Helping Helene Victims,
Ready to Respond in Florida

Dear Friend,

Hurricane Helene will go down in history as one of the deadliest storms ever to hit the United States mainland. Two weeks later, Hurricane Milton reached Category 5. As I write this, Milton is threatening the West Coast of Florida—already battered by Helene—and forcing widespread evacuations.

Helene cut a 500-mile swath from Florida to Tennessee and poured out its wrath on the Appalachian mountains where I live. Thousands were trapped in a sea of mud, unable to escape because of washedout roads and bridges and completely cut off from contact with the outside world. More than 230 lives were lost.

Because Helene was so vast and catastrophic, Samaritan's Purse responded on an unprecedented scale. We deployed six Disaster Relief Units, three toward the Gulf Coast—working in Tampa and Perry, Fla., and Valdosta, Ga.—and three more in the North Carolina mountains—Boone, Asheville, and Burnsville. The Boone base is also serving our neighbors in Tennessee. Our base in Tampa will continue to help storm victims in the wake of Milton.

Because so many roads were washed out, Samaritan's Purse coordinated a fleet of 10 helicopters (including Army Chinooks, Blackhawks, and NASCAR team choppers) to airlift food, water, medical supplies, and hundreds of generators to those who were stranded. We set up emergency medical facilities, installed dozens of Starlink satellite devices to restore communications, and operated water filters in towns where municipal water systems were wiped out.

Experts say the Southeast was deluged by 40 trillion gallons of rain. Landslides crashed into homes, houses were washed off their foundations, and people were stranded on rooftops. Some watched helplessly as loved ones drowned.

N.C. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx grew up in the mountains near Boone and described Helene as "a catastrophe of Biblical proportions. We need the people of the Bible from this area to respond—and they are responding. I'm so grateful to Samaritan's Purse for the volunteers who've come here."

The churning floods killed scores in Asheville and also ruined towns like Black Mountain, where I grew up, and Swannanoa, where I went to high school. The Swannanoa and French Broad rivers looked as wide and muddy as the Mississippi.

In Asheville, Jerry Owensby woke up during the night as the storm intensified. He and his wife, Kelly, moved to the living room just before a tree crashed into their bedroom. They rushed their son and their dogs into their truck and sped off to the local fire department, arriving just before their neighborhood was cut off by falling trees. Then the fire station flooded, forcing them to make a frantic move by fire truck to a church on higher ground.

They were relieved when dozens of Samaritan's Purse volunteers arrived to clean mud out of their home and remove the trees. "You guys have done an amazing job taking care of this neighborhood," Kelly said. "We can rebuild with God's grace."

'We're crying because love showed up'

Near Boone, not far from our headquarters, several neighbors were trapped by a landslide and rising waters. Among those neighbors were members of our team who helped rescue the group, including a 10-day-old newborn and other children. "We were able to hold them over our heads and pass all the children to our vehicles so we could evacuate," Jordan Roten said. "As we were driving out, we saw trees coming down, and we were praying we could get through and get up to safety."

Jordan's mother-in-law broke down in tears when she saw volunteers arriving to clean out her home. "I've never experienced God's love like that," she said. Jordan added: "We're not crying because of what we lost. We're crying because love showed up."