FSI recently partnered with a team that went to North Carolina for a week to assist with cleanup efforts that were a result of damage from Hurricane Helene. This was the Category 4 level hurricane that occurred this past September where there was a tremendous amount of tree damage and flooding in the southeast, particularly in western North Carolina, east Tennessee and southwestern Virginia. At the time of writing this article, there are at least 234 known deaths and over $120 billion in damages attributed to the storm.
There are many places that need help, and for this particular trip, FSI went with a local church to Hendersonville, NC. You’ve probably seen on the news and online videos where the town of Chimney Rock, NC was just about wiped out. Hendersonville is just below Chimney Rock. It was here that the North Carolina Disaster Response Ministry of Baptists on Mission set up operations for groups like us to come and help (Baptists on Mission – Hurricane Helene). Our group was one of many that came from all over the country. There was even one particular group from Alaska while we were there who specialized in chainsaw and bobcat work. We would check in with the disaster relief headquarters each day and get assigned to various locations throughout the week for chainsaw work, roof tarping, mud out, tear out, etc. This is the initial cleanup phase where they are trying to get people back into their homes as soon as possible, especially before winter. There will be a re-building phase later.
Even though we’ve seen the devastation in the news, it’s hard to describe the overall damage that we saw in person. We drove down roads that were partially wiped out and were being worked on just to get to someone’s house where many of the residents weren’t able to live in for the time being. There was one section of houses we worked on where the bridge was out to get to their homes, and we had to carry all our tools across a makeshift temporary walkway bridge.
While we did a little bit of everything during the week, their biggest need at the moment is chainsaw work. It seemed like there was an endless demand of tree work that needed to be done. Hopefully we made a small dent in the overall need during our week there.
We were there ready to serve the North Carolina community with whatever needs they had no matter how tough or nasty the task was. Our main goals were to help get the people back into their homes as soon as possible.
We got to meet a lot of great people along the way. The NC Disaster Response Ministry was amazing, and the other volunteers we encountered all demonstrated their huge hearts and willingness to serve the entire time we were there. The people who were home that we got to help couldn’t have been more appreciative. They were all so friendly and welcoming displaying great attitudes for the situations there were in. It was a pleasure getting to know them, and we hope to be back on future trips to help with the re-building phase. I encourage everyone to join us on future visits or make donations directly to Baptists on Mission – Donations.
