10/24/2024
Katie and I are visiting our daughter, Rachel Brewster, at Excel College, in Black Mountain NC and staying to help with the college's relief efforts for Hurricane Helene victims. Fortunately much of of the areas to the East, North and West of Black Mountain contended with heavy rain and high winds (trees downed power lines, water plant inundated and knocked out). However, Black Mountain is the entrance point for RT 9, the road that follows several streams till they join the Broad River, that heads Southeast to Chimney Rock and Lake Lure and that 25 mile stretch was basically destroyed. Black Mountain is a major staging area for supplies going down that road.
I learned a lot today. The first is that people gave abundantly to meet the needs. Went by several locations giving out donated items to anyone who asked for it. Phil's BBQ and Ingles Grocery store are across the street from each other and right at the entrance to Rt 9. FEMA, National Guard and World Central Kitchen were set up at Ingles and Phil's BBQ turned its outside deck into a donated clothing store. The Cajun Nation was down by the Dollar general and told me that today they got 25 generators and immediately got 23 to homes that needed them. Excel College, 2 weeks before Hurricane Helene, had just cemented a huge outdoor patio and erected a 50 x 150 tent for school purposes which then became a perfect staging and storage area for supplies. They have filled and emptied the area 3 times with donated supplies.
The second is that while rescuing people is a big deal, their is a huge amount of work required to sort and organize all the donated materials so that they can be then given to people in need. We came out to help because they needed "supplies volunteers" and I thought, "we'll go, but can't we help do real stuff like repair homes." Well, the logistics is staggering and the work extremely time consuming. Donated clothes can't just be given out after several shipments are received. They have to be examined for usability, then sorted, labeled (sizes), folded and then stacked in piles or put in boxes. If you have folded clothes at home, you know how much time that takes. At least 10% is unusable. If you get several tons of clothing, then storing and disposing of 10% is a big deal. Then there are the pallets, plastic bins, and cardboard boxes the items are shipped in.
The third is the different needs of the stages of rescue, relief, resupply, and recovery. Most here are shifting from relief and resupply to recovery. Recovery is repairing homes still standing or rebuilding destroyed ones. So the left overs donations from relief and resupply have to be dealt with while donation please are made and room set aside for building materials and tools, etc.
Katie's sister and Brother-in-law worked a shower and laundry trailer for 6 days working from 6 am to 10 pm. Not glamorous, but desperately needed services. I knew our work at Excel would not be glamorous, but did not appreciate, until I got here, how absolutely needed it will be. If you are given a similar opportunity to volunteer, I'd encourage you to take advantage of it. It will be worth it.
I can' get my photos out of my iphone into this post, but will edit with photos when i can.