Yesterday, over a free lunch at the medical shelter in Asheville, I met a man. He said to my wife and I, “Wow, this is just crazy, huh?”
“Yeah, it is,” we offered back, having offered the same reply hundreds of times in as many locations over the past five days since Hurricane Helene ravaged Appalachia. We’d said the same at gas station pumps with empty reservoirs, in Home Depot parking lots while people asked strangers for cash because the credit card machines were out, off the steps of a flooded and looted Aldi’s, and in line at the fire department to read printed updates stapled to a fence.
But what he said next I hadn’t heard yet: “I was driving over near Chimney Rock this morning and found a car with a mother and her daughter inside, both dead. I was the first to find them. That was pretty hard.”
Everyone in the lunch line froze. Everyone cried. We hugged the man. Then, everyone got back to work. The man ate his lunch, got back in his truck, and I presume is still driving around Western Carolina in search of more people to help.
Growing up in Oklahoma, my family’s home was within one mile of two F5 tornado paths. In a way, I grew up around natural disaster. I know what it’s like to see friends and family lose everything. I’ve watched a community suffer, heal, and rebound.
And I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s as if an F5 tornado—believe me, I never use those words lightly—went through Asheville and every surrounding city in our region. Second to Katrina, it’s the deadliest hurricane in US history with over 160 people dead, a large portion of those deaths coming from Buncombe County, where we live.
My wife and I got power back last night, which is a blessing beyond measure in our area. We likely won’t have clean water for weeks—more likely months—as the entire region’s infrastructure is decimated. We do have a food supply. We also have plenty of bottled water. Again, these are blessings beyond abundant in our area.
Last night, my wife and I ran surplus supplies from the medical shelter to BeLoved Asheville, a local food and water distribution center. An hour later, we ran a second load. By the time we made it back, the supplies we’d dropped were gone. I expect when we get there later today, we won’t find any of our supplies remaining. Walmart donated 9 semi-trailers of water yesterday. The distribution center gave out 4.5 trailers of water to over 10,000 people. They’re running supplies out in trucks and vans to anywhere in the area that has a need.
And they’re not alone. Hundreds of organizations in this area are doing the same thing and they need more of everything.
If you’d like to donate straight to the people of Western Carolina, here’s a link to BeLoved Asheville: https://belovedasheville.com/get-involved/
We feel every text, every prayer, every thought, every bit of support. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
