Written by: 4/C Braeden Olmstead

Today, we started the day by waking up a little later, which I enjoyed. This was because we had a long day at FEMA. We drove to the FEMA Joint Office, which was located in a fairly upscale area. When we arrived, we had to present our IDs to security, who took them and issued us visitor passes. Overall, the security process was thorough.

We arrived at a meeting room where a discussion was held about the progress of recovery efforts and the programs currently in place. During the meeting, I learned how things were progressing and how fast the overall tempo of recovery was. Another thing I learned was that FEMA has a time limit on how many weeks someone can serve in one area due to tax-related regulations.

After the meeting, we met with the FEMA Coordinating Officer (FCO) for Hurricane Helene, DuWayne Tewes, and had the opportunity to ask him questions about how funding is affected by the new FEMA rules and how the aftereffects of the disaster are impacting wildland firefighting. Once that concluded, we went to Chimney Rock, a place I personally followed during the disaster response due to the controversy surrounding it.

In a meeting room there we met with local leaders and the fire chief of Chimney Rock, Chris Melton,  and Lake Lure, Dustin Waycaster. We discussed concerns about the rising risk of mudslides and how the tourism industry the town had built after COVID was destroyed. We then visited Lake Lure that was at imminent risk of collapse. We discussed dam safety and the changes that have been made to fix the issues, including weak sides of the dam and the lack of a safety valve.

After all of this, we returned and had dinner.