Farmers, business owners, fire survivors face uncertainty after $100B in disaster relief flounders

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — American farmers, small business owners and wildfire survivors are among those who will suffer if Congress cannot agree on a new spending bill after President-elect Donald Trump abruptly rejected a bipartisan plan that included more than $100 billion in disaster aid.

A mayor in Hawaii is watching closely to see what happens because a potential allocation of $1.6 billion in funding is on the line. It's critical to ongoing disaster recovery efforts from the 2023 Maui fire, which proved to be the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century.

“I think what funding does is provides people with hope so they can plan for their future,” Maui Mayor Richard Bissen told The Associated Press Thursday. “And the longer we go without funding, the longer people wallow and wonder, is there a chance? Is there a path? Do I cut my losses? Do I leave?”

While money from the Federal Emergency Management Administration has provided temporary relief, the disaster recovery funding was intended for long-term needs such as housing assistance and rebuilding infrastructure, he said. The historic town of Lahaina is still struggling after the August 2023 fire killed at least 102 people and leveled thousands of homes, leaving behind an estimated $5.5 billion in damage.

The money is also urgently needed after Hurricanes Helene and Milton slammed the southeastern United States one after the other this fall. Helene alone was the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005, killing at least 221 people. Nearly half were in North Carolina where flooding and winds caused an estimated $60 billion in damage.

“I’m tracking this bill like a hawk right now, to be honest,” Asheville Tea Co. founder and CEO Jessie Dean said. “I think a lot of us are.”

Flooding from Helene in September washed away the company's building along with all of its equipment and inventory. Her small business employs 11 people directly and also works with small farmers in the area to supply the herbs for its teas.

On Thursday, Republicans released a new version of the bill to keep the government operating and restore the disaster aid, but it faced an uncertain pathway. While President-elect Donald Trump lauded the revised plan, Democratic legislative leaders indicated they were opposed. Some Democratic support would likely be needed in the face of opposition by hardline members of the GOP.

“I realize there are other distractions that are going on, but I would just bring everybody back to their commitment to help disaster survivors,” said Bissen, Maui's mayor. “And that’s really all this is. We have a proven and established, legitimate disaster that took place. And we are coming up on 16 months, which no other disasters ever had to wait that long for.”

In Asheville, Dean is extremely grateful for support the business has received from customers and nonprofits that is helping it stay afloat right now, but more is needed. So far she has received no money from the U.S. Small Business Administration after applying for a disaster relief loan. Neither have any of the other business owners she knows.

“In day to day life right now, I'm talking to friends every day who are struggling with the decision around whether or not to continue to run their business, whether or not they can," she said.

Many farmers are in the same boat, since about $21 billion of the disaster aid in the earlier version of the bill was assistance for them.

“Without federal disaster money right now, or without some assistance, people like me will not be farming much longer,” Georgia pecan farmer Scott Hudson said. He farms 2,600 acres (1,050 hectares) of pecans across five counties in southeastern Georgia that were hammered by Hurricane Helene.

“We lost thousands of trees that will be decades before they are back to where they were the night before the storm,” he said. “And we lost upwards to 70% of the crop in certain counties.”

Some of his fellow farmers fared even worse.

“Whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, the farmers need this money,” he said. “American ag needs this money ... not to be profitable, to just stay in business.”

People like retired engineer Thomas Ellzey are also counting on disaster aid. He has been living in a mud-filled house in Fairview, North Carolina, for almost three months. Although he pre-qualified for a low-interest loan from the SBA that helps homeowners rebuild, officials have told him the agency does not have the money and is waiting on Congress to act.

Ellzey is 71 years old and said he budgeted carefully for his retirement, trying to prepare for every possible emergency that could come up once he stopped working. But he couldn’t have predicted a hurricane, he said.

“Everything I owned was paid for, including my cars, the house, the land. I had no bills,” he said. “Going back in debt is kind of rough at my age.”

The earlier version of the spending bill included included funding for low-interest loans for businesses, nonprofits and homeowners trying to rebuild after a disaster; money for rebuilding damaged roads and highways; and funds for helping communities recover through block grants administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The block grant money is one of the key funds for homeowners who don’t have insurance or enough insurance recover from disasters.

Although hurricanes Helene and Milton are the most recent large natural disasters to hit the U.S., a lot of the money was intended more generally for relief from any major disaster in recent years, including droughts and wildfires.

Stan Gimont is senior adviser for community recovery at Hagerty Consulting who used to run the community development block grant program at HUD. He noted that the country is still paying for disasters that happened while it simultaneously prepares for events that will happen in the future.

The Maui fire is a clear example.

“It took a year to clean that up and to get it to a point where they have removed all the debris, all the toxic materials and the burned up cars, whatever was in those houses,” Gimont said. “So even though that event occurred in the past, the bills for that are going to come due in the future.”

Willingham reported from Charleston, W.Va., and Kelleher reported from Honolulu. Rebecca Santana contributed from Washington. Gary Robertson contributed from Raleigh, N.C. Videojournalist Brittany Peterson contributed from Denver.

FILE - Homes consumed in wildfires are seen in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, Aug. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - Maui Mayor Richard Bissen looks on during a media tour on Front Street, showing recovery efforts after 2023's wildfire, June 26, 2024, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin, File)

FILE- North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, right, and Deanne Criswell, Administrator of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, await the arrival of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris for a briefing on the damage from Hurricane Helene, at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, in Charlotte, N.C., Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)

FILE - Michael Vierra looks at his house after it was destroyed by a wildfire, in Lahaina, Hawaii, Sept. 26, 2023. Authorities in Maui strongly encouraged homeowners to wear protective gear provided by nonprofit groups when visiting their properties to protect against asbestos, lead and other toxic remains of the wildfire. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin, File)

FILE - As Hurricane Milton approaches, a car sits half-buried in sand in Bradenton Beach, Fla., in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

FILE - Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the damage and federal response to Hurricane Helene, in Swannanoa, N.C., Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

FILE - Ben Phillips, left, and his wife Becca Phillips scrape mud out of their living room in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, in Marshall, N.C., Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

DELPHI, Ind. (AP) — An Indiana man convicted in the 2017 killings of two teenage girls who vanished during a winter hike was sentenced to a maximum of 130 years in prison Friday in the case that’s long cast a shadow over the teens’ small hometown of Delphi.

A special judge sentenced Richard Allen during a hearing that began at 9 a.m. Allen, 52, was convicted on Nov. 11 in the killings of Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, known as Abby and Libby. A jury found him guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit kidnapping.

Allen was sentenced on two of the four murder counts by Allen County Superior Court Judge Fran Gull, who imposed the maximum of 65 years for each count, to be served consecutively. The sentencing hearing, which included victim impact statements from six relatives of the teens, lasted less than two hours and after it concluded one of Allen’s defense attorneys said they plan to appeal and seek a new trial.

“Thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims. What they went through was unimaginable,” defense attorney Jennifer Auger said. She added that the defense plans to give a more detailed statement later, “but today is not the day for that.”

Allen had faced between 45 years and 130 years in prison in the killings of the Delphi teens.

Allen also lived in Delphi and when he was arrested in October 2022, more than five years after the killings, he was employed as a pharmacy technician at a pharmacy only blocks from the county courthouse where he later stood trial. His weekslong trial came after repeated delays, a leak of evidence, the withdrawal of his public defenders and their reinstatement by the Indiana Supreme Court.

The case, which included tantalizing evidence, has long drawn outsized attention from true-crime enthusiasts. The teens were found dead in February 2017, their throats cut, one day after they vanished while hiking during a day off school.

Gull, the special judge who oversaw Allen's trial, came from northeastern Indiana’s Allen County, as did the jury.

The seven women and five men were sequestered throughout the trial, which began Oct. 18 in the Carroll County seat of Delphi, the girls’ hometown of about 3,000 residents some 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Indianapolis.

Allen's trial came after repeated delays, a leak of evidence, the withdrawal of his public defenders and their reinstatement by the Indiana Supreme Court.

The case, which included tantalizing evidence, has long drawn outsized attention from true-crime enthusiasts.

A relative dropped the teens off at a hiking trail just outside Delphi on Feb. 13, 2017. The eighth graders didn't arrive at the agreed pickup location and were reported missing that evening. Their bodies were found the next day with their throats cut in a wooded area near an abandoned railroad trestle they had crossed.

In his closing arguments, Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland told jurors that Allen, armed with a gun, forced the youths off the hiking trail and had planned to rape them before a passing van made him change his plans and he cut their throats. McLeland said an unspent bullet found between the teens’ bodies “had been cycled through” Allen’s .40-caliber Sig Sauer handgun.

An Indiana State Police firearms expert told the jury her analysis tied the round to Allen’s handgun.

McLeland said Allen was the man seen following the teens across the Monon High Bridge in a grainy cellphone video German had recorded. And he said it was Allen’s voice that could be heard on that video telling the teens, “ Down the hill ″ after they crossed the bridge.

“Richard Allen is Bridge Guy,” McLeland told jurors. “He kidnapped them and later murdered them.”

McLeland also noted that Allen had repeatedly confessed to the killings — in person, on the phone and in writing. In one of the recordings he replayed for the jury, Allen could be heard telling his wife, “I did it. I killed Abby and Libby.”

Allen’s defense argued that his confessions were unreliable because he was facing a severe mental health crisis while under the pressure and stress of being locked up in isolation, watched 24 hours a day and taunted by people incarcerated with him. A psychiatrist called by the defense testified that months in solitary confinement could make a person delirious and psychotic.

Defense attorney Bradley Rozzi said in his closing arguments that Allen was innocent. He said no witness explicitly identified Allen as the man seen on the hiking trail or the bridge the afternoon the girls went missing. He also said no fingerprint, DNA or forensic evidence links Allen to the murder scene.

Allen’s lawyers had sought to argue during the trial that the girls were killed in a ritual sacrifice by members of a white nationalist group known as the Odinists who follow a pagan Norse religion. The judge, however, ruled against that, saying the defense “failed to produce admissible evidence” of such a connection.

Spectators line up to enter the Carroll County Courthouse for the sentencing of Richard Allen, convicted in the 2017 killings of two teenage girls , in Delphi, Ind., Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

FILE - Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter announces the arrest of Richard Allen for the murders of two teenage girls killed in 2017, during a news conference in Delphi, Ind., Oct. 31, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

FILE - Officers escort Richard Allen out of the Carroll County Courthouse following a hearing, Nov. 22, 2022, in Delphi, Ind. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File)