and they build additional homes on that land. They'll bring in modular trailers or modular units or trailers, mobile units, whatever. And they they will take, you know, a 14, 15 acre piece of property and maybe you can only actually build on half of it. And then they will keep putting houses in a lot of places out there don't even have zoning rules.

[00:31:23] And so just over the years, over generations, more and more houses get put on that buildable acreage. But who actually owns that land? Well, maybe it was it was Papaw. And he's been dead for 50 years. OK, so who owns the house? OK, well, it was my, you know, I'll use the names he used like Aunt Susie.

[00:31:49] Aunt Susie owned the house, but she's she hadn't lived there. It's, you know, another cousin, Mary, who lives in the house. And has been for a long time. And she's the one that's out of the house. OK, so who are you dealing with? Like when you're having to do all of the paperwork and stuff, who signs that paperwork? Is it Aunt Susie? Can't get PayPal to do it. Papaw. I don't want to say PayPal. Papaw. It's like PayPal, like the Pope.

[00:32:19] The Pope ain't signing it. Papaw can't because he's long gone. Never been transferred over. So you got to clean up those records. OK, and then you go in, you're like, OK, so now out of the 14 acres, you got seven buildable acres. OK, you got, you know, let's say four houses on the acreage. Where are the property lines? Oh, we don't have any property lines. We didn't need any. Right. We're all family. OK. OK.

[00:32:45] So when you're doing a map for the build, right, you need you need the map. And then it's like, OK, well, let's look at then what where the lot lines are or where the property lines are. And it's like, well, we just know it goes down to like that creek down there. Does it? When you go. Have you ever read through how they designate property lines? Even in Mecklenburg County. It's nuts. It's nuts. It's like three or four pages. You go pull your property, go look at your deed or whatever.

[00:33:14] You'll see like where they describe what the lot lines are. And it takes like three pages. And some of this stuff, like old school stuff, some of the older documents, they'll say things like there's this tree. It's like you go 60 feet to the tree and then you make a left. Like. So it's not just like the coordinates on a map. A lot of it is now the modern day stuff is. But so there's all that that you got to sift through all that. So who is doing all of that work? Right.

[00:33:44] And now you've got state agents coming in and they're having to track all of this stuff down before they can even start the rebuilding because they got to get the permits and which permits from which entity. All of it. It's a lot. I mean, it's a huge undertaking. And that's what he was describing. And so that's why they have their case management mechanism and all that they've been using down east. But obviously that hasn't been working very well for a lot of people.

[00:34:10] And to their credit, over the last eight to six to eight years, because eight years ago was Matthew and then six years ago was Florence. They have put back into into their homes like 30. I think it was 3,400 families. They have rebuilt 3,400. Over eight years. Which is that still seems kind of slow. But yeah, they're either going to knock out 1,100 or 1,200 in a year, less than a year.

[00:34:40] And it took them eight years to build three times as many. I'm not supremely confident. Let me just say it that way. And what he's saying is out west, it's going to be an even bigger challenge. I think we need to get a whole bunch of experts and a bunch of builders together on this. But we'll see. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast.

[00:35:09] So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepcalendarshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.