Before leaving the governor's office, Roy Cooper stated in media interviews that Republican state legislators passed a bill that "actually took money away from western North Carolina." WFAE's Marshall Terry and WRAL's Paul Specht fact-check Cooper's claim.

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein asked state legislators Monday to roughly double their spending so far on recovery from Hurricane Helene, warning that waiting will cause more business closings, housing construction delays and students falling behind.

Verizon partnered with ForgiveCo to give a fresh start to thousands of North Carolinians affected by Hurricane Helene in a debt relief campaign worth $10 million dollars.

Residents are slowly rebuilding the village of Chimney Rock, North Carolina after Hurricane Helene. "There's hope coming back," said Shane Zoccole, one of the volunteers in the area.

North Carolina officials charged with leading recovery efforts in western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene have told state lawmakers that they need more money.

Verizon 's debt forgiveness program in North Carolina areas affected by Hurricane Helene has now seen $10 million of debt erased from the financial history of residents, which come in addition to a donation already disbursed to United Way of North Carolina in the aftermath of the storm.

After Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina last September, tens of thousands of homes were damaged and large swaths of the region were damaged by flooding. In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to speed up recovery,

Helene reshaped much of western North Carolina’s landscape, rerouting rivers and felling large swaths of forests. Aerial timber surveys indicate that Helene damaged over 800,000 acres of North Carolina’s forested land.