Fairview, NC – hurricane helen According to an official with a volunteer search and rescue group, parts of Appalachia have suffered a devastation of “biblical proportions”, prompting comparisons to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The death toll from the storm has reached at least 190, and the number is expected to rise in the coming weeks as officials continue their work. Rescue and recovery efforts.
“I personally lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, that’s one of the reasons I do this,” said Ben Hussar, vice president of the Cajun Navy 2016, a Louisiana-based search and rescue group.
“I can say that it’s going to take time. It’s not going to be an overnight fix. We’ve been talking for years, and these people are going to be harmed. They need every resource that is available to them and It will be a long, hard battle to come back from this.”
Hurricane Helen: North Carolina residents struggle for survival as basic goods become scarce
A road destroyed by Hurricane Helen. (Water Mission)
Hussar said that Helen is “absolutely” comparable to Katrina.
“These are hard-working people. They’re just trying to get the job done day after day. Most of them wouldn’t be properly prepared for the devastation of it. It’s of Biblical proportions. … I’ve told people … Heard it compared to Katrina. Absolutely I would say, in some ways, I think it’s worse because it spread over a huge area, you know, for hundreds of miles.
“This is of Biblical proportions.”
Fairview resident James Latrella told Fox News Digital that a neighbor gave him cash and gas after his home was destroyed during the storm. Other locals are traveling into the city from their neighborhoods nestled in the mountains to collect water and food for elderly residents or young mothers with infants who need diapers and formula.
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“We’re pretty rough people here, but this thing is bigger than all of us,” Richard Blaloch told Fox News Digital as he watched non-potable water being collected nearby by the Fairview, North Carolina, fire department. The creek was raised for residents to use for flushing toilets and other plumbing purposes.
The Fairview Fire Department stores non-potable creek water for residents to use for flushing toilets and other plumbing purposes. (Fox News Digital)
Volunteer pilots are offering private helicopters to deliver supplies and rescue people. Other volunteers are delivering Starlink systems to remote areas without electricity, roaming data or cellphone service.
“I think people are really… kind of shocked, still wondering, ‘Where do we start? What’s going on?’ People are still missing. But … something that’s a defining characteristic of these North Carolinians and people who live in the western part of the state is they’re not like, ‘Okay, let’s just give up,'” Charlotte , North Carolina City Councilman Tariq Bokhari, who traveled to Lake Lure over the weekend with friends who live there, told Fox News Digital. “It would be really easy to say, ‘This is too much. I give up.'”
Bokhari said “hundreds, if not thousands” of Charlotte residents have reached out asking how they can help people in the western part of the state.
“This is a resilient group, and it’s a group that is very positive,” Bukhari said of those affected by Helen. “It shows you that no matter how bad something gets – and it feels really bad, as anyone here has seen – that spirit is what will ultimately drive them to adapt and figure it out “
James Broyhill walking on the dock of his family home on Lake Lure, NC (James Broyhill)
numerous inside and outside the state voluntary organization Deployed over western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, Georgia and parts of Florida over the weekend.
First responders and military personnel from across the United States have also traveled to affected areas to assist in rescue and recovery as well as donate.
The banks of the Swannanoa River overflow after Hurricane Helene in Asheville, N.C., on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Verduzco)
Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian humanitarian aid organization based in Boone, has volunteers in several states affected by the hurricane, and has set up a 20-bed emergency field hospital in Lynnville for patients in need.
Kaitlyn Joosten, a spokeswoman for the organization, said, “The devastation is really heartbreaking. And many families are without power, without water. It’s difficult to get in touch and communicate with people because so many cell towers are down. It’s really It’s tremendous.” , told Fox News Digital.
“People have lost their homes because of floods and landslides and wind damage from trees falling and crushing houses. So, it’s unlike anything else. I’m from North Carolina. Everything I saw there Yes, it is different from that.”
Samaritan’s Purse volunteers help clean up the destruction and debris after Hurricane Helene. (Samaritan’s purse)
Joosten said people are still “trapped in their homes, especially in the mountains, in some rural areas where there may already be a gravel road and they are no longer able to get out.”
“I think it’s hard to know right now what loss we’re dealing with,” he said.
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Samaritan’s Purse is the first to ask Americans to pray for those affected by the hurricane. The organization is also looking for more volunteers to serve at five different response sites. If volunteers live locally or stay overnight with other Samaritan’s Purse workers they can come help for the day.
Local and state officials, as well as local and out-of-state volunteer rescue organizations, rushed to rush personnel and supplies to steep mountain roads severely damaged by Helen in western North Carolina since the worst storm struck Friday morning. Are working. (Samaritan’s purse)
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) arrived in western North Carolina on Monday after Governor Roy Cooper announced President Biden had approved federal resources.
In Fairview and other nearby towns such as Swannanoa, Black Mountain, Biltmore Forest and Boone, some residents were trapped in their mountainside homes after floodwaters completely washed out roads, leaving them with no way to communicate with loved ones or emergency personnel. There was no way.
Curtis Drafton, an Army veteran and founder of the Veterans Hall of Fame, has been responding to natural disasters for 13 years along with other veteran volunteers.
Drafton was initially deployed to respond to the disaster in Florida, but when he started getting pings for emergencies in his home state of North Carolina, he and other volunteers regrouped and headed back north. Went away.
“Within 90 minutes, we probably had to evacuate 50 people. It’s very irregular.”
Drafton recalled, “So, when we got to land, there was probably…six feet of water, just to put it mildly, six feet of water was still flowing, strong current.” “So, we know there’s probably going to be a need for water rescue, quick water rescue as well. We start unloading, we start preparing rafts and finally we contact the sheriff’s office. And they told us Said to deploy from a certain area, we had to evacuate probably 50 people.
Drafton described destroyed roads and bridges, landslides and rockslides.
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Cars remain submerged in a flooded area near a used tire dealer after Tropical Storm Helene in Hendersonville, N.C., on September 27, 2024. (Ken Ruinard/USA TODAY Network via Reuters)
“One way to think about it is that all the training we’ve done for any kind of terrain, other than desert training, was done right there during heavy rain,” he said. “I mean, there was a huge amount of hurdles to go through to get to these people… but we’re used to it.”
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He said people in areas devastated by Helen had lost “everything”.
“America needs to come together. You have to imagine that these people have lost everything. Everything. So, I tell people when we’re running donation drives, there’s no such thing as, ‘Will they need it?’ They need everything, food, water, sanitation, medical supplies, tents, tarps, the whole nine – they need everything,” Drafton said.
