In The News 3 October 2024

One call so western North Carolina can make thousands

By Alan Wooten
The Center Square

A North Carolina state senator all too familiar with hurricanes made one call. Western North Carolina will get thousands more out of it.

In a social media post this week, state Sen. Danny Britt, R-Robeson, said he put in a call to former President Donald Trump so communications crushed by the remnants of Hurricane Helene could be restored quicker. Trump called Elon Musk, and “as many Starlink devices as we need to help save North Carolinians” are committed, Britt wrote. Musk is offering the service free to everyone in western North Carolina for at least 30 days.

According to its website, Starlink “is the world’s first and largest satellite constellation using a low Earth orbit to deliver broadband internet capable of supporting streaming, online gaming, video calls and more.” Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX is the parent of the subsidiary that launched in 2019.

Communications companies, like Verizon and AT&T, are dealing with cell towers that tumbled and fiber cables that are damaged. Federal aid – regularly wrapped in bureacratic government red tape regulations – has been approved for North Carolina, and is plodding through.

For a multibillionaire like Musk, efficiency is premium.

Britt’s district in southeastern North Carolina, on the Interstate 95 corridor, was devastated by Hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018. Some areas are still recovering.

Helene was a Category 4 storm when it slammed into the Big Bend of Florida on Thursday evening, zipping northward through Georgia and easing westerly to drench the Appalachian Mountains and Tennessee.

On Monday afternoon, 425 roads were out – nine of them interstate sections – and 24 hours later the number had dipped and then risen to 430 at 5 p.m. Only three were interstates, including two lanes of I-40 about 4 miles from the North Carolina-Tennessee state line that slid into the Pigeon River.

Fifty-seven people died in the Buncombe County area around Asheville. Across six states in the Southeast, the death toll had climbed past 150.
 

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