January 21, 2019 — Gov. Roy Cooper watched Thursday afternoon with Brent Fulcher, owner of Beaufort Inlet Seafood Co., as hundreds of pounds of shrimp were processed at the seafood business on Old Causeway Road.
The two were discussing the continued recovery effort from the aftermath of Hurricane Florence.
Cooper said he was in the Carteret County town because he wanted to listen to commercial fishermen to hear about the effects of Hurricane Florence.
“Clearly there’s a period of time after the storm that’s devastating economically for our commercial fishermen,” Cooper explained, adding that significant funding has been proposed to help commercial fishermen. There’s a program now in place, for which commercial fishermen can apply to receive financial help to help them recover.
The 2018 Hurricane Florence Disaster Recovery Act and an act to provide additional disaster relief allocated funding to the Department of Environmental Quality. This legislation directed $1.6 million to the Division of Marine Fisheries to compensate commercial fishermen and shellfish harvesters for equipment and income losses from harvest reductions. Another $10 million was directed to the division for commercial fishing assistance for holders of a Standard Commercial Fishing License, Retired Standard Commercial Fishing License and N.C. Resident Shellfish License between Sept. 1 and Nov. 30, 2018, for reductions in landings as reported from trip ticket data compared with average landings over the prior comparable period. In all, the legislature approved $11.35 million for economic assistance to the industry.