Western NC went offline during Helene. Can the state stay connected in future disasters? ...0

Flood debris piles left in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Bat Cave, North Carolina. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

When Hurricane Helene tore through western Yancey County, Steve Boyd was one of thousands in the area who lost internet access.

The 70-year-old retiree, who lives outside of Burnsville, knows he got lucky. He didn’t lose his house, or his belongings — just a couple nearby trees that knocked out the power. For days after, getting back online was an afterthought.

“You don’t even think about internet when you don’t have lights, or anything else,” Boyd said.

His home, which sits off a miles-long county road, had been connected by coaxial cable. Shortly before the storm, he’d bought a new wi-fi system and new computers for him and his wife. But six months later, he’s still without internet. His provider, formerly a local shop that was later bought up by a larger company, has been working to restore service; he stops by their office daily.

Eventually, he broke down and decided to try out Starlink, the buzzy satellite internet service owned by SpaceX and Elon Musk. Boyd drove out to Best Buy and bought a $350 residential kit. When he got home, he set it up, only to realize there was a waitlist in the region. He paid $9 to get on it.

Many in western North Carolina impacted by Helene are now back online, after even the largest companies struggled to get service back up and running in the weeks after the storm. But the state isn’t just looking at getting access back to pre-Helene levels — it wants the entire state to have steady internet access.

It was set to be a long, complex process, even before Helene. Statewide connectivity means using a patchwork of solutions to reach communities like Boyd’s, investing hundreds of millions of dollars and navigating federal regulations that are about to see major changes.

All the while, natural disasters remain top of mind. When the mountains got hit, the whole region went off the grid. Can North Carolina prevent it from happening again?

Swaths of NC remain offline or underserved. The path to getting connected is complicated

Many parts of North Carolina remain either without stable internet or limited to slow speeds. Many of those places are rural communities — but not all of them. 

Parts of Wake and Mecklenburg counties, the state’s most populous areas, still struggle with limited connectivity. But the most challenging regions to get online are the rural ones: parts of the northern Piedmont, and long stretches of the southwest. 

“We have the second largest rural population in the country,” said Angie Bailey, the director of North Carolina’s broadband infrastructure office, in an interview with NC Newsline.

“So it’s those people in those areas that are sparsely populated, and it’s also figuring out how to work with broadband providers so they can get a return on investment.”

In total, there are more than 213,000 “unserved” locations across North Carolina, according to Federal Communications Commission data from June 2024. Those places have less than a 25 megabit per second download speed and three megabit per second upload speed. An additional 130,000 locations are “underserved,” with higher but still subpar speeds.

But finding agreement between locals and government surveyors on where exactly wiring is needed isn’t always easy, as one North Carolinian told attendees of a recent panel on rural broadband.

“I have verified the same hog house four times, that it doesn’t need power,” said Erna Bright, who has led broadband expansion efforts in northeast Gates County. “The satellite picture says it’s there, it’s unserved. Well, that pig doesn’t know how to use it.”

In the state’s most remote communities, laying fiber lines for just a few homes often doesn’t equal profits for prominent fiber companies. So officials have to look to other methods: wireless systems that bounce signals off mountains, or satellite connections like Starlink.

Still, some advocates are wary of those regions getting the short end of the stick in the process.

“It feels a lot like rural America doesn’t matter to the people who are making those decisions,” said Sara Nichols, an energy and economic development manager for Land of Sky Regional Council. “Because rural America has been given the ‘alternative technology solutions’ time and time again, that doesn’t quite meet their needs. Or it doesn’t meet them for long enough, because the technology changes pretty quickly.”

‘Building for resiliency’: How North Carolina can prevent hurricane blackouts in the future

Nobody knows whether it will be eastern or western North Carolina that takes the brunt of the next storm. But there’s no question that there will be a next storm.

“I’m not sure people thought about resiliency in the same way before the storm as they do now,” said Rep. Eric Ager (D-Buncombe). “People just didn’t imagine that mountainsides were going to slide down.”

Part of the federal requirements for broadband projects is having safety nets in place — for both regional residents and first responders during emergencies. But state officials will have to decide how to build them — and how much to spend.

A new contract signals one key part of that plan — Starlink, Musk’s low-earth orbit satellite service. The state plans to buy kits from the company for local governments and emergency officials to use during disaster scenarios.

“We see them as a huge, important partner,” said Bailey, the state broadband office director. “A huge resource for the state and country.”

The world’s richest man garnered praise and headlines when he suspended Starlink charges in western North Carolina directly after the storm, and had additional equipment flown into the region. State lawmakers, after struggling to find kits, had “backchanneled with some of Musk’s people” to get more dropped off, said state Rep. Jake Johnson (R-Polk). 

The Republican lawmaker envisions a library-esque loaner system with Starlink kits in the future, where residents can “check out” a unit and pay the annual subscription fee.

“Really, you’re just no-interest financing it from the state,” Johnson said.

Concerns remain among some about Starlink as a permanent solution. Months after the storm, there’s a lengthy regional waitlist for residents who want to boot up and get connected. And others are wary of Musk’s close ties to the Trump administration.

“Obviously, I think there are real corruption problems that we’re going to have to manage going forward,” Ager said. “I don’t think we know what those are yet, but we certainly don’t want people making decisions about the federal government having the ability to enrich themselves.”

Money for hurricane-safe upgrades could come through extra federal money that doesn’t get spent on connection needs. Bailey said any money that’s left over could be used to address redundancies, as well as amping up cellular connections. 

And Johnson predicted there would be a hefty chunk left from a $100 million program to replace fiber poles. It could be used to buy Starlinks, he said, or to upgrade communications for fire departments, shelters and county emergency staff.

“That was kind of the worst part of the storm — that nobody could talk to each other for a long time,” Ager said. “Communication got really difficult. And that was true for emergency responders as well as just regular people.”

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