A federal agency reportedly briefly pulled its personnel out of a county in western North Carolina last week

FILE PHOTO: The Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters, Washington, DC. ©  Kent Nishimura / Getty Images

Federal employees responding to Hurricane Helene in Rutherford County, North Carolina, were threatened last week by militias and had to temporarily pull out, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

An email sent on Saturday by an official with the US Forest Service, which assists the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), advised federal responders to “stand down and evacuate the county immediately,” the newspaper said. The warning came after members of the National Guard claimed to have come across what they called “trucks of armed militia saying there [sic] were out hunting FEMA.”

The Post said two federal officials confirmed to it that the message was authentic. The newspaper stressed that it was not clear how serious the threat was assessed to be.

One of the sources said employees were moved to a “safe area,” which resulted in recovery work being put on hold in the area. Personnel were back in place by Sunday afternoon, the officials, who spoke to the newspaper on condition of anonymity, added.

 

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Journalist Brianna Sacks, who bylined the story, later published on her X account a message claiming that a firefighter crew had been instructed to avoid certain areas on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee “due to communities being governed by armed militias” there.

The Post described the incident in Rutherford County as the latest example of security issues in western North Carolina. In the two weeks since Hurricane Helene ravaged parts of the state, “misinformation and rumors have made the recovery more difficult,” the reports stated, claiming that some locals were refusing to cooperate with federal officials.

“It’s terrible because a lot of these folks who need assistance are refusing it because they believe the stuff people are saying about FEMA and the government,” Riva Duncan, a former Forest Service official, told the news outlet. “And it’s sad because they are probably the ones who need the help the most.”

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The Appalachian region of the US, which includes western North Carolina, tends to be less affluent and has come to be seen by many as having been left behind by the coastal political elites. It also has a long history of anti-federal sentiment.

On Friday, President Joe Biden denounced “reckless, irresponsible, and relentless disinformation and outright lies” for the death threats allegedly received by emergency response workers in remarks about the government’s hurricane response efforts.