“When a friend is in need, you do everything you can to help,” said Heather, Director of Sales at a business in Baltimore. That’s why, after no one had heard from her friend Linda in Mountain City, Tennessee, following Hurricane Helene, she asked two pilots she knew to go search with her in person.
Because of their prior disaster relief and search and rescue deployment experience, the pilots came prepared. “We took the seats out of her plane, piled in generators and chainsaws, and flew out,” said Heather.
On September 29, they were one of the first planes to land in the area, and their jaws dropped. “It immediately became clear this was so much worse than we anticipated,” Heather said.
Since there was no evacuation warning, the area was entirely unprepared. Her friend’s house was moved 100 feet from its foundation, and she lost everything. Surrounding mountain communities were also gone or decimated, and there were shocking sights like tractors wrapped around trees and bridges gone.
After a few trips back and forth airlifting supplies to various remote areas, Heather recognized the need for a broader effort to quickly get boots on the ground. So she founded a nonprofit, A Hand from Above, to provide immediate assistance and long-term support to individuals and communities in crisis.
“I never thought I would go into disaster relief, but now it drives me,” she said. The nonprofit is growing exponentially and has teamed up with Savage Freedoms, a tactical training company led by a former Green Beret that is conducting relief operations in the area.
A Hand from Above has more than 100 volunteers helping in various capacities. Although Heather had previously founded three smaller nonprofits, nothing compares to the current work. “This is the biggest project management of my life,” she said.
The relief groups have been pooling their resources to establish safe, military-style base camps for food, medical supplies, and tents. While other groups are doing a great job of cleaning up for immediate relief, A Hand From Above is also focusing on the long-term effort to rebuild.
Right now, the group is working on providing temporary housing for families whose homes are either washed away or ruined from mold and leaks. Once those needs are addressed and families are in safe locations for the winter, the group will turn to focusing on other needs, including replacing educational supplies for homeschooling families and others. With schools closed, families are looking into homeschooling in order to give their kids a sense of stability.
Across America, homeschooling families are donating educational supplies to help with this effort. A Hand from Above is storing some of these donations in a warehouse and distributing them as they are able. This has been an encouragement to many hurricane survivors, though some are finding it difficult to accept school materials while still living in tents.
“As a mom myself, my heart just breaks for the children,” Heather said.
In the face of 1,000 square miles of devastation, A Hand from Above has set up base camps in 12 North Carolina towns, and more are on the way. The goal is to establish personal relationships with each of those communities.
To help with the effort, one farm temporarily donated 13 acres of land. “Farmers have really come out in a big way to allow us to borrow land that that we’re placing homes on for the short-term,” Heather said.
Her team is working daily to get grants and funding for the housing, while also organizing and distributing incoming donations. Those donations include air filtration systems, lumber, campers, medical supplies, fuel, and other building materials from a warehouse they recently secured.
The current goal is to build 1,000 tiny homes, especially as winter approaches, so families can get out of tents and into safe locations. In the meantime, people from all over the country have been donating campers, so families have a place to live while they figure out long-term solutions. Hurdles to building more permanent housing include not only clearing the land, but verifying safety and ensuring construction crews don’t rebuild a home on a floodplain.
Unsafe conditions have also presented health risks. A terrible chemical spill that happened as a result of the hurricane has resulted in animals dying and children getting sick, with reports of skin peeling, nosebleeds, and respiratory issues due to the unsafe air.
In some areas, the water is a brown sludge color, and Heather said she had to wrap the faucets to remind her team not to accidentally wash their hands with it. Savage Freedoms is working on deploying three mobile hospitals because of the need.
Bodies are also still being recovered, and the death toll continues to rise. In one town, Heather said the official death toll is 140, but the town is still missing around 1,200 people, so the real number is likely much higher.
There have been heartbreaking stories and harrowing sights. An elderly woman passed away because she didn’t have any electricity and her oxygen ran out. “She did not let us know because she wanted us to prioritize helping others,” Heather said.
They were able to save a baby girl in a car seat strapped to a swing set. Her parents saved her life, but did not survive. After three weeks in the hospital and a successful fundraiser in her honor, she was released, and her family from Illinois adopted her.
“This is a completely civilian-to-civilian effort with the shared goal to restart family’s lives,” Heather said. One member of A Hand from Above’s team lost absolutely everything, including her job, but is working around the clock to provide relief for hurricane survivors. “Families volunteering have lost their homes, and cars, and have nothing themselves. Their job was washed away. Their house washed away. And yet, they are still helping others.”
Interacting with the families in impacted communities has been bittersweet. The Appalachian community is historically self-sufficient homesteaders with generations of family living in the area or off-the-grid in humble circumstances.
Many families still do not have a sense of normalcy. It’s been encouraging to see the community rally and the progress so far, but there is so much more to do.
Looking at the marathon ahead, Heather acknowledged, “This is going to take years to rebuild.”
To support Heather’s efforts, volunteer or donate here.
The hurricanes that hit the east coast this summer impacted areas where more than 13,000 HSLDA members reside. We recently sent a team to support cleanup efforts, and are continuing to work with homeschooling families in difficult situations.
Photo credit: Abigail Hoke, HSLDA Action