Donna King
Carolina Journal
I recently had the chance to tag along with service members in the US Army National Guard as they responded to victims of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. While there was the initial excitement, and yes fear, in boarding a Chinook helicopter in Salisbury, North Carolina, for a 45-minute flight west to Yancey County, I was eager to put the deluge of social media content showing the trauma experienced by our western neighbors, in context with on-the-ground accounts of what was happening.
My most lasting impression is the operational precision and collaboration of the US National Guard as it worked with non-profit groups, in this case, Samaritan’s Purse. Everything we moved on this mission; 50-60 gas-powered generators, fuel, and gas cans was provided by Samaritan’s Purse and delivered by the National Guard in three Chinook choppers from Boone to cutoff communities in Yancey county. The National Guard is assigned missions by the state emergency management officials, and in some cases, their missions are to deliver assistance provided by non-profits. Visiting two weeks after the initial storm, the system was becoming routine.
For the service members, what started off as reconnaissance, establishing landing zones, and providing search and rescue support two weeks ago, moved on to delivering essentials like water and food. Now, the North Carolina National Guard is delivering generators and other supplies to help people get through the cold days until roads and power systems could be repaired. The service members we flew with were often locals from western North Carolina or Salisbury, but we also met members from Maryland, Michigan, and 16 other states. The pilots often were trained in combat missions through the mountains of Afghanistan, now flying recovery missions through the mountains of North Carolina.
Pointing to the high level of training and coordination is not to diminish the very real frustrations and fears felt by the victims of Hurricane Helene. A hurricane hitting in the mountains was not really in the playbook. Still, the NC National Guard members were impressively prepared, kind, and responsive in what we saw and heard from those on the ground. They are an essential part of the community fabric in a disaster.
It has been difficult for most of us to get our heads around. The sheer breadth of the destruction cannot be captured in social media videos and images. Whole streets and neighborhoods, just gone, with feet of mud flowing where a community once stood.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services now reports that 92 people are still unaccounted for, and 95 people are confirmed to have died. The majority of fatalities happened in flooding or landslides. Just over 90% of the impacted area in western North Carolina now has cell phone service, and five thousand customers remain without power; some may not get it for months. In this part of Yancey County, their power came from Tennessee and they were told not to expect it to be restored for another eight to ten months.
The families we met confirmed much of what we’d heard; In the immediate aftermath of Helene, a vacuum of communications was filled with frustration and questions as people sought news of loved ones, heard rumors, and private rescue groups shared their experiences. The roads on either side of their community were badly damaged, cutting them off from help. Their first contact with the outside world was when a neighbor had a Starlink satellite internet system. Their first contact with a federal agency, was our visit, bearing generators.
They confirmed what we have since come to know in the weeks since Helene; their neighbors, churches, local sheriffs, volunteer firefighters, and non-profit groups were the first ones on the scene with lifesaving help. Starlinks were used to mobilize others through social media and pointing out those in immediate need of rescue, water, coats, cleaning supplies, and medical care.
Since then, we’ve also seen social media noise by content creators from around the world, mispronouncing our county names, mixing up our geography and “engagement farming” social media algorithms for their own gain.
It has been difficult to avoid getting caught up in the waves of video pulling us in and tempting us to look, not only for ways to help, but who to blame. The result is a web of confusion that obscures the real stories of heroism and the very real needs and stories of North Carolinians desperately asking when the cavalry was coming.
Among the lessons though, is that the cavalry doesn’t always come in a government-issued windbreaker; it comes in the immediate community from local first responders and non-profits, with heavy lift support from the US Army National Guard. That collaboration is intentional and life-saving. However, it also indicates that while federal support is important long-term in large disasters, the immediate response, local coordination, and recovery should be led by state and local governments. Looking for FEMA in the most dire, early hours of the disaster led to disappointment.
Certainly, there are lessons to be learned. The aftermath of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina has exposed gaps in the federal disaster response framework, raising important questions about the best approach to disaster preparedness and recovery. In considering the relief efforts that are in progress and the agility and responsiveness of local groups, it begs the question; would more decentralized, federalist approach—one that empowers state and local to take charge of disaster response—be more effective?
The contributions of private groups cannot be overstated. For example, the Cajun Navy, which cut its teeth in Katrina and has responded to dozens of disasters since, harnessed mules to deliver ice and insulin into the North Carolina mountains in the first days after Helene. Samaritan’s Purse has mobilizes an army in its own right coordinating airdrops, medical care, and donations on a massive scale. Operation Airdrop has coordinated dozens of private helicopter pilots to conduct search and rescue. These groups are a key piece of the puzzle. They can be on the scene first. They don’t have the bureaucratic systems of government, but they do need the irreplaceable large scale support of military and US National Guard. Part of the lessons moving forward should be to identify how we can make their operations easier.
Disaster response requires tremendous coordination and cooperation between private, state, and local organizations and no two disasters look the same. It is going to be messy, particularly when communication is compromised, but being in the eye of the storm is never going to be clear. The lessons must be evaluated as a team and move operational control as close to the community as possible, so that officials can pivot in real time, ensuring that the cavalry does indeed come to help.
Sometimes the cavalry is leading a mule up a mountainside. Sometimes it comes bringing dozens of generators by Chinook helicopter to cutoff communities.
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