Hurricane
Helene tore through Florida's Big Bend as a Category 4 storm with 140
mph-winds near midnight,
Thursday, September 26, 2024. Florida being Florida, they appeared to
be fully prepared and there
was apparently minimal damage. Nevertheless, the storm had sucked up
immeasurable amounts of
moisture and moved north into Georgia, the Carolina's, and Tennessee.
And it was there that the full wrath
of Helene appeared as she dumped record amounts of rain.
My
wife Darlene and I watched it mostly from our den on TV in Lugoff,
South Carolina. Yes, we got wind,
rain, and fallen limbs. Our daughter's family just sixty miles away
to the northwest in Newberry saw
a days-long power outage. Our son Ian's home was miraculously spared
despite around a dozen majestic
hardwoods - oak, hickory, and tupelo - up and down the street felled in the wind and rain.
Thankfully, no one was hurt in the
neighborhood. His 90-year-old neighbor across the street saw trees
fall all around his home, trapping
him inside, and damaging – wait for it – a single screen on a
window. His family and Ian helped
cut him out.
“I
guess the Lord decided it wasn't time for him to go home quite yet,”
said our son.
The
next Friday, I announced to Darlene that I was hearing God calling me
to go to North Carolina.
“I've
got to go.”
“Well, I
can't go,” she replied. “I've got too many appointments next
week. You'll have to go by yourself.”
“Okay,”
I replied. “I will.”
Saturday,
October 5, 2024
I
spent Saturday seeing what I might need from the things I had set
aside from my military days, checking
on our bank accounts, and checking over my 1999 Dodge Ram 1500. A
solid truck, I had been
working on it since buying it ten months prior, and this would be its
first real trip since then.
Spoiler
alert: she performed well, despite a few very minor glitches. And
those glitches are on the list of
repairs.
We
had been attending church at St. David's Episcopal in Columbia, South
Carolina, for over nineteen years.
We had also been contemplating leaving the Episcopal Church, reasons
of which are probably beyond
the scope of this narrative, and decided to look into the local Saint
Mary Magdalene Anglican Church
in Camden. So it was that we attended church there the next day.
Sunday,
October 6, 2024
During
the announcements a plea was read for donations to assist Hurricane
Helene victims around Asheville,
North Carolina, which had suffered terribly from the effects of
Hurricane Helene. I approached
the announcer after the service for the contact information. Using
that information I was in contact
with Father Michael King that afternoon.
Now,
I had been told that the authorities weren't allowing outsiders into
the area without a contact name and
destination. This was reinforced with stories filtering out of North
Carolina that private pilots who were
flying rescue and supply missions were being threatened with arrest,
and that supplies were being seized
by authorities to insure “proper distribution.”
Monday,
October 7, 2024
Armed
with a name and address, I confidently left my home Monday morning.
It seemed to take forever
just to get out of Kershaw County. Between doing battle with an ATM,
returning home to drop the
credit card I forgot to leave behind to my wife, picking up a massive
tarp from my brother to take up
to North Carolina, and some other issues, I finally left Kershaw
County around 9:30, around two hours
later than I had planned.
Happily,
there were no checkpoints, and the greatest concern was navigating
the ongoing construction on
Interstate 26 east of Asheville (compass direction south). I turned
onto Interstate 40 westbound and using
GoogleMaps soon found myself at The Vine Anglican Church in Clyde,
North Carolina at around 1:30.
I quickly introduced myself to Father King, head of the
congregation there. It was there, also,
that I first encountered Elon Musk's Starlink. The church had set up
a free Starlink hot spot under the
massive picnic shelter at the back of the church. There were no less
than four people using the hot spot.
The
church inside was stuffed to the gills with donated supplies. One of
the more unique items, to me, were
five-gallon buckets of cleaning supplies. These buckets were the type
one would find for sale at Lowe's
and Home Depot, or that one would encounter at your local restaurant
kitchen filled with vanilla
lemon cake frosting (seriously). The buckets had been filled by
volunteers with supplies that included
cleaning gloves, squirt bottles, soap, chlorine bleach, and the like.
Father King's senior vestry person Dwayne Odvody asked if I could load my
truck with buckets to distribute
to anyone in the Pigeon River Valley. They were sending me on my way
to The Pinnacle Church
in adjacent Canton. “Sure. Whatever you need me to do,” I
answered. And it was at the Vine Church that I dropped
off the tarp I got from my brother.
We
loaded up my truck with around a dozen cleaning kit buckets, and I
headed down the mountain to the
bottom of the valley along the Pigeon River. And immediately obvious
was the damage. The only damage
that the church had sustained was the destruction of their sign at
the base of the hill. Debris clung
to the limbs of the trees above me, and there was a camper wrapped
firmly around the upstream side
of a still-straight telephone pole. The south side of the road, away
from the river, was lined with the
damage and detritus that was the former property of the homeowners
along the road and the river.
I
stopped first at a beautiful, old home that had it's porch caved in
by the flood. The home still stood, defiant and festooned
in gingerbread, but the homeowners were living under a tarp in the
front yard. I stopped to offer
a cleaning bucket, which they accepted. And I moved on.
And
so began my mission of the coming week.
I
arrived at The Pinnacle Church where I encountered Team Rubicon, a
volunteer disaster relief group made
up of former military members. I signed in and asked where I was
needed. A Pinnacle Church member
walked me partway across the parking lot. At the lot's edge was a
substantial drop-off that led steeply
down a slope to the Pigeon River. He pointed to a home directly
across the river from us and asked,
“Do you see that orange truck?”
“Yep.”
“We
need you down there.”
“Okay.”
I
hopped into my truck and soon found myself at a home that carried a
brown waterline just below the top
of the window two stories high. The group was mucking out the
basement. The smell of the pudding-consistency
mud wasn't unpleasant. But, then I had worked shoveling horse,
cattle, and chicken manure before. But, the mud was as deep as a
foot. Thankfully for the volunteer cleaning
crew, the basement opened out into the yard on the hillside home, so
using flat shovels and squeegees
made for effective and fairly quick work. And thankfully, I still had
chemical gloves and galoshes
available from my army days. I used them for the first time since
leaving the army fourteen years prior.
It
was also there that I encountered the first of the “leeches.” A
man in a pickup truck pulled into the driveway
and went to the refuse pile. There he started to pull out items to
salvage. The homeowner stepped
over and asked what the man was doing. Then I heard the homeowner
say, “Fine, get whatever you
want. Just stay out of the way of the people helping us clean up.”
My last view of the 'salvager' was of
him pulling out a child's plastic tricycle from the pile.
One
half of the basement was used as a kennel where the family bred show
dogs. They had saved the family
and the dogs, but the fury of the floodwaters was quite obvious.
Not
long after my arrival, the group leader called to shut down the work
and head back to the church. I was
able to work for an hour. It felt good, but very much inadequate. I
knew there was quite a lot to do. I
followed one of the other volunteers back to The Pinnacle Church, and
signed out. I thanked everyone for
the opportunity to help and headed back to The Vine. It was upon
entering the grounds of the church
I first noticed The Beaver.
Every
time I would enter the church grounds at the top of the driveway a beaver would exit the woods
along the edge of the slope and
run madly to a spot farther up the wood line and then disappear.
Every time. It surprised me just how
fast a beaver can run! Unfortunately, I would soon be so immediately
focused on the job at hand, I would
forget to ask if they had named it. Surely they are aware of the critter.
Upon
arrival at The Vine I stated that I had not yet been able to look for
a room for the night, or week. Dwayne
and Michael explained that it would be difficult because of the
displacement the flood had caused.
Hotels and motels that had been flooded had taken many available
rooms at other hotels and motels
to house their displaced customers, and recovery workers were taking
up many other rooms as well.
So, Dwayne offered to put me up for the night.
Dwayne
also let me know that Woodland Baptist Church was asking for help.
Located one town farther west
– Waynesville - they were asking for assistance in their work as a
local recovery center. I agreed to
go there at 11:30 the next morning.
I
then went out to try and find others who might need cleaning kits
before heading out to the Odvody house
in Waynesville. And it was here that I realized the full extent of
the damage. The obvious flow of water
down the hillsides, the streets, the ditches, and the streams was
there for all to see. It wasn't so much
severe, but it was widespread.
The
Odvody home sits on a ridge and overlooks Waynesville to the
southeast far below. It is beautiful.
They had just gotten power back after ten days. I got my gear out of
the truck, put it into their guest
bedroom, and went into town for dinner. They had just lost a fair
amount of food and I certainly didn't
want to impose, especially after they gave a room for the night to a
complete stranger. I did ask for
dinner recommendations, however.
I
had dinner at Maggie's Galley – a wonderful play on words for the
nearby Maggie Valley. Amazingly, despite
being closer to the river and apparently at a lower elevation than
other restaurants that were flooded
out in the area, Maggie's was untouched by flooding. I asked the
waitress about it and she replied
that it was “weird.” After most heavy rains they have water
coming in, she said. But not this time! Despite it all,
the broiled trout, collards, and black-eyed peas were wonderful, and
the service was excellent. I left a
very good tip.
I
spent the evening, I'm afraid a bit rudely, talking about my family
and myself, probably due to nervous
energy. I found out little about my hosts. But, after showering, I
slept well and rose early. That ended
Day One, Monday, October 7.
Tuesday,
October 8, 2024
I
spoke to Dwayne on my way out for breakfast, loaded my truck, and
grabbed fast food. Yum. I pulled into
The Vine, loaded up more cleaning kits and some items to be delivered
to 505 Main Street in Canton,
and headed toward The Pinnacle. Enroute I stopped off at around a
half-dozen homes where people
were cleaning up. I saw ServPro at one home, thankful that at least
one family could afford professional
help, while I drove into some other neighborhoods. I set out four
kits at a mobile home park
that had taken a solid hit from the flooding, though it appeared the
many trees throughout the park protected
it from most large debris.
I
encountered a man, a Mr. Cunningham, who was cleaning out a beautiful
two-story, brick home that sat
near the base of a bend in the Pigeon River. His back yard ended at
the edge of the river. His garage had
been carried away and a 40-foot shipping container floated by in the
flood waters, barely missing his
home. Cunningham watched it float past while sitting on higher ground
a few hundred feet away on the
side of US Highways 19 and 23 in Clyde.
“When
the water started to go over the railroad tracks, I left.”
Debris
were still piled up at the Blue Ridge
Southern Railroad's short trestle paralleling Highways 19 and 23 that
is just feet away. The Cunninghams had evacuated the home the day before the floods. The
container lay against trees about 150
yards downstream. Cunningham's tools and all he had in the garage
were scattered much farther downstream.
His small vineyard and large garden were gone. He explained that he
was cleaning up for the
fourth time in twenty years. “I'm moving,” he told me
emphatically, after relating to me the history of the neighborhood as he had seen it. I sighed and wished him good luck.
There were already rumors of the town buying up or condemning all the
property along the river and
turning it into a park.
Two doors down, a lady was clearing out her home. She didn't need cleaning
supplies as she had a fair amount of
them standing on a makeshift table in her front yard. But she DID
need laundry detergent. I apologized and told her that I didn't have
any.
These
two were stoic and determined and truly epitomized to me the spirit
of The Overmountain Men that
I read of in histories of Southern Appalachia, as did the
proprietress of 505 Main Street in Canton.
Canton
city crews and utility workers were busy cleaning streets and
restoring water, sewage, and power and had blocked off all the
downtown to ease the effort. Using the skills I learned in the army
and realizing I had a mission to complete, breaking the law appeared
to be the only option, so I did. Sitting at the corner of Main and
Park Street, I carefully ran the infinitesimally-long red light and
eased through a striped sawhorse barrier to get to the store. It was
early, so the parking spots in front were all conveniently empty. I
pulled up to the storefront in downtown Canton.
505
Main Street is a store in name only. Accepting cash and other types
of donations, the building is occupied
rent-free. Beverly Banks set up the charity Haywood Pantries after
the most previous flooding event in 2021. Tired of waiting for
governments to help after the fury of Hurricane Fred, and realizing
that the outside volunteers and their donations would eventually leave, she set up 505
Main Street using the street address as the name. Inside is much of
what one might have found in an old five-and-dime, as well as fresh
and canned food, water, and any number of other resources someone
might need if they found themselves suddenly homeless. She has been
running it ever since and was very ready to help the area after the
Hurricane Helene devastation. She is an important partner in the
recovery. On the sidewalk were fresh and canned food and blankets
sitting on rough, plywood tables, and bottled water. All the items at the
store are free, donated by the people for the people.
Upon arrival I saw some folks down the sidewalk, and walked over to
them, asking where Beverly might be. Beverly was out doing what it is
that a non-profit operator does, according to the folks.
“Oh,
there she is!”
The
lady I was speaking to pointed to a Ford F-350 4x4 pulling a trailer
into the parking lot across the street. I walked across the street and introduced myself to Beverly. I then
unloaded the items I was sent to deliver, as well as a few cleaning
kit buckets, and stood in rapt amazement as she related the story of
505 Main Street. She then led me on a brief tour, and then down the
street to another store operated by a Baird. They weren't in and
sadly I didn't get another opportunity to check in at a later time to
see how closely we were related.
Beverly
and I then broke down some empty boxes and she asked me to haul them
to the recycling center. Conveniently
enough, it was nearly on my way to Woodland Baptist Church. Into the
truck went the boxes.
“Beverly,
do you have any laundry detergent?” A bottle of liquid laundry
detergent went into the truck,
too. I then spoke with a Canton police officer and explained my very
recent scofflaw ways and asked
what would be the best way to return to Clyde. I was given
directions, told to light up my emergency
flashers, and drive slowly until I got past the barriers. I did as I
was told and headed back west.
First stop – the lady who needed laundry detergent.
After
delivering the detergent, I again backtracked to The Pinnacle church
with my small load of cardboard and signed in. I was told that I was
needed back in Canton. So, I loaded up and pointed my truck back in
the direction of Canton (and thank God and the US military for GPS).
I drove barely a mile when I saw a young man heaving a large log off
the road and down the hill into the woods. I pulled over, grabbed my
gloves, and went to assist. He and his partner, employees of a
landscaping company, were cutting up a large pine tree that had
fallen in the storm. His buddy up the hill cut the tree up, then
kicked the logs down the very steep hill onto the road where the
other fellow rolled them out of the ditch, over the opposing curb and down the hill. I
assisted him with two of the logs while simultaneously chatting.
I
checked my watch and realized I'd never make the Canton location in
time to do any appreciable amount
of work and still be able to get to Woodland Baptist, so I bade
farewell wondering mischievously on how to send a bill for my labor
to the landscaping company, and drove toward Waynesville and to the
recycling center and church.
Now
GPS and GoogleMaps can be a wonderful thing and an aggravation all at
once. I assure you. The mapping
app took me on some fantastic detours through Clyde and Waynesville
and around Lake Junaluska
when shorter routes were clearly available. Including this and at least two other days. Algorithms?
Nevertheless,
I dropped off the cardboard at the county recycling center and then
rolled over to the church.
Woodland
Baptist Church was founded in 1938, though their current home is in a
modern steel building housing
an auditorium, offices, classrooms, restrooms and showers, and a
fellowship hall and kitchen that
double as a mini-gym. I arrived a few minutes after the designated
11:30 and was soon escorted to the
auditorium where the morning planning session/briefing was occurring.
As jobs were being designated,
Lead Pastor Adam Black asked what I wanted to do. I answered with,
“Whatever you need me
to do.”
My reasoning was that God sent me to work. His earthly leadership would guide me to where I was needed the most.
“Great!
Can you work the parking lot?”
I
strolled out to my truck at the far end of the large, rectangular
parking lot – seriously, the lot was easily
four acres in size – to grab my boonie hat and reflective vest. It
was the first time anyone wore the
vest as it was given to me by an old rugby mate who works in Fargo,
North Dakota, for the BNSF Railway.
He knows I'm a railfan and the last time we met he gave it to me,
still in the shipping bag, along
with some other BNSF items. And so it was that I found myself with a
radio at the bottom of the church
driveway entrance guiding donors and customers to their proper
places.
Over
the four days that I was there I spoke with, saw, or heard of donors
who had traveled from as far away
as Arkansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Ohio, West Virginia,
and Wisconsin. There were donors
in their cars, in vans, and in pickup trucks. Big dually diesels
hauling 3-axle, covered auto transporters
roof-to-floor full of almost every conceivable item. Band-aids,
flashlights, can openers, hundreds
of cans of Dinty Moore beef stew, and Chef-Boy-R-Dee ravioli and
Spaghetti-O's, adult and infant
diapers, and thousands of gallons of bottled water, and so much more.
It was beautiful, scary, wonderful, and sad. Truly an amazing thing
to witness. And it was here that I encountered my first
bag ever of guinea pig pet food.
I'm pretty sure that someone made guinea pig food. I'd just never encountered any before.
Interestingly,
late one day a dually hauling a large, 3-axle auto transporter rolled
in from Minnesota. The Minnesotans arrived just before 6pm and the
church crew, tired from a tough six hours of hard labor dove right
in. Speaking to the driver, he told me that they had planned to stop
in Asheville, “But I heard the Lord telling me to come here.”
The
previous week the church has begun operations at 9:00am and ran till
6:00pm. But after that first week,
it became clear that the hours were more than the volunteers could
handle, so they were truncated
to a noon-6:00pm schedule. And the people kept arriving, both to
donate and to receive donations.
I
encountered a man whose two mobile homes had gone up in flames.
Fatalistically, he told me that the worst
thing he did was to call the fire department. “If I'd let 'em burn
I'd have a lot less to clean up,” he stated
in a surprisingly chipper mood! I walked away shaking my head in
amazement.
It
was during the first days I was in the area that I heard an opinion
that struck me as profound, striking, and
incredibly insightful. Three other men and I were discussing the
destruction of the floods. One, a US Forest Service employee, piped
in that he had a different view. He stated that within two-to-three
years a person who had never been
to the area before and viewing it for the first time would never know
that a natural disaster had occurred.
The damage would be repaired, the destruction removed, and daily life
would be at a new normal.
It was his view that the hurricane, the flood, and the power of
nature were all part of the system that
God had made to regulate Planet Earth. It is, perhaps sadly, all
part of the massive system He had built. We were witnessing one of the more dramatic cycles that are a
part of that whole.
I
must admit that I was taken aback. I had never considered such
before, but it makes sense to me. It wasn't
the Great Flood of the Bible, and it certainly affected many people
in a negative way, but God had,
perhaps, used it for a reason or reasons we were unable to
understand.
At
the beginning of that first day the fellowship hall was stuffed full
of items with the classrooms being used
as overflow. By the end of the day, it was still just as full. The
church was serving 600-1000 people
per day, with between 200 and 300 cars pulling in to get the things
they needed. We encountered a
family of eleven who had lost everything they owned. That was not
atypical. And then I learned that Pastor Black and his family of a
wife and two children, as well as his mother, were living at the
church.They
too had been flooded out.
Yet everyday, all day, the pastor ran the recovery
operation at the church. So, it was that later that day I was sitting
beside a lady, helping to count the day's 'receipts' of the donations
we had given out. Embarrassed due to Adam's situation, I still needed
to find a place to stay. I commented to the lady that I needed to
find a room.
“What
did you have in mind?” she asked.
“I
don't know. I mean, I'm a retired soldier. I've slept on tree limbs and the ground and on army cots. I just need to find a room till at least Friday, or
longer if God tells me to stay.”
“No
problem. That's my job!” And she was immediately on her cellphone
finding me a place to stay. And,
yes, cellphone service had been restored to much of the area by this
time.
She
soon found me an Airbnb nearby. She got me the room and sent me the
address. I would later find that
it was owned by a rabbi and was just a few miles from the church.
There is no doubt that He wanted
me there at that time and that place. Every place in the area was
booked up, and she found me a room.
For less than $90-a-night. Stunning.
Every
day at the church someone, whether the Salvation Army, Red Cross, or
a local restaurant, either set
up in the parking lot or sent hot food that was prepped for workers,
customers, and donors. So, lunch
and dinner were generally available for free. Now, I did take one
morning to have breakfast at Shoney's.
I'd missed those since our local Shoney's closed during the Covid-19
scare. Our Shoney's has since
been razed and replaced by a Cook-Out restaurant. I mean, I like
Cook-Out, but it certainly doesn't
have the breakfast Shoney's has!
We
shut down at 6:00 and I was out at around 6:30. I found my Airbnb on
Old Balsam Road easily enough
with GPS and was moving in when the owner's husband walked up with
his very large, very friendly,
orange tabby tomcat trotting along behind him. I noticed mud caked up
at the front of this home
that faced the road and the hills. The front room was clearly an
addition to the original structure and
on this event mud had come rushing down the unpaved, hillside roads,
onto Old Balsam Road, then funneled
down the driveway and straight into the front room. They had gotten
most of it cleaned up by the
time I arrived, and thankfully none of it entered the well-appointed,
three-room, Airbnb apartment I had
rented.
The
home fronted an old motel of the type that had separate, sandstone
masonry buildings around a circular
drive. It was downhill from the house and closer to the river.
Amazingly, none of the eight former
motel buildings had flooded or received any other damage. Nor did the
now blank and inoperative
neon sign for the the former motel.
I
carried my bags into the apartment, pet the big tomcat, and then
headed back into Waynesville for dinner. I had done what any GI would
call a “map recon” to look for local eateries and came upon
“Clyde's Restaurant.” It had nearly five stars of five. Upon
arriving, I saw a long line to get in. I parked and walked up to one
of those in line and asked if the wait was worth it.
“Oh,
absolutely,” she replied. So I worked my way in to get on the
waiting list when an older gentleman stated that the bar was
first-come-first-served and I could skip the line. I looked at the
young lady
behind the register who confirmed that the man was correct, but that
the bar was full. Before I could finish my thought, a person got up
and the older gentleman told me to take the empty bar stool.
“No
sir. You were here first.”
He
assured me it was fine and I took the seat next to a man dressed in a
long-sleeved, plaid shirt and a baseball hat. The man in plaid was there
assisting in rerouting some of the local waterways in order to
restore roads. He had driven in from Arkansas with his skid steer and
trailer and had spent the past week moving dirt and rock.
And
yes, the food was amazing and surprisingly inexpensive. I truly can't
complain that the only steak they
had was sirloin tips. I really was wanting a steak that night. They
were also out of about half their side dishes. But, what they had was
great. And, they were recovering from a major flood. I left a very
good tip.
The
apartment was quite nice, though I did battle with the classic
porcelain tub and the shower curtains. Pretty?
Yes. Practical? Not in any way. And there was internet on the TV, so
I was able to get some news
by way of YouTube. And as soon as my head hit the pillow around
10:30pm, I fell asleep. And that ended Day Two, Tuesday, October 8.
Wednesday,
October 9, 2024
I
generally sleep seven hours every night. There are variations, but
that is my personal 'standard.' And so
it was that I awoke that Wednesday morning at around 5:30am. The
pattern would hold for the duration
of the trip.
I
prepared for the day, grabbed everything that I though I might need,
and left for a fine drive-through breakfast.
Yum, again. I decided to take a different route to Clyde and the
Anglicans, and found myself shrouded
in fog. It was a cool, almost comforting sort of fog. I found the
local VFW post and the adjacent
Blue Ridge Southern. There I took photos of the Blue Ridge Southern
locomotives, a pair of WATCO
GP39-2s and the VFW's UH-1H Huey. All three vehicles were clean and
well-maintained.
WATCO
is one of the largest shortline railroad and contract rail switching
companies in the world. Years ago, I worked for WATCO at a paper mill
in Eastover, South Carolina. I performed a variety of jobs
there and thoroughly enjoyed the work. It was one of my childhood
dreams to work for a railroad. So,
when I encounter a WATCO railroad or switching service, I try to get
photos. And I did this time. As
well as pics of the Huey. I am a retired army aviation soldier after
all.
I
then headed to The Vine and picked up additional buckets. With these
I set out looking for others who might
need the cleaning kits and dropped several off. Then I headed to 505
Main Street where I dropped off the remaining kits on the sidewalk as
the store was not yet open. And I didn't have to break any
traffic laws on this day! I saw that a number of items had been
picked up overnight from the sidewalk. So, I tidied up around the
storefront, taking the small bit of trash to the nearby trash can,
and breaking down more boxes that had been left empty. These I also loaded up and took to the
recycling center in Waynesville.
Deciding
that there was little use in my going the The Pinnacle Church that
morning, I drove directly to Woodland.
There I was able to enter the church early and I decided to tackle
the section of the fellowship hall/gymnasium with the camping and
survival gear. It was not in any sort of order that was easily
accessible, so I decided to make it so. By the end of the day I would
also find myself helping to keep
the adjacent section of medical items sorted, too.
And
it was here that I continued to see the amazing Hand of God at work.
We
began to run low on batteries which, of course, are essential when
there is no electricity available. I let
the inventory crew know of the problem and continued my
self-appointed chores when suddenly appeared
two large boxes of batteries of all the most popular types. Then we
began running low on flashlights,
and then there were two large boxes of flashlights at exactly the
right time. The same happened
with charcoal, which many storm victims were using to cook.
Now,
I must admit that I have been remiss in explaining the amazing
operation the church had set up over
the previous week. Generally, it worked exceptionally well. Any professional
logistician, I believe, would have approved.
At
the parking lot entrance people were asked what they were there to
do: donate, pick up, or volunteer. There
was the occasional outlier who had an appointment with the pastor,
but that was the general gist of
it. They would then be directed to volunteer parking at the far end
of the parking lot, donations to the left
at the large double doors at the other end of the parking lot, or to
pick up where they were directed to
a specific parking spot in the center of the lot. Here,
the 'greeters' went to each vehicle with an order sheet developed and
printed up by the church and got
orders from the people in their cars. The customers were not allowed
inside for fear that there could be
too large a crowd, or perhaps an altercation could erupt over some
item. So these folks stayed in their
cars in the parking lot. To designate that a car had been seen and
the order taken, a blank sticky note
was affixed to the back of the vehicle.
As
a side, one of the volunteers unknowingly parked in the customer area
having arrived very early and not knowing the protocol. The greeters,
mostly middle school and high school students, realizing that a
volunteer's SUV was parked in the wrong space began placing the used
sticky notes all over the back of the SUV. After a bit, the
volunteer, whose name will stay anonymous to prevent embarrassment,
noticed all the sticky notes across his vehicle.
“What's
with all that?”
“You're
parked in the wrong spot.”
“Oh,
yeah. Right.”
And
he soon moved it. But only after he removed the sticky notes.
The
greeters would take the order sheets to the 'shoppers' whose job it
was to get those items requested by
the customer. The shopper would also ensure by perusing the order
sheet what other items might be useful
to the customer. Those other items would be thrown into the order for
good measure. They shopped
using regular shopping carts from the local Food Lion, as well as the
occasional hand truck for bulkier
items like cases of bottled water, dog food, etc. I made a point to
ensure that the shoppers packed
can openers if they were getting canned items. I was truly amazed how
many can openers were donated!
The
shoppers would then take the items to the cars as noted on the
request sheet. Also noted were the number
of family members being helped and license numbers to assist the
shoppers in finding which car
was which.
At
the donation receiving area was a crew that helped to unload the
donated items and take them into the
fellowship hall. There a crew would then inventory the items and
place them for movement to the shopping
area. In some cases, items would have to be thrown away due to broken
packages and seals, or
the obvious act of someone throwing away their out-of-date or used
items. Broken cases of bottled water
were set aside and these water bottles distributed to the workers to
ensure everyone stayed hydrated.
One
morning a volunteer noted online a recall of a certain brand of baby
wipes. And so I found myself that
particular morning helping sort through the hundreds (thousands?) of
baby wipe packages, cases, and boxes to ensure the offending product
was set aside and not distributed to an unknowing disaster victim.
Eventually, the other volunteer hit upon the ingenious idea to just
post a sign warning to set them aside. Problem solved.
And
through it all, perhaps the oddest food item that I encountered
outside of the guinea pig food, was a
can of H.E.B.-brand Cream of Jalapeno soup. I took that one home. My
curiosity certainly got the best
of me. I pray the Lord will forgive me.
So,
we received items of just about every kind. And we sorted them and
did our level best to distribute it
all as equitably as a first-come-first-served system could make it.
And we also encountered the occasional
human leech. In
one case a car pulled up that had obviously been to at least one or
two other centers already. The greeter who took
the order at the vehicle went to Pastor Black. He stated
matter-of-factly that we were not here to judge,
but to spread the Gospel of Jesus through our actions. So he said to
just give them the minimum of
what they had requested. There's not an Israelite King that could
have done any better, in my opinion.
Lunch
and dinner were again provided by the Salvation Army. The Salvation
Army group from coastal New
Bern, North Carolina, was there Tuesday. Wednesday they arrived from
the local area. Busy as we were,
I honestly can't remember who helped out Friday. Monday the local
Ingle's grocery store deli donated
food that was prepped by the church's kitchen and distributed to any
and all who were hungry. The
culinary highlight of the week for me, though, was a crew that showed
up Thursday and set up their giant grill and smoker. And they served
the most amazing dish of smoked and barbecued pork belly.
I
again ended the day quite spent. This night I drove straight to the
Airbnb, showered again in that aggravating
shower, lay down on the futon and watched some TV, though I was
frustrated that the rabbi failed
to provide tea alongside the coffee. I stayed up till 10:30 and again
fell hard asleep for seven very restful
hours. And that ended Day Three, Wednesday, October 9.
Thursday,
October 10, 2024
The
day broke like so many post-hurricane days bright and sunny, though a
fall chill was again obvious. I worried about the victims who were
sleeping in tents and under tarps or in their cars. I had
that highly anticipated Shoney's breakfast (it didn't disappoint) and
drove to The Vine which was locked up tight this morning. So, I
headed back to Waynesville. Enroute, I decided to have my truck's oil
changed. I stopped at the Valvoline quick lube and was informed
that they were out of the oil I needed. But, the attendant was sure
that the other facility in town by the Burger King was stocked. So
off I went to the Valvoline quick lube by the Burger King. And they
DID have the right oil.
And
then I was off to Woodland Baptist. I was again able to get in early
this morning, and decided to truly
tackle the medical items section. The camping/survival area was still
in good order. A couple of ladies had spent Tuesday straightening up
the medical items, but over two days it had gotten re-disorganized.
So I jumped in head first. In just two days we had received an
amazing amount of new items, including surgical items. It was clear
that we wouldn't be handing out IV needles, cannulae, or other items
of the like, so I set them aside in one of the many boxes piling up
in two collection points in the hall.
This
is another job that was obviously needed. And when needed, someone
would take it upon themselves to break down the many boxes and neatly
stack them to be taken to the recycle center. Others would gather the
trash and garbage that accumulated throughout the church. Various
members owning
trucks would gather the trash and broken-down boxes as needed and
haul them away. It was surprising
the amount of trash that was being produced.
Anyway,
I separated the surgical items and found the Worship & Family
Pastor Ethan Conners, a nurse in
his regular, paying job. Finding him down the long hallway to the
entrance, I explained my medical discovery.
“Okay.
Let's go take a look.”
I
then turned and lead him down the hall and back into the fellowship
hall where we were somehow separated.
I imagine that someone had pulled him aside as we passed and when he
again turned to follow
I was gone. I guess I'm faster and stealthier than I thought! Not too
shabby for an old, overweight guy.
Nevertheless,
I continued sorting and assisting shoppers and stockers as necessary
while sorting and separating
the surgical items. Finally, I found a hand truck, loaded the boxes
of surgical items, and went to
look for Pastor Conners again. After getting instructions I took them
to the church office and stashed them
as instructed in a closet for use or disposal by Ethan.
One
of the more interesting events that week was a foray by a group who
had learned that rural firefighters and energy responders were
literally destroying their safety gear. This was due to near constant
use, much of it in circumstances their gear was never intended for,
in the recovery work. So, this group was approaching all the
volunteer distribution centers looking for galoshes, rubber boots,
waders, work gloves, and the like. They gathered it all up and made
their way into the hills to distribute the
items to the first responders.
And
this was the day of pork belly. I couldn't eat all that was given to
me, so I wrapped it up and took it back
to my apartment. It served as breakfast the next morning.
I
ended the day assisting in the inventory of incoming donations.
Again, the church had developed check
sheets and a manner to tally the day's donations. Now, yes, it was an
imperfect science. I guarantee
that the totals coming in and the totals going out will never jibe.
For instance, it was found that
to expedite the incoming inventory it was necessary to count a sealed
box of ramen as one item, the same
as a single cup of ramen noodles. And all canned items that were in a
liquid, whether soups or sauces
were counted as soup. Nevertheless, it was all being done to give a
semblance of order and form to
what can only be described as an event of disorder and formlessness. It was explained to me that state law required that it be done.
So, okay. Let's do it. One thing learned by everyone at the beginning of the disaster was just how badly government - any government - can screw things up.
I
again got away well past 6:00pm and headed straight for the Airbnb. I
showered and relaxed with a Mountain
Dew I had purchased at the gas station where I filled up my truck in
Waynesville. There I ran into
one of my fellow Woodland volunteers. And it still amazes me the
smiles and cheerfulness I encountered
throughout the week, whether from volunteers or victims.
Speaking
of volunteers, I should take time to tell you about these people.
During the week I was there at
Woodland Baptist Church we had a large group of middle and high
school students who were all out of
school due to the emergency. In some cases the schools had been
flooded and were getting cleaned up.
In other cases, students couldn't reach school because of washouts,
landslides, subsidence, and flooding.
Or, they no longer had a home.
So,
for two weeks these young people were working hard to help their
community. But, the next Monday they all would return to school.
Students
from nearby Western Carolina University, including the women's'
basketball team, also had volunteered
at the church. Numerous area retirees volunteered, too. And also
Virginia, who I found out may
be kin through marriage! A day later I would contact another cousin,
Ginny, from another branch of my family and find out that Virginia's
deceased husband had been 15-year-old Ginny's very first date way
back when! It truly is a small world!
There
was a smattering of people like myself who had come in from out of
the area to help in the recovery.
These included groups such as Samaritan's Purse, Team Rubicon, and
Cajun Navy. These groups
arrived within days, if not hours, of the disaster.
So,
at the end of the day Thursday, I picked up my pork belly, noted the
troops of the 82nd Airborne Division
rolling by the church in their Infantry Squad Vehicles as they headed
to the county fairgrounds and their bivouac, and headed to my
apartment to shower, relax, start packing, and go to bed. And that
ended Day Four, Thursday, October 10.
Friday,
October 11, 2024
I
awoke Friday morning, heated up my pork belly and ate, check the news
and my email, packed, loaded
the truck, and headed to the Woodland Baptist Church one last time. I
had some things that were pressing
me at home, and I hadn't heard Him calling me to stay, so I planned
to leave for home no later than
3:00pm.
I
headed directly to the church where I was met by a church member who
wouldn't allow me inside due to Adam and his family living there.
Therefore, I grabbed my hat and vest, and headed to the church
parking lot entrance where I set myself up at around 8:30.
There
I was soon interacting with volunteers, potential donors, and needy
folks. And then two North Carolina
Army National Guard soldiers arrived in a HMMWV, aka “Humvee,”
with a table and chairs.
“Can
I help you sergeant?” I inquired.
“Yeah.
We're supposed to drop of this table and chairs here.”
“Do
you know what for?”
“Nope.”
So,
I let them through and they dropped off the items. After a short
conversation, they hopped in their Humvee
and rolled out. Then Federal employees began to arrive. They told us
that they were at the church for a meeting with the Federal Emergency
Management Agency at 10:00. Yet no one at the church was aware of the
meeting.
“Well,
FEMA has it on their Facebook page!” I guess we now know what the
table and chairs were for. It's
a shame the church and FEMA were unaware.
The
Feds all left by 11:00 when FEMA failed to show up. On top of that,
storm victims were showing up to see FEMA after seeing posts that the
agency would be at the church between 9am and 2pm. FEMA finally
arrived some time around noon and set up a tent in the parking lot to talk to
people who had gone online to apply for assistance. What people who
had no internet access were supposed to do, I have no idea.
In
the week I was in western North Carolina, I heard positive comments
about FEMA and the Federal government
once. That's it. Just once. The general attitude I heard was voiced
by Beverly an 505 Main Street:
“We don't need the government. We can handle this ourselves.”
And
I have ZERO doubt that she was right.
Another
man arrived around 9:30 in his truck from Mississippi with donations. He wouldn't
be able to wait till noon nor
return before 6pm. I instructed him to place the items in my truck,
which I pointed to sitting in the parking lot, which he did.
Other
volunteers began to arrive and I directed them to parking. Others
pulled up to see FEMA. I had to
tell them that we knew nothing of FEMA, which was tough because I
knew that they needed help. And I finally walked down to the entrance
for the 11:30 meeting. Pastor Black gave his instructions and a
prayer. I offered to continue my work in the fellowship hall, and was
asked to take charge of the inventory area and stockers. I replied
that I would, but that I would have to leave no later than 3pm. I
apologized for leaving early, and the pastor thanked me for coming to
Waynesville.
“Don't
thank me, sir,” I replied. “The Lord sent me and I learned long ago
not to argue with Him. Thank Him
for me being here.”
"Well thanks for listening to Him."
So,
I found myself back in the fellowship hall heading up the
inventory/reception area. There were a number
of new volunteers who needed instruction, and someone to manage the
movement of incoming items.
I was in constant movement through lunch and finally hit The Wall
around 1:15.
I must assume that athletes, military service members, and old people know The Wall intimately. I
was spent physically. I was disappointed that I could no longer
function. I turned over my job to the folks
I worked with that day and found Pastor Black to let him know I was
leaving. I trudged out to my truck
and saw the items left by the Mississippian. So, I drove up the exit
and turned back into the entrance
and into the donation line. A short while later, I helped to unload
my truck, grabbed a couple of
bottles of water, and left western North Carolina.
I
am fortunate that my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were
quite literally on my way home. Darlene
was spending the night assisting them with babysitting, so I was able
to swing by and enjoy pizza
with them. But, I needed to get home. So, now becoming more
physically and now mentally tired,
I decided to follow my GoogleMaps instructions to go by way of
Interstates 26 and 20 instead of taking
our regular route home on South Carolina Highway 34. I would soon
regret the decision. I got
stuck in a traffic jam at what is locally known as “Malfunction
Junction” in the northwest of Columbia.
The intersection of Interstates 20, 26, 126, and Bush River, Broad
River, and St. Andrews Roads are being improved with a massive
construction project that has been years in the making. The decision
would lose me nearly an hour enroute to home.
And
it's where mental exhaustion arrived.
I
arrived at home and began to unpack, showered, and prepared for bed.
And that ended Day Five, Friday, October 11.
And
it would take me at least three or four days to recover.
In
the end, I feel blessed to have been called to help the victims of
Hurricane Helene. It was a beautiful, wonderful,
frightening, and sad trip. I met some amazing, incredible people. I
heard people express anger,
determination, and hope. Mostly hope. And it was truly, truly a
blessing that I will cherish till my death.
Thank
you Lord. Amen.
Seattle Times 
