Damning news report revives questions about Trump, NC Legislature and flood control • NC Newsline

Former President Donald Trump will be in Fayetteville today for an event dubbed a “town hall.” So it seems at least possible that he and the North Carolina Republican officials who usually come to such events to support him will be asked a question or two by those in attendance. If that's the case, and there's someone in the audience with a little courage, here's a question that deserves to be asked:

Why have both the Trump administration and North Carolina lawmakers repeatedly blocked rules that would have strengthened flood protection and storm standards that may have saved lives and property during Hurricane Helene?

As The New York Times reported in an extensive report on Thursday, “decisions made by state officials in the years leading up to Helene most likely exacerbated some of that damage, according to experts in building standards and disaster resilience.”

The state officials in question were the Republican leaders of the North Carolina General Assembly.

While the report admits from the outset that “no amount of preparation could have completely prevented the devastation unleashed by Helene,” it also explains in painful detail how GOP legislative leaders have done so since taking control of the General Assembly in 2011 again distorted laws and rules and overrode gubernatorial vetoes intended to protect against the effects of hurricanes and other storms.

Among the rejected proposals were regulations aimed at “limiting construction work on slopes with a high or medium landslide risk.”

This is from the report:

Not surprisingly, there were very similar anti-regulatory actions at the federal level during the Trump years. This is according to a Washington Post report published in the first year of the Trump administration:

As has often been the case in North Carolina over the past decade, Trump's actions came in response to moves by the housing lobby seeking repeal and over the objections of insurers and environmentalists. This, of course, is the same Donald Trump who repeatedly lied about relief and recovery efforts for Helene earlier this week.

Such deregulation measures, unfortunately, are also of the same kind that Americans can expect as early as next year as part of the detailed policy plan drawn up by the Heritage Foundation called Project 2025 – a blueprint for a new one developed by the Republican-led era in Washington, which contains many proposals to limit or eliminate regulations to promote public safety and welfare.

The bottom line: As North Carolinians across the state struggle to catch their breath following the Helene disaster, many questions arise about why we weren't better prepared, how we can engineer a rapid recovery, and how we can make communities more resilient in the future . And as the news reports above make clear, many of these questions about poor preparation need to be directed directly to Republican lawmakers and, whenever he visits North Carolina, to former President Trump.