There has been much coverage and controversy about the failure to move active-duty military personnel and resources swiftly to western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.
It didn’t have to be that way.
At the heart of the Biden-Harris leadership failure in North Carolina is the failure to make a timely appointment of a dual-status commander in coordination with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. Typically, the secretary of Defense appoints a dual-status commander at a governor’s request before or right after a natural disaster. The role of the dual-status commander is to manage state and federal forces to “improve unity of effort and ensure rapid response” in a major disaster. Such a role is vitally important in a state like North Carolina, which has so many active-duty personnel and resources available to assist with disaster response.
The Biden-Harris administration did not approve the appointment of the dual-status commander for North Carolina until Oct. 2, four days after President Joe Biden declared a major disaster in North Carolina and six days after Hurricane Helene made landfall.
In contrast, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved the dual-status commander requests for the same storm from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Sept. 27. Why was there a six-day delay in establishing a dual-status commander in North Carolina? The liberal media’s silence on this six-day delay only deepens the concern surrounding the mishandling of the situation.
In light of this, we applaud Sen. JD Vance’s recent op-ed highlighting how the Biden-Harris administration mismanaged the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene. This failure to appoint a dual-status commander for a major disaster before Hurricane Helene hit or in the early days of the disaster response slowed initial response and recovery efforts.
This was not a “robust, all-of-government” response like the Biden-Harris White House claims. It was far from it. We cannot speak to why the dual-status commander appointment did not happen quickly, but we can all see the disastrous consequences of the bureaucratic delay, incompetence, or indifference.
We have had a front-row seat to disaster preparedness and response in a White House that took seriously the partnership with state, local and tribal leaders on natural disasters. One of us also proudly led active-duty forces in the Tar Heel State. The failure to appoint a dual-status commander quickly in North Carolina was a disservice to federal-state-local front-line personnel and first responders — and most importantly, to North Carolinians affected by the deadly storm. Disaster response is marked by hours and minutes, not days. To wait six days, or better put, 144 hours, to appoint a dual-status commander was a major failure by the Biden-Harris Administration and Cooper.
Keith Kellogg is a retired three-star Army general who served as acting national security adviser to President Donald J. Trump and national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence.
Doug Hoelscher previously served as Assistant to the President for intergovernmental affairs to President Donald J. Trump.