Two semi-trucks worth of donations headed to North Carolina this week as southeastern U.S. braces for a second hurricane

QUINCY — Two semi-trucks are on the road following a successful campaign to collect donations for flood victims in North Carolina on Sunday afternoon. The drive was held in the Sam’s Club parking lot at 700 N. 54th Street.

Bottled water, diapers and food items were some of the most commonly donated items. Several bags of dog food, packs of socks and blankets had been donated as well. A church organization in Asheville, Hearts with Hands, will be the recipient.

The collection drive was organized last week by Karl Anderson and Kelsey and Gavin Harper, who were among the twelve people from Quincy who were trapped in a Western North Carolina mountainside cabin when Helene rolled through late last month. The record-breaking rainfall replaced the “long, scenic” drive to their cabin with downed trees and thick layers of mud, leaving the family, including four small children, stranded.

With the help of several North Carolinian good Samaritans, the family eventually made it back home to Illinois early last week.

“It was kind of a survivor’s guilt, for me personally,” Kelsey said. “Leaving knowing all these folks were either dead down there, missing or missing loved ones.”

The empathy for those left in the mountains is what kickstarted collection efforts by Anderson and the Harpers. 

“We had it pretty easy,” Anderson said. “We had a generator; we hadn’t lost power and water, and other people were losing everything — even their lives.”

Local realtor Sherry Hills contacted Anderson and collected items late last week and over the weekend. Donations were also collected at On the Rail Sports Bar & Grill, where donations will continue to be accepted throughout the beginning of the week at 129 S. Fourth Street (check their Facebook page for updates). Quincy Farm & Home Supply, located at 4625 Broadway Street, also has bins set out for donations during regular business hours.

Gerilynn Morrison, the sales and training manager at the Sam’s Club in Quincy, offered to host the drive in the Sam’s Club parking lot.

“We have the parking, we have a way of making it safe. We have a system where we’re used to placing bins and packing accordingly,” Morrison said.

Several Sam’s Club employees volunteered to help with collection efforts on Sunday. Morrison even said that one employee, Club manager Ryan Beaver, came back early from vacation to help.

“(Ryan was) 100% on board,” Morrison said. “We are very excited that we had people that — in some way, shape or form — all came together and participated.”

The CEO of Walmart, the parent of Sam’s Club, announced that the company would be donating $10 million to relief efforts, as reported by the Associated Press.

Among other volunteers who showed up to help was Steve McQueen, who also assisted in recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 while he was in the National Guard.

“This hit a lot of folks that aren’t used to hurricanes,” McQueen said. “How do you even prepare for that if you live in the mountains?”

Hurricane Katrina is the second-deadliest storm to hit the U.S. since the turn of the century. The Category 5 storm caused $108 billion worth of damage and resulted in over 1,800 fatalities when it struck New Orleans in 2005, coming second only to Hurricane Maria, the 2017 Category 4 hurricane that killed roughly 3,000 people and was responsible for over $90 million in damages to Puerto Rico.

Helene’s death toll has risen to well over 200 fatalities as of Saturday night, making it the third-deadliest storm. Most estimates regarding the cost of damages range from $30 to $45 billion, but some estimate the total loss to be closer to $100 billion, at least.

In fulfillment of Gov. Roy Cooper’s request, President Biden announced in a statement released Sunday that 500 more troops would be sent to North Carolina. The active-duty service members will join roughly 1,000 soldiers from North Carolina and Kentucky in recovery efforts, specifically in transporting “valuable commodities, like food and water” throughout the area. 

The statement also says that the Department of Defense is providing assets from the Army, Navy and Air Force to aid in search and rescue activities, “personnel movement and commodity distribution.” Three of the twelve Emergency Operation Centers established by the US Army Corps of Engineers are stationed throughout North Carolina. The agency is also working on several infrastructure-restorative tasks involved with recovery.

Kelsey still gets emergency response emails from McDowell County, where their cabin was. She received one on Sunday afternoon stating that recovery efforts were once more underway in the area, and that officials were trying to get masks for those involved; the smell of deterioration was beginning to set in faster than bodies could be recovered.

At least 70 of the 227 fatalities as a result of Helene have been recorded in a single county: Buncombe County, where Asheville is located.

By the end of the week, as they navigate their new normal, those in North Carolina who survived Helene will receive all of the donations purchased, donated, collected and packed by people over twelve hours away in Quincy. Anderson, a truck driver of 40 years, plans to deliver the goods himself, with a likely departure of Thursday. After donating to the cause himself and realizing a second truck was needed, Bryon Hudnut volunteered to drive; he will likely depart Monday. Trailers to haul the goods were donated by Sharkey Transportation and Adam Niekamp.

In a Facebook post Sunday night, Anderson indicated that he plans to alternate his regular routes for Knapheide with recovery routes to North Carolina, stating: “As long as you all make it possible for our area to help those folks, I’ll keep doing it.”

“People are ultimately good,” McQueen said. “There’s hope — that’s really the message.”

But for those still reeling from the effects of Helene, hope might be just as scarce as everything else by the end of the week; another tropical storm, Hurricane Milton, is currently brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. The storm is predicted to reach a Category 4 intensity level by Tuesday before slamming into the Florida west coast Wednesday night. 

For reference, Hurricane Helene was also classified as a Category 4 storm, but for context, due to its compact size and trajectory, Hurricane Milton is not expected to cause the same level of widespread damage; the storm is anticipated to grow before making landfall, potentially resulting in deadly and historic devastation in the Tampa area, then continue east towards the Atlantic until it’s out of Florida by the end of the week, as reported by Axios.

Photos by Aspen Gengenbacher