Neighbors have been helping neighbors recover from hurricane Helene
Today, the White House announced that 1,000 active duty troops would be deploying to help speed up delivery of food, water and medicine to communities most impacted by hurricane Helene. Both President Biden and Vice President Harris visited the region Wednesday.
Though recovery in the isolated and mountainous areas of North Carolina and Tennessee has been slow, NPR’s Jennifer Ludden reports strangers who were not affected have been lending helping hands. Like 22-year-old Tyler Venerable in Newport, Tennessee, who’s been using his orange forklift to clear out people’s flood-ruined belongings.
“I have a business here, have this equipment,” he says. “There’s people in need, so we’re just going to give back to the community.”
He tells NPR that he’s been sharing his number at the dump, offering to help people lug more than one item at a time. Other people have been connecting on Facebook, creating an informal network to help their affected neighbors. Venerable has even seen others pass out jugs of water so people can flush their toilets.
“I just think that’s what we’re supposed to do. I’d be upset if I was sitting at the house.”
Meanwhile, 56-year-old Trudy Hall watches her ruined belongings get carted away. She says she’s gotten help from strangers since the day of the storm. A neighbor connected her with a man who took her in. Hall’s coworkers have stepped up with support, even helping to clean out her house.
“How about that,” she says. “People are good.”
A network of humanitarian organizations are also pitching in.
Team Rubicon is a nonprofit led by military veterans, and one of the organizations helping in the relief efforts. CEO Art delaCruz is on his way to Pasco County, Florida, which experienced a storm surge that caused flooding, but he says there are Team Rubicon members spread across affected areas in the southeast.
In early phases of recovery, delaCruz tells NPR they send route clearance teams with heavy equipment and chainsaws.
“They were able to clear enough debris on these roads across Florida, South Carolina, Georgia to fill up a convoy of 1,050 dump trucks,” he says. “In this long marathon process of restoration of services, all of those can occur once the roads are cleared.”
Now, he says they’re transitioning to helping individual homeowners and helping restore people’s lives.
“It’s important to note that we’ve literally sprinted into the beginning of a marathon. This will take months to recover across this entire region.”
Beyond sending money to aid organizations helping with recovery efforts, delaCruz suggests people reach out to their friends and family and make disaster plans.
“This is one of those times where – the idea of neighbors helping neighbors, it should go from West Coast to East Coast and come together to be able to help the people impacted.”
Helene could have an impact on the election
The flooding in Western North Carolina has also left election officials scrambling to prepare for voting. WFAE member station reporter Steve Harrison reports that state election officials are confident that early voting will begin on time – October 17 – in all counties. They just can’t really say what early voting will look like.
“There may be polling places impacted by mudslides, there may be polling places inaccessible because of damaged roads and there may be polling places with trees that have fallen on them,” said Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Mail-in voting will also be impacted: presumably many of those ballots are lost and won’t be found. Amanda Allen, elections director in Jackson County which is part of the disaster area, tells NPR she and her colleagues are dealing with questions like:
Besides the process of voting, reporter Steve Harrison spoke with Republicans who are concerned that turnout will be significantly down in the mountains – counties which Trump won in 2020. This year though, thousands of people are displaced and living elsewhere and, while they can vote by mail, it’s unclear whether that will be a priority.
This episode was produced by Marc Rivers. It was edited by Jeanette Woods with additional reporting from Liz Baker and Christopher Intagliata. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
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On a Tennessee street hit hard by Helene flooding, strangers show up to help
Across Eastern Tennessee, people are connecting on social media to help clear out ruined furniture, scrub off mud, and deliver jugs of water so people can flush toilets.
