It’s been three weeks since Hurricane Helene made landfall over the Florida panhandle and cut a path of destruction across the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains, bringing more than 30 inches of rain and 100-plus mph wind gusts to western North Carolina.

For six of those days, Smithfield’s Red Point Taphouse co-owner Tim Ryan and his daughter, Kelly, have been doing whatever they can to help locals pick up the pieces of their pre-Helene lives, sometimes literally by clearing debris from roads and driveways.

In the early-morning hours of Oct. 7, Ryan loaded a chainsaw into his pickup truck and set out 400 miles west across the North Carolina state line to Burnsville, a Yancey County town with a population of 1,600 at the base of Mount Mitchell, the tallest peak east of the Mississippi River. According to the North Carolina State Climate Office, Mount Mitchell and its surrounding localities saw up to 31 inches of rain and 106 mph winds Sept. 25-27. According to the state health department, there were 95 verified storm-related fatalities across North Carolina as of Oct. 17.

Kelly and her friend Racquel Starford of Fredericksburg followed in vehicles pulling trailers loaded with three horses and a mule. The two had teamed up with Angie Pfeiffer, director of the Eastern Shore-based nonprofit Healing Hooves ESVA, to deliver supplies on horseback to areas the storm had made inaccessible to vehicles.

An eight-hour drive later, the four arrived to find the need for horse-drawn hauling had largely passed; after checking in with the local coordinator of a multistate relief effort, they were back on the road to render aid.

Adjacent to Yancey is Avery County, where “every third person has got a tractor,” Tim said.

Locals have used farm equipment and cranes to render most roads passable if not fully repaired. In some cases privately owned narrow bridges have washed away, leaving their owners stranded. Some major bridges were also damaged, which Tim said would likely take a year or two to rebuild.

Kelly and Starford, who each have medical training, spent their first day delivering medical supplies and performing wellness checks in remote areas. By the third day they’d had to cross a river in a raft and continue on foot.

Pfeiffer found herself assigned to the West Yancey County Fire Department, which had been converted to a volunteer coordination center and supply distribution point. Tim was dispatched 20 miles east of Burnsville to Mitchell County to help remove debris from driveways and yards.

“I said I have a four-wheel-drive truck and chainsaw and will travel, and away I went,” Tim said.

The four made arrangements with a local, Bucky Wilson, to camp at his property five miles north of Burnsville each night.

That meant sleeping in cots in the backs of their vehicles. By the end of the week, Tim would wake up to find frost on the ground. But the 30-year Army veteran says he’s used to roughing it, having slept in vehicles many times in his career.

Wilson’s house had survived the storm, but he lost his truck, a barn and all the tools he’d used for his welding business to a mudslide.

Before he left, Tim had made arrangements with the Smithfield Rotary Club, of which he’s a member, to collect $1,500 for the relief effort. Healing Hooves’ separate fundraiser brought in another $1,500. Tim used a portion of the funds to purchase new welding tools for Wilson.

Tim spent the first 2 1/2 days using his truck and chainsaw to pull debris off roads. Some days he’d drive to wherever his GPS map indicated roads were washed out, and in doing so, came across a volunteer coordination center in Ledger, a Bakersville neighborhood roughly 22 miles from Burnsville. There, he was given the name and phone number for an area resident named Dennis who needed downed trees cut up.

Dennis’ yard “looked like a bomb went off,” Tim said. His truck had been crushed by a fallen tree.

“There must have been multiple small tornadoes and/or microbursts of wind to cause that kind of localized damage,” Tim wrote on the fourth day of his stay. “The resulting damage to the power infrastructure is extensive. You can’t go two miles without seeing power lines that are down due to water, trees or wind. The power is still out for about 80% of the area. Water systems are still out nearly everywhere. Even wells won’t work without power. Restaurants are all closed and stores like Walmart have rows of porta-pottys and even public showers out front. Many stores only take cash because their wireless systems are out.”

Dennis, himself a generator mechanic, had been rotating between volunteer assignments over the past week with no time to attend to his own property damage.

“I asked him if there was anything I could donate to him,” Tim said.

But all he requested once Tim had helped him clear the fallen trees from his property was a few gallons of oil to replace what he’d given to others while repairing their generators.

 

Contending with misinformation

Oct. 12 marked Tim’s last day in Burnsville. That same day, 88 miles away, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office said it received a call about a man with an assault rifle threatening to harm disaster relief employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and arrested 44-year-old William Parsons, who has been charged with “going armed to the terror of the public.” It marked the latest fallout from misinformation and conspiracy theories that have proliferated on social media concerning the federal response to Helene – so much so that FEMA has created a page on its website dedicated to debunking the rumors.

Former president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on Sept. 30, claimed without evidence that federal and state officials were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.”

“Any allegations that the response is being slowed or supplies withheld for political or other reasons is absolute garbage,” Tim said. “Everyone is working together. It’s heartwarming to see the community come together.”

Tim said he’s seen FEMA trailers set up in all three counties – Yancey, Mitchell and Avery – where he was assigned to do cleanup work at the North Carolina-Tennessee border, and once ate lunch with a volunteer who told him she’d already been working with FEMA for a week.

”This area is as red politically as it gets,” Tim said. “There were Trump signs everywhere and not a Harris sign in sight.”

Yet “the distribution and volunteer centers are manned to the brim with volunteers, local, state and federal officials from near and far,” Tim said. “Yes, FEMA is here as are response teams from Texas, Colorado, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Virginia.”

Tim said during his time in North Carolina he witnessed a woman who sought FEMA reimbursement for a totaled car be told she would first need to file an insurance claim, which if denied, she could present to FEMA for her reimbursement claim.

“There’s a process, and sometimes people are frustrated because they don’t know the process,” Tim said. “It does take time.”