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Old Fort mayor Pam Snypes stood outside town hall on Monday afternoon, Sept. 30th, describing the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
“There are entire places just gone,” Snypes said.
Hurricane Helene dropped torrential rain across the state’s western region, compromising creeks, rivers, and dams.
According to a Sept. 30 press release from Gov. Roy Cooper, there have been 34 storm-related deaths in North Carolina. That number will likely rise as dozens of people have been reported missing.
It’s been a harrowing few days for McDowell County residents as flood waters, high winds, and a mudslide slammed parts of the community.
While local emergency personnel and those outside the region continue search and rescue efforts in McDowell County, other teams are forming to aid in recovery.
Leaders from McDowell County Schools, McDowell Technical Community College (MTCC), and Centro Unido Latino Americano have been working around the clock to organize a distribution site.
The distribution site is located in McDowell County’s Universal Building that sits adjacent to MTCC’s campus. The building houses the college’s Advanced Manufacturing Center, the Small Business Center, and the county’s Economic Development Association.
Right now, the building’s warehouse space is being used as a central hub for incoming supplies, which have arrived from all over.
Distribution site volunteers, many of whom are local educators, organize essential items and prepare them for delivery. Supplies from the distribution site are then driven or flown to various locations, including four points of distribution (PODS) in the county.
Across town, more education and community leaders are gathered at the Emergency Operation Center (EOC) as they strategize and organize the next phases of disaster recovery.
MTCC President Dr. J.W. Kelley said the county is currently in phase one. Beyond search and rescue, phase one includes distributing food, water, and items for babies.
Planning for phase two is currently underway and will include what Kelley is calling comfort centers, or locations where community members can use Wi-Fi or make phone calls. Leaders have even discussed how to coordinate with the hospital to provide on-site emotional support animals.
What’s happening on the ground
The devastation stretches for miles and miles across Western North Carolina’s mountain communities.
Old Fort business owners are spending daylight hours pushing mud and water out of buildings. Two steps in either direction, and you hear the same story from residents. Properties gone — if not theirs, than someone’s who lives just “down the road” or “on the other side of the mountain.”
But you also see the human spirit.
It’s the kindness in the eyes of those moving quickly along the lined tables of recovery items who say they are all “just here to help.”
It’s in the faces of school–aged children tagging along with their parents to volunteer — children who are just as integral to the distribution operations as their parents. Moments of laughter fill the spaces, even in the midst of all that Helene has left.
There are those going neighborhood to neighborhood making sure the Latine community has information, access, and resources.
It’s a yellow truck and the unofficial “ice cream man” standing in the middle of the street handing out bags of ice to community members.
And a couple who never made it to Asheville for vacation – finding themselves at a rental in McDowell County waiting out Helene. When the stormed cleared, they didn’t go home to Massachusetts. Instead, they jumped in and started serving a community of people they had never met.
In the midst of crisis, the human spirit is generosity to those in need.
What’s ahead
The needs are and will continue to be tremendous in McDowell County as well as other Western North Carolina communities.
McDowell County leaders are busy putting plans in place for residents. Water will continue to be an immediate need, as will food, baby wipes, and personal hygiene items.
Old Fort mayor Pam Snypes added one more item to that list: “We need your prayers,” she said.
