Spokespeople for the city and Buncombe County, which includes Asheville, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on residents’ criticisms.
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Cooper said at a press conference Monday that people are working tirelessly to provide food, water and aid. He said flooding and continued river rises are making it difficult for first responders to enter some communities.
At a news conference early Monday, Buncombe County Mayor Avril Pinder expressed frustration with what she said was a slow response to requests for supplies.
“We have been asking for water and we are still getting water, but the amount is still low,” she said. “There are great needs in our communities, and we want a different response from our state partners, a better response from our state partners.” Meeting these demands through FEMA .
At a White House briefing on Monday, Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall told reporters that FEMA is focused on pre-positioning operations in Florida’s Big Bend region and that its efforts are saving lives. said. After landing, there was a “surge in supply capacity where it was needed most.” He noted that western North Carolina has now been identified as the hardest hit region.
Rep. Chuck Edwards, a Republican who represents western North Carolina, said state emergency officials can’t tell him where 400 pallets of food and water from FEMA meant for hurricane relief went. Edwards’ staff said two counties in particular are in dire need of water: Haywood and McDowell. FEMA said in a news release that it sent 25 trailers of food and 60 trailers of water to North Carolina.
State officials are currently distributing the doses, but Edwards staff said they don’t yet know where or when they will be distributed. State officials told Edwards’ team in an email Sunday that the state is leaving it up to each county to make any announcements about where food and water will be distributed. “If you just tell the people that water or something has been dropped at point X, you’ll see people actually fighting over who gets what,” the official said.
In response to a question from NBC News on Monday whether FEMA knows what happened to the water and why it can’t get it to the people who need it most quickly, Criswell said FEMA doesn’t know what happened to the water. “We’re going to send as many resources as they ask for,” he said, “and we’re going to push it forward.” There’s water in it. ”
“We all need to come together to understand where our communities are, and maybe we just haven’t been able to get those resources to them yet,” she said.
NBC News also asked FEMA spokeswoman Jaclyn Rothenberg about a request for more resources issued on Sept. 17, citing “severe shortages” in some disaster response teams. Rotenberg acknowledged that staffing was an issue. “It is true that we carry out many missions in the face of many disasters,” she said. That’s why the agency in mid-September recruited what it called an “emergency capability unit.”
On Monday, about three days after Helen hit Florida as a Category 4 storm, survivors in North Carolina were shuffling from shelter to shelter in search of food and clean water.
