In this monologue, the speaker critiques the federal and state response to flood damage caused by Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina. He highlights that FEMA assistance to affected homeowners is minimal—often only a few hundred dollars—while the North Carolina emergency management agency offers buyouts that are reimbursed 75% by FEMA. The speaker questions why the same funds cannot be used to help homeowners stay in their homes, arguing that the current policy forces residents to abandon their property and community. He invokes historical notions of private property (Federalist No. 54) and legal principles (the Chevron Doctrine) to argue that FEMA is overstepping its authority. The speaker also points out complications from mortgage and flood‑insurance requirements that leave homeowners with no viable financial support to rebuild. He calls on listeners to contact state and federal legislators, urging them to limit FEMA’s jurisdiction and restore agency to property owners.
Chapters
I have a question for y'all on December 6th right here. Does FEMA have money or not? Does North Carolina have money or not? Because I have met with dozens of people in Western North Carolina one-to-one and asked them, as I'm processing other grant money, have you received help from North Carolina? The answer is no. Have you received help from FEMA? The answer is sometimes. And I'll ask, great, how much did you get? $750. $300. Or the lady I spoke to this week who's in a trailer house that has mold, the roof is messed up, but they're still living in it. FEMA came and told them it's uninhabitable. So you know how much FEMA gave them? $3,500. Now tell me this, y'all, and I don't care what side of the aisle you're on, how in the name of heavens is $3,500 the amount of money that should be offered to somebody whose house is deemed uninhabitable when They have nowhere else to go and they don't want to leave. We got to talk about this, this situation going on. The people don't want to leave. Now, there might be a couple that do and we wish them all the best and I want them to have what they want. But here's what's latest. North Carolina's emergency system has said they will do buyouts of houses impacted by Helene. Here's how the buyout works. You can get the money for your property based on pre-Helene values. Now, I did a whole video and an article in the Carolina Journal about this. So, you know what questions to ask. Ask, and they will give you the money. Why will they give you the money for the buyout but not to stay in the house you want? Somebody's gonna have to answer that for me. Well, I found out it's because if North Carolina buys you out of that house, they get reimbursed 75% of it from FEMA. Okay, so if FEMA can reimburse 75% of the buyout value and North Carolina has the money to do it right now, how come the homeowner can't have that money to stay put? Because the outcome of selling your property to North Carolina and FEMA with the local authorities' blessing is that then they will finish demolishing and it will turn into green space. Oh, because that's so good for us. So I asked the legislator, I said, what's going to happen with that green space? I said, who's going to maintain it? And he said, well, it'll be funded by taxpayer dollars. And I said, guess what, buddy? All of this is funded by taxpayer dollars. Y'all got to figure this out. It's taxpayer dollars that FEMA is using and North Carolina is using to buy people out of their homes when all they want to do is stay. All right, so let's just riddle me this. If the government's willing to give them $150,000 for that single wide, how come they can't have the $150,000 to stay put? Why do they only get it if they leave? That doesn't make sense to me because that takes away the agency of the citizen. And frankly, it's completely un-American. Go read Federalist 54 and you will see how important private property was to our founding fathers. And it's got to be important to us again. Now there's a bigger question here too. Why does FEMA have jurisdiction to do this? How much power does this agency have? And when is some very bright lawyer gonna call me? Y'all, please share this with your lawyer friends. Seems to me that the Chevron Doctrine, which got overturned by the Supreme Court this year, should be in play here. Because FEMA is nothing more than an agency overstepping its bounds. And we have local authorities caving to FEMA. North Carolina's doing whatever they're told to do because they wanna grab the money. And you know who's caught in the middle of all this in the worst possible position? It's a homeowner who wants to stay in their communities. Yesterday, I was meeting with some people in a small town. It's not even a town, it's a hamlet, really. And they don't want to go. They love their community. They love their neighbors, and they want to stay put. But they're going to see these dollars, and if the only access to the dollars is to leave, what are they going to do? Why are we putting up with this, y'all? Not everybody wants to live in a 15-minute city. Not everybody wants to live even in a big town. Some people enjoy the privacy of the mountains, which is one of the beauties of this area. Now, FEMA wants to tell people you can't rebuild because, oh, you might flood again. Y'all, this was a once in a thousand year flood. And if somebody wants to stay put, why can't they sign a waiver? In fact, let's talk about that real quick, because if you have a mortgage on a property, the mortgage requires you to have insurance, and insurance ain't paying right now. And the mortgage might require you to have flood insurance, and flood insurance ain't paying. So why exactly does the bank get to make you hold insurance and flood insurance when those items won't pay out anyway. And then here you are, you're in a property that you were told was okay, but you can't get payout from insurance or flood insurance. And now you're told the only way to get any money to get your life going is to leave. It's wrong. It's wrong. If you're in North Carolina, I need you to call your legislators on the Raleigh level and the DC level and tell them to shut FEMA down. FEMA should not have the final word over what our North Carolina citizens can do. Raleigh should be saying to the people, what do you want? Because the last time I checked, nobody in any level of government is asking the people what they want. I will, because I'm a North Carolina taxpayer too. And for the record, these dollars that y'all are throwing around, they're my dollars. I'm a taxpayer. It's the person I talked to yesterday in that single wide. They're her dollars. Why don't we have a voice? Y'all, you need to express it, and not just by commenting and sharing on this video, by calling your elected officials and demanding that they get FEMA out of the way and let people stay put.
