Being the hands and feet of Jesus amid tragedy

As Hurricane Helene rushed toward the United States last week, a Convoy of Hope disaster response team stopped in Tallahassee, Fla. to ride out the storm. The organization positioned 14 vehicles from its disaster fleet just outside Helene’s forecasted impact zone and was poised to offer aid as soon as possible.

On the night of Sept. 26, the Category 4 storm curved east of its expected path, falling on the the Big Bend region of Florida. Ethan Forhetz, who hunkered down with the fleet, said Helene hit areas like Perry and Steinhatchee that were already struggling. “They went through Hurricane Debby this year and they went through Hurricane Idalia last year,” he said.

As it barreled north, Helene brought hurricane-force winds and heavy rain to inland Georgia and did not weaken to a tropical storm until morning. From there, the storm continued, swirling over South Carolina before it curved west over the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. The rainfall rushed together, forming historic floods throughout the region while powerful winds knocked down trees and power lines, leaving millions in the dark.

Volunteers in Tallahassee immediately pivoted their resources to help communities in and around Perry, Forhetz said. He serves as vice president of public engagement for Convoy of Hope, which describes itself as a faith-based compassion ministry. As the Convoy of Hope team began work in Florida, news about the destruction inland began to reach them. “It's a unique response to a hurricane in that there are so many different fronts where the damage is catastrophic. There are five, six different states where people are really hurting,” he said.

By Oct. 4, Helene had become the deadliest hurricane to hit the United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The storm killed at least 210 people in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia and hundreds were still missing. North Carolina alone reported more than 100 deaths and hundreds of missing people after multiple rivers reached levels not seen in over a century. Hundreds of thousands of people were still without reliable power or water service, and communications were still spotty in the storm’s wake.

As local, state, and federal agencies scrambled to assess the damage, launch rescue operations, and allocate resources, ministry organizations began mobilizing to offer relief. Communities around the country gathered supplies to send to those in need as volunteers converged on hard-hit areas.

After the storm passed, about 6,700 National Guard members from 16 states deployed to help with relief efforts and the Federal Emergency Management Agency began providing supplies, meals, generators, and tarps. Following a visit to the Carolinas, President Joe Biden directed the Department of Defense to deploy 1,000 active-duty soldiers to North Carolina and approved major disaster declarations in four states.

Church coordination

In Florida, Convoy of Hope set up its operation in a former timber mill and began providing water, food, and hygiene kits to thousands of families. At the same time, the organization coordinated with churches to send relief supplies to communities throughout the region, Forhetz said. “We've been working locally with our partners in those areas because those people know the area better than we do, so we're relying on them to help us get that supply to the people who need it.”

The organization mobilized bases of operations in other states, Forhetz said, but they had to contend with severely damaged roads that blocked off many of the communities in need of help. “It's very unique for a storm to do almost more damage inland, hundreds of miles inland, in fact, than it did at ground zero, where it hit, especially as a Category 4 hurricane,” he said.

Meanwhile, other states sent emergency teams to help recovery efforts in the hard-hit Appalachian Mountains, and utility companies around the country sent aid crews to help restore power. The American Red Cross and The Salvation Army also increased aid and began helping survivors find loved ones.

Partnership and collaboration

In North Carolina, California-based CityServe International partnered with the Florida-based Love & Life Foundation to secure the use of a helicopter that carried four former Navy SEALs to transport supplies to isolated mountaintops near Asheville. CityServe’s Vice President of Government Relations Todd Lamphere told WORLD that the organization was working with numerous other ministries throughout the region to provide food, water, transportation, and communication. “It’s really about partnership and collaboration,” Lamphere said. “No one organization can do it alone.”

Samaritan’s Purse is no stranger to emergency relief operations, said Vice President of North American Ministries Luther Harrison. The organization has assisted with more than 300 emergencies across the country but Harrison never expected such a disaster to affect his own home. Samaritan’s Purse is located in Boone, North Carolina, about 85 miles northeast of Asheville, and experienced the historic flooding that rocked the area.

“I did not know it would cause this much destruction,” Harrison said. He grew up in Boone and said the area had not seen a flood of that magnitude in about 80 years. “Those rivers were roaring and one road I saw yesterday, it's no longer a highway. It's a riverbed. The pavement is gone, and it looks like a rock bed on a creek or a river.”

In the wake of Helene, the organization established five relief sites in four states and opened an emergency field hospital in Avery County, North Carolina. Samaritan’s Purse works closely with local officials and coordinates their operations with federal responses, he said. “So many times the government is overwhelmed. They're trying to get the assessments, but you have first responders, your police, fire and medics, and they're our heroes. They're the ones going out trying to rescue people.”

The long haul

At each of its relief stations, Samaritan’s Purse partners with a local church to be the hub of operations. Lamphere and Forhetz agreed that their organizations exist to empower and equip local church bodies to continue caring for their communities long after initial emergency response operations end.

“Disasters have about an eight-day to two-week lifespan. And then when it's off the front page of the newspaper, or when it gets out of the news cycle, people forget,” Lamphere said. “This is why we work through and with local churches. Because that local church was there before the disaster, it's been there in the middle of the disaster, and it's going to be there long after the disaster.”

In Boone, Samaritan’s Purse connected with Alliance Bible Fellowship to serve as its church base of operations. Discipleship Pastor Michael Talley said two inches of water was standing in the church’s gym when they received the call from Samaritan’s Purse.

“We had a fraternity around the corner, guys that have never walked into our church before, they were one of the first groups here at our church, saying, ‘how can we help?’” Talley said. The students from Appalachian State University worked all day to dry out the gym so Samaritan’s Purse could set up a generator and bring in hundreds of volunteers.

Gospel opportunities

Talley’s neighbors are tough, hard-working people who have lived in the mountains their whole lives, he said. And yet this disaster has shaken them, leaving many traumatized. Talley and Harrison said they are praying for opportunities not just to meet the physical needs of those who are hurting, but also to share the gospel and to remind people of the hope they have in Jesus. “Amos says that disaster doesn't come to a city unless the Lord allows it,” Talley said. “The Lord has allowed this on our city, but he's also allowed a lot of really unique and gospel opportunities that we never would have gotten.”

As emergency workers continue searching for the missing and volunteers and officials deliver aid, ministry leaders who spoke to WORLD echoed the same prayer request: salvation and endurance for those who are hurting. The cleanup and recovery is expected to take years, and Moody’s Analytics estimates the devastation could cost up to $34 billion. Meanwhile, the communities that were caught in Helene’s wake will wrestle with the physical and emotional toll for years, Talley said.

“I heard that a lot of the rivers are completely reshaped. And so the guides that know the rivers and the landscape really well are going to have to learn new waters to navigate,” he said. “In a lot of ways, church leaders and pastors and ministry leaders are going to have to learn the new waters and the new landscape of how to minister in light of a tragedy. So pray for wisdom, for the people that are guiding and leading congregations and communities.”