When the holiday season begins Western North Carolina residents who lost everything during Hurricane Helene want fellow Americans to remember them.
Some people in hard-hit areas, such as Swannanoa and Burnsville, or in hard-to-reach places nestled in the Appalachian Mountains. They still live in tents or RVs that were once their homes.
“We dropped off the campers,” Robert Pearson, a member of the Cajun Navy 2016 aid organization in Louisiana, told Fox News Digital. “We dropped them off an hour before the interview. And there are two more that will be delivered this afternoon. But people donated camping equipment to us. And we do everything we can to try and help. We have a list of people who need help.”
Cajun Navy 2016 is a civilian volunteer group formed after Hurricane Katrina. To help those in need during and after disasters. They have field volunteers. Including Pearson. From September 9, the 27th, the day Helene attacked the North Carolina mountains.
WATCH: People live in tents in NC 2 months after Helene
“When we first arrived here It was just extremely chaotic. The infrastructure completely failed. No telephone, no electricity, no water,” Pearson said. “And I’ll be honest with you. No one knows what to do. We ended up in a little town called Clyde and they destroyed their fire department, like, just part of the whole town was wiped out there.” And we stayed there.”
Hurricane Helene forced North Carolinians to sleep in tents where homes once stood.
The city of Montreat offered the Cajun Navy 2016 building to accommodate 30 beds, and when volunteers were able to fill all 30 beds, Montreat offered them another building to add more beds. Pearson said.
Dara Cody and her neighbors are sleeping in a tent where their home once stood on a picturesque lawn on the banks of the Swannanoa River in North Carolina. (Fox News Digital/File)
People still don’t have cars. heater or internet in some places
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“Just looking at it in person (compared to) seeing the pictures, it’s hard to imagine how bad it was. … I walked past Katrina. And this is like Katrina for me,” Pearson said. “The damage is just as bad. It’s different because it’s 100 yards this way up the mountain, everything is fine, but 20 miles away in this river. It was just extremely chaotic.”
Aerial view of a destroyed building after Hurricane Helen’s flooding on Oct. 1, 8 in Bat Cave, North Carolina. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Some places cannot be rebuilt due to government regulations. Others can rebuild but don’t have the money. Some still don’t have a vehicle, and others still can’t find a new job after being unemployed. Bridges across the city and county are destroyed and will take time to replace.
Pearson recalls dropping off a camper for a family. After their home was damaged by 18 inches of floodwater during Helene’s
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Cajun Navy 2016 has delivered donated camps to those in need of housing in Western North Carolina. (Cajun Navy 2016)
“It can definitely be salvaged. Everything can be fixed. But they put a big sticker on the door that said the house was to be demolished,” Pearson said. “Well…there’s a mortgage on the house. Homeowner doesn’t have insurance. Because the river took it out He doesn’t have flood insurance. Because it’s not a flood zone. …is in mortgage debt, doesn’t have a house they can live in What will they do? I don’t have an answer for that.”
Pearson sent another camper to a family of five, including three children, who lost their home in the mudslide.
“I don’t think they have insurance. This is a 200 year old house that has been passed down to families over the years. They are not well-off people. But they’re great people, and they’re running out of generators because they don’t have a house to hook up a utility pole to,” Pearson said.
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People collect donations at a gas station along the Swannanoa River. Following the aftermath of Hurricane Helen on 1 Oct 7 in Swannanoa, North Carolina. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Counties that depend on the fall tourism season lose millions of dollars in revenue. Buncombe County officials are estimating a 70% revenue loss for businesses that rely on tourism and hospitality in the final quarter of 2024. According to WFAE
Volunteer organizations like Samaritan’s Purse, as well as churches and ministries. From all over the United States There are still boots in the cities. Across western North Carolina The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has employees still based in the area.
FEMA recently came under heavy criticism after former Supervisor Marnie Washington ordered the agency’s relief workers to avoid contact with Florida homeowners who had Trump signs displayed outside their homes after the hurricane. Milton which attacks the United States About two weeks after Helene Washington appeared on Fox News @ Night on November 1 on September 14 and said that she “Just follow” orders from her superiors to avoid a potentially hostile political confrontation.
FEMA did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital when asked to comment for this story.
Former FEMA official says she is being scapegoated:
So far, FEMA has approved “$722 million to assist survivors with housing repairs. Changing personal property and other necessary recovery efforts,” and $1.1 billion for debris removal and other emergency protection services. According to a press release from the agency, FEMA has deployed more than 4,800 personnel to the affected areas.
Americans from across the country donate everything from RVs and cars to tree trimming and roof repairs to those in need. But what western North Carolina needs most right now is money. According to people in the area
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Some people in hard-hit areas, such as Swannanoa and Burnsville, or in hard-to-reach places nestled in the Appalachian Mountains. They still live in tents or RVs that were once their homes. (Cajun Navy 2016)
Coree Loffink, a Bakersville resident, told Fox News Digital that people in the area are struggling to find daily essentials. This is because some large grocery stores remain closed. and some roads remain inaccessible.
“A lot of people are still living out of camp or looking for campers to live in because they … live out of their cars or live in neighbors’ houses,” Loffink said. “But yesterday will be the last day we’ll have warm weather after this … The high next week on Tuesday is 28 degrees, the low is about 14 degrees, so it’s a struggle to get a heat source here.”
Even two months after Helene While many roads and properties looked better than they did after September, on August 27 “there are still many struggles. It’s a personal struggle and an individual struggle from family to family,” Loffink said.
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Mekenzie Craig brushes mud off her wedding photos of surviving the mudslide that killed her husband on Sept. 9, 27. (Adam Eugene Willis, Fox News Digital)
“It’s going to be a problem here for at least a couple of years of rebuilding, creating jobs, just people trying to figure out their lives,” she said. “Do they want to stay? Do they want to go? If they stay, they have to try to rebuild. There are just a lot of complicated and stressful things that have popped up since the hurricane for families here.”
Loffink said it’s hard to drive with the same type of destruction every day that kills some people.
“A lot of people still say they cry every day. Whether it’s for the person you love lost pets Seeing your family home destroyed.”
“There are people here who cry every day because it is so upsetting,” Loffink said. “I mean that. You drive down Green Mountain and you see all the destruction there…some houses. And it was washed up in the Green River, and there was a cross there. Those families didn’t make it. It’s really a pity. But they have nowhere to go and you still (will) see that every day when you drive around.”
A North Carolina man sleeping in a tent after Hurricane Helen had to return his father’s boxes on the property.
amidst the destroyed houses Damaged cars and orange “X” signs spray painted on trees and rocks. The body was discovered by officials a few days after Helene’s death. The leaves began to turn bright and colorful. (Adam Eugene Willis, Fox News Digital)
Volunteers are preparing a hot Thanksgiving meal. Or deliver boxed Thanksgiving meals directly to people to cook at home.
An Asheville-based charity called Chances for Children Carolinas was founded by children. One group is a Destination Imagination Club service project to help other children Receive scholarships for extracurricular activities It partnered with Grateful Village to host a holiday fundraiser for Helene survivors.
Volunteers with Chances for Children Carolinas is hosting a pop-up store over the holidays, offering gift items that locals can purchase with a gift card, and 100% of the proceeds will go back to families in need in the western North. North Carolina directly
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Founders Mary Hudson Harrelson and her mother, Anna Harrelson, said they wanted to create a way for those who had lost everything to purchase gifts with dignity. Instead of collecting free donations, Harrelson explained that people in western North Carolina are resilient. And it said even those who lost their homes and vehicles continued to volunteer to help their neighbors.
Chances for Children Carolinas is collecting donations through its website. Chancesforchildrencarolinas.com which the foundation gives directly to those in need
