SWANNANOA, N.C. (828newsNOW) – Buncombe County locals and others gathered before noon Friday, Jan. 24, to watch President Donald J. Trump’s motorcade roll through the hurricane-ravaged town of Swannanoa.
For his first official trip in his second term in office, Trump held a news conference in Fletcher earlier in the morning, then drove to Swannanoa to visit the destruction from Tropical Storm Helene’s mountain warpath.
Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and president of Samaritan’s Purse, who prayed for the incoming president at his inauguration earlier this week, supposedly gave the world leader a tour of an area along the Swannanoa River where homes were destroyed during the flooding of Western North Carolina.
Trump and Graham’s visit was a relatively private affair, lasting from 12:27 to 1:18 p.m. Apart from the White House pool, reporters were not permitted access to the area.
A few hundred locals lined up on street corners in Swannanoa hoping to get a glimpse of the president or lift a sign of protest at his car. Most were supportive of his visit, even though it disrupted the daily commutes of thousands of Ashevillians.
“How soon they gonna send the money up here to help these people because it’s bad,” said Tim Dameron, of DC Enterprise, a demolition and cleanup company.
Hoping to see the former and current president, Dameron said, “I’d like to shake his hand.”
Two Tennesseans, Debbie Benton and Anette Eilis, had planned to hike Catawba Falls on Friday.
“We had no idea he’s coming here,” Benton said. She wanted to thank Trump “for being the person he is and helping our country… he’s rich, he could be playing golf right now.”
About the people still suffering from the tropical storm, the two friends shared the sentiment, “It’s so devastating, it’s like they forgot them.”
Redneck Housing Relief, an Arizona group that has been offering aid in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene for the past four months, happened to be in the area attempting to hand out supplies when they became trapped by the road closures.
“We’re at this location literally five times a day,” said Kristen Cerepak.
Her husband, Nate, explained they have been doing so much relief work around Western North Carolina that, “We ran the wheels off of our truck. We had to rent this van.”
Nate Cerepak said he and his team have been working for “God, God man, and the fact that these people are American.” In total, Cerepak believes he has spent $160,000 of his own money aiding Helene victims, including giving $751 to those FEMA denied the $750 in aid.
“We’re just right down the road,” said Paul Billiot Jr. “Just wonder what’s he gonna do for us. What’s he gonna do for the people of Black Mountain, Swannanoa and Asheville.”
Emily Smith, a protester in a sea of Trump supporters, explained her sign as, “I’d like to explain to President Trump and his administration that to prevent natural disasters we need to save the environment.”
Smith decried the president’s recent decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords again.
If given the chance to speak to the president directly, she stated, “I don’t know if I would be able to compose myself. I don’t think I would shake his hand.”
Trump was expected to speak in California later Friday amid the ongoing wildfire crisis in Los Angeles.