MONTREAT, N.C. — As the recovery from Hurricane Helene continues across parts of North Carolina and Tennessee, emergency crews from Louisiana have responded to lend a helping hand.
Members of the Baton Rouge Fire Department, St. George Fire Department, and eight members of the Cajun Navy 2016 have traveled to hard-hit areas of North Carolina to assist with recovery efforts. The mountainous regions of the state—from Asheville to Boone—remain largely isolated, with search and rescue operations still underway.
“There’s no water, no electrictiy and limited cell coverage,” Jon Bridgers with Cajun Navy 2016 told UWK. “It’s just a mess. Everybody needs help up here. (There’s entire) towns without water or electricity.”
Bridgers and his team traveled to Montreat, North Carolina, located in Buncombe County just outside Asheville. Montreat is perhaps best known as the family home of the late Rev. Billy Graham, who lived in a mountaintop residence until his passing in 2018.
Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 storm, made landfall along Florida’s Big Bend region last week with winds exceeding 140 mph. The hurricane left widespread destruction from Florida to the Tennessee Valley, with North Carolina’s mountainous regions among the hardest hit.
“I hate to say this, but this disaster is truly historic. Up here in the mountains, they’ve never seen anything like it before,” Bridgers said. “Rivers have reached 32 feet high—far beyond anything they’ve experienced. Some people don’t even have a house to return to. And when you think about it, the storm started in the Gulf, came through Florida, and kept moving all the way up here. The path of destruction is long, and there are so many people in desperate need of help.”
As of Monday, at least 120 people have been confirmed dead across six states. Bridgers noted that more members of Cajun Navy 2016 are on their way to North Carolina to provide additional assistance.
Bridgers says the Cajun Navy 2016 Facebook has received thousands of messages requesting help.
“It’s very overwhelming, but we’re doing the best we can with what we have. We’ve been using our social media platform as a place where people can post their loved ones’ addresses. We go through the comments, gather that information, write it down, and do our best to check on each one, then report back to the person who requested it. It’s going to be a long road ahead for people to recover in these parts.”
Cajun Navy 2016 is loading a 27-foot trailer with supplies at 1 p.m. on Monday at the Sam’s Club in Denham Springs. The trailer will be headed to North Carolina to support the hardest-hit communities.
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2 Responses
Y’all are truly amazing. Thank you from the depths of my heart.
I operate most all heavy equipment with many years experience, retired, if there’s a need for operator and I can help out let me know.