Rebuilding Rural North Carolina After Hurricane Helene

In the first two episodes of season three of the Reimagine Rural podcast, Tony Pipa, Senior Fellow at Brookings’ Center for Sustainable Development, explores how two rural communities in western North Carolina, Old Fort and Canton, are recovering from Hurricane Helene—the most devastating storm in state history. To understand the policy implications of rebuilding rural North Carolina more deeply, he talked with Matt Calabria, director of the Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina (GROW NC), who is leading efforts to coordinate the state’s response and support these communities as they navigate their recovery.

This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

How does your office help facilitate rebuilding rural North Carolina after Hurricane Helene?

Tony Pipa (TP): Matt, thank you for speaking with me today. To get started, can you tell us about the governor’s recovery office? Why was it created, and where does it fit within the state government?

Matt Calabria (MC): Governor Josh Stein created GROW NC on his first full day in office to coordinate agencies, accelerate recovery, and maximize funding for an efficient process in western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.

My office is situated inside the governor’s office. That was intentional, because we want the work to be done by those best suited to it. You want the State Department of Transportation building and repairing roads. You want the Department of Environmental Quality working on water and resilience issues.

It made sense to have a centralized nerve center, a hub that had a lot of visibility for the governor to look across all agencies and identify gaps and overlaps, and make sure that we mitigate problems that can arise with such complex operations.

TP: How does your role intersect with the federal government?

MC: We interact with the federal government on a daily basis, including with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Just this morning I did a briefing for federal congressional staff, which I do every other week.