{"id":588261,"date":"2026-04-16T18:57:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T18:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588261\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T18:57:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T18:57:31","slug":"82-counties-in-north-carolina-declared-natural-disaster-areas-by-us-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588261\/","title":{"rendered":"82 counties in North Carolina declared \u2018natural disaster areas\u2019 by US government"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – The U.S. government has designated 82 counties in North Carolina as \u201cnatural disaster areas\u201d due to severe drought conditions across the state.<\/p>\n

Gov. Josh Stein said in an April 16 social media post<\/a> that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) made the designation.<\/p>\n

The governor said farmers in the 82 counties may be eligible for emergency loan assistance and other disaster relief programs. A tool that helps farmers find out which options they may be eligible for can be accessed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear which 82 North Carolina counties were declared disaster areas, but the latest U.S. drought monitor<\/a> update showed the entire state was in some level of drought, with 95% of it in severe, extreme or exceptional drought.<\/p>\n

The same tool showed that 97.3% of the entire southeast was in some level of drought.<\/p>\n

According to a USDA document<\/a>, USDA disaster designations have to be requested by a state\u2019s governor or an authorized representative for the governor.<\/p>\n

Natural disasters eligible for assistance are those which the USDA described as \u201cdisasters in which damaging weather conditions or other adverse natural occurrence phenomena have substantially affected farmers causing severe production losses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FILEFILE PHOTO — Most N.C. counties have been declared “natural disaster areas” due to the ongoing drought.(WECT)<\/p>\n

Also Read: Water company in Iredell County orders restrictions as extreme drought continues<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WBTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – The U.S. government has designated 82 counties in North Carolina as \u201cnatural disaster areas\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[2342,14854,257149,14430,10071,4251,15229,192,120862,76301,37520,5641,19477,2420,20257,20835,29772,2255,2256,573,79,38994,2830,21,7157,10704,25,12839],"class_list":{"0":"post-588261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-agriculture","9":"tag-area","10":"tag-areas","11":"tag-assistance","12":"tag-department","13":"tag-disaster","14":"tag-drought","15":"tag-environment","16":"tag-extreme","17":"tag-farm","18":"tag-farmers","19":"tag-farming","20":"tag-federal","21":"tag-government","22":"tag-help","23":"tag-latest","24":"tag-natural","25":"tag-nc","26":"tag-north-carolina","27":"tag-of","28":"tag-science","29":"tag-severe","30":"tag-u-s","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-update","33":"tag-updates","34":"tag-us","35":"tag-usda"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}