It’s a little precarious to criticize towns for applying for and receiving state funds earmarked for revitalizing business districts damaged during September 2004’s storms, despite the fact that many of those towns suffered little. So we’ll refrain from doing it, but at least one grant program approved by state lawmakers certainly leaves itself open for scrutiny of how it carried out its legislative mandate.

Last year lawmakers approved $5 million for disbursement through the North Carolina Rural Center for “economic recovery and redevelopment in business areas that sustained storm damage,” according to the wording of the legislation. Any town that was in a county declared a disaster area by the Federal Emergency Management Agency was eligible to apply for a grant.

The truth, however, is that a few cases of isolated flooding somewhere within a county’s borders does not necessarily mean the business district was flooded or sustained any substantial flooding. In towns such as Chimney Rock, Crossnore and Hot Springs there was little damage, none that caused any long-term problems. Yet these towns received more than $100,000 each.

Compare that kind of damage to what happened in Canton and Clyde — which each received $700,000 — where more than 60 businesses were directly affected. Many of those have yet to re-open, and the entire business community in these towns is still suffering from the fallout from this life-changing natural disaster. A row of empty storefronts still greets visitors to Clyde. Those towns will never be the same.

“We lost 90 percent of our business for five months. That can really put a small business under. There were times we didn’t think we would still be here,” said Arun Krishnan, who owns a restaurant and bar in Canton that was not flooded but almost closed because of the long-term disruption to the business district.

Apparently a few early decisions made by the N.C. Rural Center contributed to what could be called an inequitable distribution of the $5 million in storm recovery money. For one, it was decided that the maximum any town could receive would be $700,000. The reasoning for the limit was to keep the hardest hit towns — Canton, Clyde, Asheville and Newland — from getting all the grants. Somehow that seems arbitrary. Project manager Bill McNeil said that the desire to spread the money around meant that the Rural Center was not going to use a mathematical formula for distributing the money. It was also decided to cut through red tape and get the money out quickly.

Finally, the Rural Center encouraged towns to apply for the redevelopment money after coming up with an application that did not ask for too many specifics. As it is, the funds have been used for such projects as applying for designation as a National Historic District, re-building a greenway and building a new parking lot. All good projects, but were they what legislators intended when they approved the $5 million for storm recovery?

One drive up Park Street in Canton or along the Clyde business district, and we’d say no. While other disaster relief money has indeed flowed into the hardest hit communities, we could tell dozens of stories from people who say they still need help. When there is still much to do to recover from the disaster of more than a year ago, it’s difficult to close one’s eyes to how this money was distributed.