Nathan Garrison, a member of the Air Force, observed from a hotel parking lot while loader trucks cleared debris from a blocked road that used to lead to his house.
In a tableau that would be reenacted for hours, days, or perhaps years, the trucks gathered up dirt and cement and threw it into their waiting beds.
Garrison, 75, flicked Marlboro ashes off his scruffy white beard and remarked, “I lost everything.” Everything I owned ended up in the trash.
The federal government’s $500 million cleanup operation seemed to be barely scratching the surface more than two months after Hurricane Helene forced tens of thousands of people to flee the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina.
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