Healing after Helene: Stories from North Carolina

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When Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina in the fall of 2024, it left a path of destruction throughout the state, damaging or destroying over 125,000 homes. People were left with no shelter, no power, no food, and what could have easily seemed like no hope.

However, thousands of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers from around the country—supported by your gifts to Send Relief—worked to provide meals, repair homes, remove debris, and much more. Here are just a few stories of how God used SBDR volunteers to bring hope to this region and begin the process of healing.

“The relief is unexplainable.”

After the storm washed a wall of mud through Ben McKinney’s home, he sat in his driveway, feeling completely overwhelmed. How could one family begin a clean-up process of this magnitude on their own?

That’s when he looked up and saw someone wearing yellow walking his way. “And then there were two, and then three,” he recalls. These volunteers had come to offer their assistance.

Ben was overwhelmed by their kindness, unsure how to begin to thank people who had given up their time and money to help families like his own. He shared, “The relief is unexplainable.”

“It is beautiful.”

Elizabeth sat with her family and watched as the creek near their home swelled 15 feet, flooding the downstairs bedrooms of their house. Left with no power for six days, they had to bail out the water with buckets. Flooring, sheetrock, and insulation were all soaked through, and mold began to grow rapidly. The family didn’t know what they were going to do.

Then volunteers arrived, trained and ready to work. Elizabeth expressed just how impactful they were, saying, “It’s a beautiful thing to see this community and these people, these mission teams come in. You see a bunch of yellow shirts and a smiling face. It is beautiful.”

“You’re my brother from another mother.”

Helene knocked out power to over a million homes in North Carolina. Even now, hundreds of homes are still without electricity. In response, several hurricane relief sites distributed generators, kerosene, propane, camping stoves, and heaters.

One volunteer named Hank had a heartwarming experience with an elderly man. After Hank gave him several items and prayed with him, the man gave him a joyful hug and declared, “You’re my brother. You’re my brother from another mother.”

“This is about neighbor helping neighbor.”

When David heard about the enormous damage from Helene, he volunteered alongside people from several other churches to remove fallen trees that were blocking roads and driveways, trapping people in their homes.

When asked why he decided to give his time to run a chainsaw, he had a simple answer: “This is about neighbor helping neighbor, even if I live four hours away, and to tell them there’s hope in Jesus even in the darkest hour. What better reason is there?”