A steady stream of cars pull up to the main entrance to the Immaculata Catholic elementary school in Hendersonville, N.C. Boxes of food, water, cleaning supplies and hygiene products— even fresh produce—are quickly brought over to the cars by volunteers. Many of the folks pulling into the lot ask for, and receive, more supplies to deliver to neighbors who can’t make the trip to the school.
The Rev. Andrés Gutiérrez, the pastor at Immaculate Conception Parish, surveys the busy scene in front of the school with satisfaction on Oct. 9. He says Hendersonville, like nearby Asheville and the small mountain communities that surround it, was “in the bull’s eye” of Hurricane Helene, which still packed a wallop in wind and torrential rains when it reached the mountains of North Carolina on Sept. 27 even as it was downgraded to tropical storm status.
“Immediately we went into disaster relief mode and started scavenging within our rooms in the school for things to to give away,” he said. A truck from Catholic Charities arrived with pallets of bottled water, and word quickly spread through the community that in the aftermath of the storm help could be found at Immaculata. “All of a sudden, a distribution center was born,” he says.
A little over a week after Helene hit Hendersonville, conditions for many are returning to close to normal—electricity restored and some businesses reopening. “The power trucks are starting to make their way into more of the mountain areas,” Father Gutiérrez says, “but we are seeing a lot of people that have had significant home damage—cars destroyed—still without power. If they’re coming from up north, still without water.”
Truckloads of donations have been arriving from all over the region and from as far away as Texas. “The response has been really amazing,” Father Gutiérrez says, reporting that in just a few days Immaculata’s ad hoc emergency distribution site had handed out more than 45 tons of goods to folks from the Hendersonville and Asheville regions.
“We’re just seeing dozens and dozens of cars every day, and we’re emptying out [every day].”
Many of the families pulling up at the school are members of the region’s growing Latino community, who have been relocating to the Asheville area because of its strong job market. Some may prefer to seek help from the church rather than the government because of their residency status. “Here we’re obviously not concerned with any of that,” Father Gutiérrez says. “They’re families and their brothers and sisters in Christ, and we love having them with us.”
He attributes a lot of the success of the improvised relief effort to school principal Margaret Beale, who put her organizing skills to work to keep goods coming in and cars moving quickly out. For her part, Ms. Beale says, “The real heroes are the parishioners, the parents and the students who have showed up to help distribute these supplies. They are the ones doing the heavy lifting.” Indeed, on Oct. 9 the school was full of community members, Immaculata students and their parents ready to help out.
A lot of people coming to Immaculata had no financial buffer for a disaster like Helene ”and are thankful for whatever supplies they can get,” Ms. Beale says.
In terms of water and power restoration, Ms. Beale believes the Hendersonville area will likely be restored before Asheville, but she worries that mountain communities around both cities are another story.
“On a good day, it’s pretty hard to reach some of these communities,” Jesse Boeckermann, the Western Region director for Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Charlotte, confirms. “How people live” and “where they live” in North Carolina will make the disaster response here uniquely challenging, he says, describing some of the steep terrain and mountain trails where people have built homes and small communities around Asheville. With roads washed out and bridges damaged, he says, some disaster response teams have resorted to using pack mules to reach people who have been cut off by Helene.
Mr. Boeckermann was guiding a disaster assessment with Catholic Charities officials through the hardest hit sections of Asheville. Some of the city’s most vibrant arts and restaurant neighborhoods have been completely obliterated by Helene. At Foundy Street, a popular arts and dining compound on the edge of Asheville’s River Arts community, the devastation is near complete. Entire restaurants, brew pubs and the work of hundreds of local artists and craftspeople were completely washed away.
Surveying the destruction, the Catholic Charities team agrees that one of the next prominent challenges for the community will be adjusting to the loss of thousands of jobs because of the scores of businesses and manufacturing sites that are lost or too damaged to reopen because of the flooding.
The donations pouring into Immaculata are one kind of response to this unprecedented disaster in North Carolina. Others are donating not just supplies but themselves. A group of gentlemen from Louisiana packed up and headed to Hendersonville as soon as they heard about Helene’s hit on the region, pulling into Immaculata just days after the storm with two big campers, trailers full of food and oversized grills, and other industrial-strength cooking equipment.
They quickly set up their kitchen on wheels behind the Immaculata school and set to work cooking. The men are parishioners of St. Margaret Mary Parish in Slidell, La. They have made a ministry of hot meals on wheels after Slidell’s own humbling experiences nearly 20 years ago following the devastating Hurricane Katrina.
There is nothing refined about the food they are turning out. When you are cooking for a thousand and a power drill has been converted into an industrial-strength potato masher, you’re not shooting for subtlety, but the Salisbury steak, garlic mashed potato and sweet corn are appreciated. The men well know how much suffering is involved in the aftermath of a severe storm and how good a hot meal can be to people in a community bereft of power and other basic services.
The team figures they will serve 10,000 meals or more this week before they close up shop and head back home, where they plan to host the annual parish barbecue that helps finance this effort. The men from St. Margaret Mary are part of a small army of volunteers and donors who have descended onto the Asheville area since Hurricane Helene turned a region that had been described as a climate-change haven into another climate-change casualty.
At another St. Margaret Mary’s parish, this one in Swannanoa near hard-hit Asheville, “St. Walmart Mary’s” has opened in the church basement with emergency supplies that have been coming in from Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Charlotte, as well as from people and parishes around the nation. The church still has no power, but by lamplight residents can walk improvised grocery aisles of hygiene and cleaning products, food and water that parish staff members Claudia Graham and Jennifer Puzerewski and volunteers from the church have neatly organized.
Upstairs are tables of men’s, women’s and children’s clothing that donors have also been dropping off at the church. It’s a lifeline to a community still without power and water, especially as all the nearby grocery stores and supermarkets are closed and many of them are significantly damaged by floodwaters. The two women marvel at the generosity of people around the region and country who have shown up at the church with car- and truckloads of donations.
The community around the church was devastated when the Swannanoa River crested at a record 26.1 feet, more than 16 feet over its flood stage. A cleanup has begun inside the houses that survived the flooding, and piles of debris are growing along the roads that follow the river. Many of the homes and businesses that were along the Swannanoa have been washed away completely, and just about all the riverside structures have suffered significant if not irreparable damage.
Back at Immaculata school in Hendersonville, after more than a week of emergency disbursements they are planning for what comes next. The school has power and water and will be ready to reopen next week. The students will be joined by children bused in from Asheville’s Catholic School, which is not ready to reopen yet. Municipal water is not expected to be restored for weeks if not months to all of Asheville’s residents.
Immaculata’s distribution center will be moved to another part of the parish compound but will stay open as long as necessary. After surviving the storm, the folks here are wondering what comes next, and Father Gutiérrez says the church will be ready to help.
“We’re working with Catholic Charities in order to transition to a phase two, midterm- to long-term recovery,” he says. “Now we can do the nitty gritty of, ‘What happened to you? Are you eligible for FEMA? Do you have insurance?… Did you lose your house? How can we help?’”
“That’s where Catholic Charities and the parish and the school are going to work hand in hand.”
Even as these volunteers continued their work in Hendersonville and Asheville, a new storm was barrelling toward Florida. Hurricane Milton had already moved headlines away from North Carolina’s disaster. Many here worry that Milton’s fury means Asheville’s recovery will fall from the public consciousness long before the serious rebuilding even begins.
Gerard Carter, chief executive for Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Charlotte, says that’s not going to happen at his office. Catholic Charities staff are part of the community, he points out. In fact, three of the 12 Catholic Charities team members from Charlotte and Asheville coordinating the agency’s response to the calamity in Asheville had to first find new lodging for themselves and their families because of the flood damage they personally experienced.
“Once the flood waters recede, Catholic Charities will still be there,” he says. “We’re there for the long term.”
Helene’s death toll in North Carolina reached 115 people by Oct. 10. More of the storm’s victims may be discovered as cleanup and recovery efforts continue. More than 220 people perished in the states hardest hit by the storm.
Chief Correspondent Kevin Clarke joined a team from Catholic Charities USA assessing needs in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene on Oct. 9. Look for more reporting on disaster preparedness in the time of climate change next week.
