A structure damaged by Hurricane Helene in Old Fort, North Carolina, in fall 2024. Many residents affected through the state lacked flood insurance. Photo: NCDOTcommunications via Flickr Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0) TipSheet: Is Climate Disaster Insurance a Worsening Disaster? By Joseph A. Davis When Hurricane Helene inundated and wiped out large swaths of North Carolina and Tennessee in 2024, in some counties fewer than 2% of residents had flood insurance. Today, many still have not recovered.