The Southeastern United States I know and love has been devastated. The mountains that have long held my heart are weeping.
I’m not sure people understand the severity of the situation. This is not a typical post-hurricane cleanup. In fact, “cleanup” isn’t even part of the discussion right now.
- I’d like to use my small voice to share a few facts as well as a word picture of the homes of our neighbors whose world has literally slid away.
- I’ve got links for more information from people there as well as links of two organizations I recommend if you’d like to donate financially. Plus, I have several ways you can help right now without spending a dime.
- And, finally, I will share why my heart is heavy—beyond the obvious, horrendous loss of beautiful and amazing people.
How Did This Happen?
Hurricane Helene swept in as a powerful storm on September 26, 2024. A mash-up of weather-related conditions resulted in a tragic and devastating 500-mile swath of destruction and flooding unlike any our nation has seen.
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia have all been greatly affected, as well as parts of Kentucky and Ohio. I’m sure there are other areas I’m unaware of at the moment that will come to light in days to come.
Flooding, extensive damage, power outages, loss of homes and loss of life are the norm in all those states and surrounding areas. Recovery will be long.
In some places, recovery will be far longer.
What’s Going on Now?
A week after the storm’s landfall, many places aren’t even close to being ready for cleanup, let alone rebuilding. Flooding and mudslides in the mountains carried houses off their foundations, leveled towns and communities and left hundreds dead or missing.
First responders are still rescuing people. Miracles are happening, and heroes are doing what heroes do.
The death toll, as I write this, has passed 160, but 600 people are estimated to be missing. First responders’ current focus is on rescuing anyone still breathing. Recovery of bodies simply has to wait for the time being.
This is not happening in some other country, far away. Right now, today, in our country, hundreds of our neighbors are missing, swept away by water currents, buried in mud.
People are cut off from neighbors by washed out roads, crumbled bridges and zero communication capabilities. Families were separated when flood waters swept through yards and homes, casting people in all different directions.
Clean drinking water is nonexistent and will be for some time, especially in areas where the entire infrastructure was destroyed.
What’s the Area Like?
Author Pepper Basham—whose latest beautiful book set in those devastated mountains released on 10/1—shares a little about the unique and beautiful nature of communities in the mountains in this video, and another Asheville resident writes more in her Facebook post.
Mountain communities are small and close-knit. Many have one road in and out, and those roads tend to be narrow and windy on fair-weather days. Creeks and rivers snake through the entire area, and most homes are situated on the lower areas of property and often near water.
What Do They Need?
Teams are in the area with helicopters and planes and mules and ATVs. They are working tirelessly to reach the people who are still cut off or trapped.
Long-term—once every man, woman and child is rescued or recovered—an overwhelming number of our neighbors will be without homes, jobs, schools or churches. They will all need someone to talk to because what they’re living through and witnessing and losing right now is not something they will forget. That recovery will be lifelong.
Right now, teams need to reach the missing and rescue or recover them. Those who are out of harm’s way need medical attention, medications, clean water, hot food, running water for bathroom and shower needs, gasoline and other basic needs for life (diapers, feminine hygiene products, pet food—for the animals that survived—and the ability to contact loved ones with an update).
With major interstates and most other roads damaged, impassable or gone, most of us cannot go to the affected areas to help right now. In the worst places, they only want skilled and trained teams who can assist with their immediate needs.
That can leave us feeling useless, but we can help in some big ways.
How Can We Help?
First, we can pray.
Miracles are happening, and I believe they will continue.
- Pray for rescues—it’s not too late.
- Pray for rescuers—for their safety, stamina, awareness and wisdom as well as for their mental and emotional needs.
- Pray for those who are safe but who need gas and food and water.
- Pray for those who have lost the most—for their hearts and their minds as they need to grieve while they likely feel numb to their core.
- Pray for those who are feeling overwhelmed by their grief to the point of wanting to harm themselves.
- Pray for heroes to arrive and to speak and to listen at the right times.
- Pray for families torn apart.
- Pray for little ones who’ve seen things no child should, that their minds will do the amazing work of closing off the horrible memories of this time.
- Pray that everyone will be recovered so that loved ones can have closure.
Second, we can be aware and we can speak.
We were all caught off guard by the catastrophic effects of this storm. The residents in the mountains certainly were. I didn’t start fully comprehending the devastation until Sunday afternoon, and I think many people are still unaware of the severity of the situation.
Right now, residents of these areas can’t speak for themselves because of a lack of communication, so we need to let people know what’s happening and how they can help.
In all the affected areas, they are in a dire situation because none of them expected what happened. They didn’t stockpile food or gas or gather emergency supplies and food preparation items or withdraw cash because they shouldn’t have been hit like they were. They shouldn’t be without power.
The survivors need all of us surrounding them with an American-sized hug as we cover them in prayers and supply them with everything they physically need to make it right now. That begins with all of us sharing posts on social media, encouraging our communities to gather supplies and finding ways to work together to support our hurting friends.
Third, we can support the boots on the ground.
If you are able to and would like to directly help those being rescued, sheltered and cared for, I urge you to first check with your church.
Most of the larger denominations have trained teams ready and waiting to hit the ground as soon as the winds subside, and those teams are there now. If you’re not affiliated with a church that has a response team, I will personally recommend the two organizations below.
My denomination—Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS)—is already serving up hot meals to folks in Western North Carolina and has been assisting in Florida and other places as well. Visit their donation page. Forged by Fire is a Recognized Service Organization of the LCMS, and it’s the crew that’s in the Asheville area serving hot meals as I type this. They are also based out of The Village Lutheran Church in Lacombe, La., a few miles from my house.
The Cajun Navy has been in the thick of it since the beginning as well, assisting with rescues, supplies, relief and much more. They come from hurricane land and know it’s neighbors we rely on when the storm settles. They are those neighbors. Visit their donation page and be sure to use the links there to donate. Be mindful of scammers like the fake Venmo account; their real one does NOT have an underscore.
Church teams and organizations like the Cajun Navy are the ones who are trained, prepared and responsive. These are the “helpers” Mr. Rogers told us to look for.
Regardless of who you support, I encourage you to research them, see what they’re doing and then ask people in areas often affected by hurricanes. We can tell you where the help really comes from.
Once recovery begins, you will have opportunities to support families of first responders who have been lost as well as families who have been forever changed or who find themselves homeless. Again, research donation opportunities before you give.
Fourth, at some point, we may be able to go and lend a helping hand or supporting shoulder.
We may be able to, instead, open our homes and communities to those without their own. I encourage you—and me—to open our arms when those opportunities come.
What Are My Personal Ties to the Area?
And now, I’ll drift to a more personal response. I believe everyone who has been following the updates and hearing about the devastation has heavy hearts, burdened for these people—some we know, most we don’t. It doesn’t matter if we know them personally, they are our neighbors and they are facing something none of us could have imagined in a million years … forget the talk of hundred-year storms and once-in-a-thousand-year phenomena.
Each of us also has a personal reason or two beyond the obvious for our downcast spirits.
I have lived in South Carolina and North Carolina, so they are part of the many beautiful homes I’ve had over the years. I have family in South Carolina and Virginia and Kentucky. Most of my life has been spent in the Southeastern United States, so this entire region is truly my home.
For one summer in college, I got to live in Asheville, N.C. I attended the World Journalism Institute and received the great honor of being a WJI Fellow. That summer was an immense time of growth for me—growth as a young adult, as an aspiring journalist, as a writer and photographer and as a Christian.
I gained many things in my short time in Asheville, and much of it happened because of the people and the place.
What Are My Memories?
While I don’t remember many names, I remember homes and smiles and hugs. People from area churches opened their homes to us, shared meals with us around their tables, laughed and joked with us and encouraged our budding careers.
The people were kind, compassionate, open and giving. They didn’t live in extravagant houses—there’s only one Biltmore in the area, after all. Their houses may have been simple and perhaps ordinary, but they were homes, filled with love and memories and warmth and fellowship. That’s worth more than any mansion.
What’s So Special About the Mountains?
And then, there was the land—the mountains.
If you’ve never been, I’m sorry for what you’ll never see, but the beauty is still there and will shine brightly again once the mud and the crumbled mountainsides are cleared.
I should probably back up to my childhood and explain that we were frequent visitors to the mountains of North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. My oldest siblings attended Covenant College on Lookout Mountain, Ga., and a couple of them lived in Chattanooga, Tenn., and surrounding areas for years afterward. I have fond memories of vacations in chalets in the mountains or at church gatherings. Places like Beech Mountain, Banner Elk, Linville, Grandfather Mountain, Tweetsie Railroad, Chimney Rock, Blowing Rock, Boone, Bonclarken at Flat Rock were as much home to me as anywhere I had an address.
Those names may be familiar to you if you’ve read the recent news.
The song “For These Are My Mountains” has always been a favorite. (I have Scottish roots and heard Alex Beaton sing it in person at many a Scottish Highland Games.) I have never been able to listen to that song without a shimmer in my eyes because there is something about the majesty and grandeur of the mountains that captures my heart and stirs my soul.
My heart has always rested somewhere atop a mountain peak, and every time I’ve driven toward a mountain range, I’ve sung those words, “For these are my mountains, and I’m going home.” And I meant them.
There is a reason mountains have appeared in just about every story I’ve written. Mountains are strength, security, peace, clarity and beauty. Mountains are home.
The faerie shepherdess I relate most to is Montana, shepherdess of the mountain faeries.
Mountains feature in some of the poems I occasionally write.
And, the very mountains and towns currently devastated in real life feature prominently in Jack’s story, because “It was the mountains that sang to him.” Just like they do to me.
All of the towns, events and descriptions from western North Carolina in Any Good Thing and One Good Thing are completely devastated or simply gone.
- Weaverville
- Burnsville
- Asheville
- Shindig on the Green
- Black Mountain and Flat Creek, across from a retreat center—that center was Montreat
- Jack’s mountain peak—I’ve heard it no longer exists
And so, my heart aches in a deep-down-in-the-core-memories-kind-of-way as I scroll through the reports of missing and found and as I pray and as I weep with those who are weeping.
What Now?
Hurricane Helene and its effects have done damage on a scale our country has never seen. Yes, we’ve had many major hurricanes. I’ve lived through a few of them—Hugo, Katrina, Ida—so I know the devastation, the power, the loss, the isolation and the long road to recovery.
We’ve stood on bare foundations and in the middle of neighborhoods suddenly barren of homes. We waited in long lines for gas and food. We sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic with armed National Guardsmen right outside our windows. We lived without power during the summer’s scorching heat. We had failed promises from certain agencies and above-and-beyond kindness from groups who dropped everything to come. We lived in a time where “Looters will be shot” signs were spray-painted on jagged pieces of houses and when spray paint on front doors left symbols we came to learn meant life and death. We watched the numbers rise as bodies were recovered—people, lost in a moment.
And yet, in some ways, those were nothing compared to what some parts of our country are facing right now. I say that not to diminish the horrors of previous storms (nearly 20 years post-Katrina, we’re still recovering), but to explain this is beyond anything we’ve experienced.
Mountains aren’t supposed to be ravaged by hurricanes.
Hundreds of people today—right now, as I type this from the comfort of my home and as you read it over your morning coffee—are using skills few of us know to be rescued, to survive, to live to see another sunrise. They cannot be reached where they are. Roads are gone. They are trapped. Many things are nowhere near where they were.
The mountains are weeping, but the heroes are still rescuing—against all odds. Mountains—and their people—are resilient, strong, steadfast.
Tolkien Cat says …
No One Ever Mentions the Cats.
Mama didn’t want to type about them because she got all teary, so here I go.
Cats don’t like water. We don’t. It’s a messy liquid we need only to drink. We have all we need for bath time, thank you very much.
That being said, we are quite agile and strong swimmers when the need arises. Cats, as a species, are plucky and adept at survival.
Some humans are currently pulling tired felines from harm’s way and getting them to safe places with food, water in bowls and the space and freedom to bathe as God intended.
Here’s one group you could help. They’re rescuing animals, large and small.
Donate to Animal Search and Rescue, if you’re able.