More than 1,000 Samaritan's Purse volunteers fan out across the Asheville area on Saturday, Oct. 5, to help those with harrowing hurricane stories of survival.
Steve struggled to keep his pickup truck driving straight on a road he couldn’t see. When the evacuation alert had sounded just minutes earlier, he had woken his 15-year-old son Aiden, and the pair had dashed out of their house. Now they were fighting to find safety as the flooding caused by Hurricane Helene swallowed up the only home that Aiden had ever known. “I thought I had it under control,” Steve said. “Then a trailer home came out of nowhere and floated right in front of us, blocking the only road out. Aiden told me he wasn’t feeling well. He was starting to slump over.”
Steve fled the floodwaters with his 15-year-old son just in time.
Aiden, who has Type 1 diabetes, was having a blood sugar crash. Desperate to save his son from the rapidly rising water and get him the care he needed, Steve made the decision to try to steer their truck around the trailer home, knowing that if the water began to move it again, it could crush them. “I’ve never been so scared in my life,” he said.
At the same time, just a few miles down the road, Dennis and Joanne were in a panic as they saw sludgy water seeping into their house through every possible crack and crevice. The water was rising quickly, and they feared that if it got much higher, it would shatter their front window. They needed to leave, but they had no idea where to go or how they could possibly push against the rushing water to get to a safe place. Suddenly, against all odds, there was a loud knock on their door. They heard a man with a thick French accent say, “I’m here to get you out.”
The man, named Gil, was a stranger to Dennis and Joanne, but he helped them get the door open just wide enough for them to slip out. He grabbed Dennis by the hand, and Dennis clutched tightly to Joanne. The trio then fought against the water and wind to get to higher ground. “We grabbed trees along the way to keep ourselves from being washed away,” Dennis said. “I can’t remember ever being so scared.”
Dennis and Joanne barely escaped the flooding that engulfed their neighborhood. Later, they were presented with a Bible signed by volunteers who worked on their property.
Two streets away, Julia was fighting her own battle against the monster storm. She was downstairs in her home, watching the water rise, and listening to it begin to slosh into her garage. “I thought I was OK,” she said. “I thought my garage would get some damage, but it would be contained.” That hope fell flat, however, when her door suddenly burst open, and a torrent rushed into her house. “It all happened so fast,” she said. “I picked up my dog, and thankfully I had the presence of mind to also grab the little bit of water and food I could carry.” She walked through the waist-deep water that had suddenly taken over her home to reach the staircase. “I could barely keep myself upright,” she said. “I wasn’t sure I could make it. It was terrifying.”
Steve, Aiden, Dennis, Joanne, and Julia—each were fighting for their lives and struggling against the fear and panic that swept over them just as Helene’s monstrous waters rushed into their Swannanoa, North Carolina, homes in the deep grey daybreak of Friday, Sept. 27. And each made it to safety. Dennis zigzagged through the water and finally made it to the driveway of strangers who compassionately took him and Aiden into their home, where the young man was given what he needed to overcome his health crisis. Gil successfully led Dennis and Joanne and left them on higher ground, where they sat for hours in the pouring rain and watched the water rush by below them. Julia made it upstairs, where she stayed for two days waiting for the flooding in her home to recede enough for her to safely walk through it.
Julia, center, in the Tennessee shirt, was grateful for Samaritan’s Purse volunteers who helped her work on her flooded home.
Though they were grateful for their lives, they each were left to confront a hopeless situation. Walls were drenched; nearly all of their possessions were ruined; and floors were covered by several inches of slippery mud. “I didn’t know where I would even begin to clean it up,” Julia said. “We looked around and just went numb,” Dennis said. “I’ve lost everything,” said Steve, as heavy tears dropped onto the bandana tied around his neck.
It was in this hour of desperation that the Lord sent Samaritan’s Purse and our army of volunteers to bring His love to those who needed to know that He had not forgotten them. In just one day, over 1,300 volunteers fanned out across the Asheville, North Carolina, area to serve hurting homeowners. “It was like our neighborhood was overwhelmed by another rushing wave,” Julia said. “But this time it was a wave of joy.”
Flooding filled many Western North Carolina homes with thick mud.
“Seeing those orange shirts come into our neighborhood with their smiles brought the air back into our lungs,” Dennis said.
“I’m at my lowest point in life right now,” said Steve. “I felt like no one would help me. Then you came, thank God you came.”
“I felt like no one would help me. Then you came, thank God you came.”
One of those volunteers was Andrii, a student at Montreat College. A Ukrainian forced to flee his home in Kyiv because of war, Andrii knows how it feels to lose everything and have to start over. “God put me in safety,” he said. “He placed me here in the U.S. close to this place now where there is so much pain. I had to be here to thank the Lord for what He did for me and to be an example that there is hope in Christ.”
Andrii, at far left, had to flee Ukraine. He was among several Montreat College students who volunteered with Samaritan’s Purse.
As the workday closed and volunteers began packing up the trucks, Steve, Dennis, Joanne, and Julia each felt uplifted by the work, but even more so by the love of God that had been shown to them. “This has been life-changing,” said Dennis, holding the Bible given to him by the volunteers tight against his heart. “Praise God, I will never be the same again.”
Volunteers are serving as the hands and feet of Jesus to hurting homeowners, bringing help and comfort.
