Around Friday 9/27/24 hurricane Helene decided to pay East TN and Western NC a visit. This resulted in the worst flood disaster in recorded history for the region.
3 major rivers flow through my county and converge into the Douglas Lake. All three exceeded there record high levels by a large margin.
Downtown Newport was under 2-6 feet of flood water.
All along the rivers homes were destroyed. Bridges and roads were washed away. People were and still are trapped. Public water was wiped out, significant power outages occurred. Two local dams were overrun and water spilled over the top of them at a rate up to three times the typical flow at Niagara Falls. Their failure was imminent but God intervened and they held. The East bound side of I-40 at the TN/NC line fell into the river below. Entire communities like Hartford TN and Chimney Rock NC were completely wiped out.
At this point 2 people from my county are confirmed dead. Neighboring counties and over in NC the death toll continues to rise and the numbers missing are huge.
Since my work was unaffected and we have the ability to produce about 2 million gallons of potable water a day, I decided to grab a few totes and start delivering water to our town and county. I spent the next 4 days doing just that.
Started with one tote.
Quickly decided I need to expand the operation to two totes.
Then enlisted the help of a friend and we had 5 totes up and running. I have no idea how many gallons of water we delivered to jugs and buckets but it was ALOT!
Then thru collaboration with one of our chemical suppliers, we really expanded to a 21,000 gallon tank. The Chestnut Hill volunteer fire department helped us keep the tanks full at this station, the local hospital, and several shower sites that were set up around the county.
We even got a visit from Dolly herself to inform the community that she was personally donating 1 million dollars and her Dollywood company would also be donating another million. Morgan Wallen also donated $500K. My work, Bush Brothers donated food products and allowed many of us employees time to volunteer in this time of need.
I have been blown away by the love and compassion and grit that my fellow mountain folk have demonstrated over the past week. Donations, volunteers and money are pouring into the region from hard working Americans that want to help!
We have a long road ahead of us here in East TN and Western NC. Hard times lay ahead and the cleanup will take a long time but we will recover. Here in our county the water has been restored and it won't be long till it is considered safe to drink.
