Hurricane Helene exposes the deadly priorities of US capitalism
As the death toll from Hurricane Helene rises and people search through the rubble of their destroyed towns for survivors, policymakers prioritise US imperialism in the Middle East and business interests at home.
With more than 220 people already confirmed dead and hundreds reported missing, Helene is the deadliest US hurricane since Katrina laid waste to New Orleans in 2005. The Appalachian region of North Carolina was particularly hard hit by the storm, despite being historically less affected by hurricanes. Severe rainfall caused record-breaking floods, swallowing up entire towns, cutting off power and water, and destroying access roads.
In the small North Carolina town of Marshall, reporter Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs described one particularly harrowing story for the New York Times. Bruce Tipton’s home was destroyed by the flood while he was still inside. The 75-year-old managed to grab hold of a tree and call out for help. He clung on for six hours, waiting for a rescue team to arrive, while his family and friends watched helplessly from the riverbank. But there was only one volunteer rescue team for the entire county. When the team finally arrived, they told his family that a rescue was impossible because it was too dangerous without a motorboat—they had only rafts. Eventually, he succumbed to the floodwater. They still haven’t found his body.
Tipton’s fate is just one of hundreds of similar stories in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. But these tragedies were not the result only of a freak weather event beyond anyone’s control. They were exacerbated by the priorities of a sick system.
Climate scientists have been warning that climate change is increasing the severity of hurricanes in the US. Climate Central released a report in May that said the Appalachian region is carrying an outsized burden for current and future flooding. Yet the North Carolina state legislature has spent the last decade reversing climate adaptation measures and slashing environmental regulations in the interests of developers and the fossil fuel sector.
In 2023, Republican lawmakers overturned building codes requiring inspections for inland houses to certify that they are built to withstand hurricane-force winds. The change was backed by the North Carolina Home Builders Association, a developers’ group. They argued it was unnecessary outside of coastal areas, despite predictions of inland communities facing greater risk of damaging hurricanes as climate change intensifies. The same group also backed legislation to open the state’s wetlands to development. Wetlands are like sponges for rainwater and are a crucial part of flood mitigation. Instead, they were filled in so developers could build flimsy houses, destroying the very asset that could defend against the devastating floods that swept away Tipton’s trailer in minutes.
In a logical society, these actions would be considered egregiously reckless. However, under capitalism, reducing costly environmental regulations is better for business than ensuring that houses are safe to live in.
Not only did the state legislature inhibit storm-proofing of communities, but lawmakers also went out of their way to protect fossil fuel production and usage. A report by the Environmental Integrity Project found that the state reduced funding to the Department of Environmental Quality by 35 percent in the decade from 2008, one of the biggest cuts to a state environment agency in the country at the time. Power companies like Duke Energy were given sweetheart deals so they would not have to properly remediate areas impacted by toxic wastewater from their power plants (incidentally, the governor at the time, Pat McCrory, was a former executive at Duke Energy).
Comedian Stephen Colbert joked that North Carolina was the state that “outlawed climate change”. But jokes aside, these laws propped up the profits of developers and fossil fuel companies, with full knowledge of the risk they posed to communities. And people have likely died because of it.
The similarities to how Hurricane Katrina was handled in 2005 are striking. In the wake of Katrina, former President George W. Bush’s administration expanded funding for the United States’ war in Iraq instead of adequately supporting communities impacted by the storm.
But refusing to mitigate the climate crisis and protect communities against increasingly extreme weather events is not the purview only of Republicans. Today, a Democratic administration is prioritising US imperialist interests in the Middle East over protecting its citizens from catastrophic climate change. At the same time as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced a funding shortfall of US$9 billion urgently needed to deal with the fallout of Helene, the Biden administration gave a further US$8.7 billion in aid to Israel to continue its genocide in Gaza and invasion of Lebanon.
At the drop of a hat, the US government can send aircraft carriers with thousands of personnel and advanced equipment to the Middle East. But Bruce Tipton had to cling for his life to a tree for six hours because there was only one under-resourced volunteer rescue team available for the entire county.
Tragically, another hurricane has now made landfall in Florida. It could potentially be even more destructive than Helene. But FEMA is suffering from an acute staffing shortage, meaning more people could be stranded without rescue, just like Tipton. The agency has indicated that only 9 percent of its staff are available for deployment to Florida as it is battling numerous other environmental disasters. The money to prevent further loss of life is there, but it’s being spent on blowing up Palestinian children.
This is what our rulers think of us. From Gaza to North Carolina, ordinary people dying in preventable disasters are just the price of doing business under capitalism.
