When a major natural disaster like a hurricane hits, there is a lot of work to be done.
As federal and state responses lead the way, individuals are reaching out to provide assistance in any way possible.
In Adair County, there has been a large response locally to the hurricane, the remnants of which swept through the area over a week ago. While Adair avoided the kind of devastating floods seen in North Carolina and Tennessee, the massive amounts of rain from the same storm system brought the issue home.
Columbia Christian Church’s benevolence team leader, Richard Phelps, explained all the support that he has seen from the community through his church’s relief efforts.
“We just put a trailer out and let people give. We put the trailer out on Tuesday night (Oct. 1), and they filled it up in nine hours on Wednesday. A great response, the best response from the community,” Phelps said. “We delivered everything on Thursday and we actually took our load to Hartford, Tennessee and unloaded that trailer full of stuff.”
Phelps and others initially intended the trailer to go to Memorial Baptist Church in Newport, Tennessee, which had been set up as a relief center. However, by the time the trailer was to be delivered, Memorial Baptist Church was full on donations.
The journey to this new relief center proved to be challenging.
“(Memorial) couldn’t hold anymore. So, (they) said ‘we want you to take your trailer on about 20 more miles on to a harder hit area that doesn’t have the supplies we do.’ With quite a bit of difficulty, we got there. 40 is closed and we had to go on some back roads. We got up to where a road was washed out and we had to go back around and we finally made our way up to Pigeon Valley Baptist Church,” Phelps said.
Lindsey Wilson College has also been hosting a massive campaign to get supplies to those in need. This campaign has been pushed by Lindsey Wilson’s Band Director, Anthony Baird, who has connections to the area around Newport.
“I actually used to teach high school band there for several years,” Baird said. “(Cocke County) borders right up against North Carolina and right up against Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge…I still keep in touch with some of those families from band students I used to teach. I received word that their entire water treatment facility was wiped out from flooding. I was actually talking to Rich Loy who is the pastor at Newport First Baptist Church… He said, ‘Our big thing right now for the next two weeks is bring as much water as you can.’ They’re estimating another three weeks before they can start getting clean, usable water to residents in the county.”
From there, Baird reached out to others on campus to get Lindsey’s Student Government Association involved, who also coordinated with Res Life to get a water drive started for Tennessee. Dr. Gerald Chafin, who is the choral director at Lindsey, reached out to pastors in the community to bring in as much water and supplies as possible. The swim team assisted the Christian Church in loading donations, and student services donated around 1,000 shirts.
“The people in that community, they’ve lost everything. They’ve got the clothes on their back… They’re going to need rags for cleanup. They’re going to need shirts in general. Hopefully we’ll have a couple of truckloads this weekend,” Baird said.
Baird and faculty were moved by the large push from students and community members, with Baird saying, “Students, they’ve been overwhelming positive. I’ve had emails from students all over, even some of our commuters who don’t live on campus, asking what they can do to help… I’m actually getting faculty from Texas, some of our remote faculty from Houston, who have sent me money to purchase water on their behalf.”
“It’s churches, friends, neighbors, helping each other. People helping people,” Phelps said.
The donations from Columbia Christian Church, Lindsey Wilson College, and other organizations in the community will go a long way in the short term. As time passes, however, what those in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and other states need most will change. Both Baird and Phelps stated that what the Helene victims will be looking largely at clean-up, repair, and construction supplies in the coming weeks and months. Garbage bags and water will continue to make a large difference.
By Kenley Godby
kenley@adairvoice.com
