By Alice Kornegay Quinn

Contributing writer

As I, like so many others, watched the devastation following the recent storms of Helene and Milton that affected Florida and the western part of North Carolina, it was most heartbreaking.  

When you see people who have worked a lifetime to build a home, then watch it washed away or blown away, one cannot imagine the agony and despair they must feel. Many have lost everything but their faith. For many, they cannot rebuild and have no place to call home anymore. All they have left is what they were wearing at the time. There was no time to save anything. My heart breaks for their loss.

Never have I been prouder of our retired veterans as they went into action again, still serving their country. When the first responders were called in, they used skills they had been trained to do. They were trained in some of the most dangerous jobs imaginable and still wanted to serve the country they were so proud of.  

A military person is forever, never wavering, no matter what the job is. Age is not a factor, nor where the assignment takes them. They are first and foremost a military person: always ready to serve when the call comes. 

In fact, all of the first responders deserve so much recognition for the jobs they perform. They are a unique group of people and highly trained who put their lives on the line every day to do almost impossible jobs, leaving their own families behind so they can do the job they are trained to do, many times not knowing when they will return home.  

I lived through a hurricane once and know firsthand how it feels. Although when Hurricane Hazel hit the eastern part of North Carolina in October 1954 as a Category 4, it was the deadliest and costliest hurricane of the season and cost $381 million in damages. 

It came at a time when the farmers were harvesting their crops, and their loss was overwhelming.  Many farmers went under that year. They did not have the capital to sustain them another year. Any crops still in the fields were ruined. Several businesses were without electricity and had to close due to power failure and lack of business and were not able to reopen. However, the town and surrounding areas in time did overcome the hardship and began to rebuild homes, and new businesses did spring up.

There is an old saying that says “time heals all things.” I think this is true, but it takes a lot of perseverance, hard work, patience and, most of all, funds to rebuild. For the many people in Florida and western North Carolina and the small towns in and around Asheville who have suffered major losses and their livelihoods, it is going to take them a long time to be able to get their life back again, if ever. Their golden dream for the future is gone; all the hard work they put into their homes and businesses has been washed away.  

As they look at the remains of what once was home, just think how terrifying it must be as they sort through the wreckage trying to find something that used to be there: the photograph of a loved one, a broken piece of furniture, an old dish that had been handed down to you by a loved one. These things cannot be replaced. Every memento once so precious, now gone.

Millions who have suffered such claustrophobic losses ponder, as they dig through the debris, a way to put their life back on track again. They know it will take a lot of time, finances, hard work and patience while accomplishing this monumental task. They will need a lot of help along the way as they struggle each day to try to build a new life.

As I think about all they have lost and how desperate they are as they pull together to make new lives, plus new towns, I am reminded of an old Baptist hymn written many years ago and made popular by Pet Seeger In 1960, “We Shall Overcome.”  The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. used this in a message when he addressed a huge crowd in Washington, D.C., in 1965.

Only time will tell but, I know they will.

Alice Kornegay Quinn, a retired banker, has been a resident of Smithfield for nearly four decades after relocating from Hampton. Her email address is akquinn@charter.net.