BURNSVILLE, N.C. – A common motto among Missouri Baptist Disaster Relief (MODR) volunteers is to always “Be Flexible”. That has certainly been the case with response to Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida over four months ago. MODR volunteers initially responded by providing chainsaw teams, mass feeding teams and shower and laundry units to Augusta, Ga., in a matter of days. To that end, MODR volunteers completed 52 days of service, helped complete 477 chainsaw jobs, helped serve 84,780 meals and assisted with 2,500 showers and 1,300 loads of laundry before closing the operation on November 18th.
However, as everyone knows, relief from Hurricane Helene is far from over. Consequently, Missouri Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers, including Richard Brummitt, with the Clay-Platte Association, simply shifted gears and moved on to Burnsville and Spruce Pine, North Carolina, where they started out clearing trees and debris. Now, several MODR teams have moved on to helping renovate houses that can be restored to livable condition in Yancey County, which surrounds Burnsville.
“We’ve done a little bit of everything over the past few months,” said Brummitt, noting that he first took a team of 22 volunteers to Georgia in December. “In Augusta, team members primarily fixed meals, provided showers and laundry, cleared trees and tarped houses. Right now, the teams are basically transitioning from chain saw work to home restoration.”
According to Keith Ashe, with North Carolina Baptists on a Mission and leader of the restoration project in Burnsville, North Carolina, approximately 6,800 out of about 8.400 homes in Yancey County have been damaged by flooding caused by Hurricane Helene. Some can be repaired, while others have been destroyed or literally washed away.
“We figure this will be at least a five-year project,” he says. “And we’ve divided it into four phases. The first phase is recovery, which involved the typical response of clearing trees off of houses, driveways, etc. and tarping damaged roofs. The second phase is what we call ‘rapid repair’. That is doing just enough to get people back in their homes. That includes making sure the house is fully enclosed and that there is one working bathroom, a sink, stove and refrigerator.
“Phase three goes a step further by going back in to finish what we started by putting paint on the walls, adding wood trim, possibly finishing a second bathroom and that sort of thing. Finally, stage four involves a total rebuild. Right now, we’re in phase two and occasionally combining phases two and three in some situations.”
Looking into the future, North Carolina Baptists on a Mission also purchased and refurbished an old nursing home in Burnsville to use as a command center and for housing up to 80 volunteers. Each room has been fitted with three bunk beds, which can accommodate six people per room … eliminating the need for disaster relief volunteers to bring their own cot or bed.
Among the first from MODR to travel to Burnsville following the transition in early January were Mike and Brenda Hibbard, who are serving as liaisons between MODR volunteers and Baptists on Mission, and chaplains Barb Gaines and Mickey Ebert.
“It’s hard to fathom the amount of damage until you see it in person,” said Mike Hibbard, noting that he and Brenda are committed to working in the area until May, except for a trip back home to Missouri. “The floods not only damaged homes and affected people’s lives; it has permanently changed the geography of the area. We’ve seen creeks that residents described as the width of their couch that are now scoured out into 30-yard-wide flood plains. Travel over to the next holler where there was another small creek or river, and you see the same thing. As a result, many homeowners can’t even rebuild, because there’s not any way to establish a firm foundation for a rebuild.”
Hibbard told the story of one homeowner who lived on 4 ½ acres and sold produce from a garden for extra income. Today, he is lucky if he has enough land left to rebuild a home. Worse yet were the people who watched the house belonging to a relative or neighbor wash away with the occupants still inside.
On the positive side, though, Hibbard and his team encountered a homeowner who was originally from the Ukraine. During the first few visits, he refused to even have the group pray for him. However, as time went on, he not only accepted the prayers, but began to put his faith in Jesus. His comment was, “You people just keep coming and you keep helping!”
“In the meantime, there are a lot of extended families now living in single-family homes,” Hibbard adds. “You have parents, grown children and grandparents living together just because they have nowhere else to go right now. To make matters worse, many of them can’t build back where they were.”
As a result, requests for assistance continue to come in each day. Fortunately, so do volunteers. Hibbard said that he had received commitments from 11 Missouri teams and roughly 54 volunteers by Feb. 15 with even more coming in March and April. However, given the limited amount of space for accommodations, it’s important that those wishing to help don’t self-deploy.
Instead, anyone interested in helping people get back into their homes in North Carolina should e-mail rebuild@mobaptist.org and make arrangements in advance. If you would like to give to support repair work, please go to modr.org/give or make a check out to MODR and mail to MODR, 400 East High Street, Jefferson City, MO 65101, mark it for Hurricane Helene.