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Cooper Asks For Additional $5 Billion In Florence Relief

A house is surrounded by floodwaters from Hurricane Florence in Lumberton, N.C., Monday, Sept. 17, 2018. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Governor Roy Cooper is looking to secure another $5 billion in federal funds for Hurricane Florence recovery efforts. Cooper says the state needs to build up resilience before the next major storm strikes.

The governor made his request while in Washington meeting with North Carolina's congressional delegation.

The News and Observer reports that Congress has already appropriated $1 billion for Florence recovery, but Cooper's office estimates that the storm brought $17 billion in damages to the state. That's on top of the devastation from Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

Cooper says that following two major hurricanes in less than two years, the state needs to “build back smarter and stronger.”

The governor says some of the aid will go to helping with infrastructure, housing and relief for farmers.

While in the nation's capital, Cooper also met with Housing and Urban Development secretary Ben Carson. The governor wants a change in federal law to allow HUD block grants to be awarded for both recoveries at one time, speeding up the process.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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