The Boone Show
The Boone Show
The Boone Show - S5 E4 - Hurricane Helene Aftermath
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How do communities rally together in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane? We uncover the layers of response and relief as we speak with Jim Kirkland from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, who offers a unique perspective on the devastation left by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. With organizations like Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team leading the charge, Jim sheds light on the importance of both physical and spiritual support during these trying times, especially as Asheville continues to grapple with water system challenges. Learn how your contributions can make a difference by ensuring resources reach the right hands.
In the face of escalating storms and unexpected challenges, emergency preparedness becomes the linchpin for survival and recovery. Shale Remien from the sheriff's office in Anderson County tells of a coordinated response, managing first responders and keeping the public informed amidst power outages and hazardous conditions. This episode celebrates the resilience of the community, highlighting the unsung heroes who stepped up to fill the gaps. From first responders to volunteers, teamwork proved vital in navigating the crisis effectively, ensuring the safety and wellbeing of residents.
Witness the spirit of small towns like Williamston as Mayor Rockey Burgess describes how they combat the chaos brought by natural disasters. Fast action from local first responders and timely federal assistance kept things running smoothly despite the odds.
We also hear from Angie Stringer of the Cancer Association of Anderson, who shares heartening stories of how her organization continued to support cancer patients throughout the storm, and tells of her experience in and the responsibilities of the State Guard . From organizing events to overcoming transportation hurdles, this episode underscores the invaluable network of support that emerges when communities face adversity together.
Hurricane Helene aftermath coverage continues here on my pulse radio. I'm John Boone and we've got some guests lined up for you this hour to kind of give you a feel for the entire region what's been going on, how relief efforts are going, what you can do to help. So hope you stay with us throughout the hour. We're going to jump first up to North Carolina, and an old friend of mine an old boss of mine indeed, jim Kirkland, is the executive director of the audio ministry for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He's all around what happened up there, from living in Hendersonville to working in the Asheville area, so he will have certainly a cool perspective for us. Jim, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm grateful, I'm doing well, I'm doing well and all our staff is doing well, and there's a lot of folks that aren't, but yet there's also a lot of folks who are also just going to see the gratitude for coming through an unprecedented storm. Truly, you know, john, how sometimes descriptives get overused. Like you know, we'll hear awesome or amazing a whole lot. Sometimes it's fantastic or it's not fantastic, it was intense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was, and I'm just letting everybody know that sometimes you're going to be breaking up. The cell coverage up there is very spotty. Just in our short conversation off the air, jim, it sounded crystal clear at times and sometimes breaking up a little bit. But we want to at least spend a few minutes here, if you could. Is there anything you can tell us really that hasn't been reported out there? Like, how can you paint a picture for us of what you see in that area?
Speaker 2:The impact. It runs a gamut and a lot of it had to do with how close you were to a body of water and how close you were to big trees, and if you are close to either one of those and if you happen to be on a slope, utter devastation. In most places you might drive by and it doesn't matter what happens. Our bed damage was very minor, occasional gusts of 70. But it was being near water and with the mountains. First thing one learns if you don't go up in this area I didn't, um, you realize how quickly flash floods can occur and it makes sense.
Speaker 2:Water's rushing down hills and mountains. Add to that what happened before Helene, and Helene was really the straw that broke the camel's back.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're losing you again. A little bit there. I'll give you a chance to give them a chance whoever them is that controls the airwaves to come back a little bit to us there. Keep talking, jim, and when you pop back in I'll get you on there. You are Okay good, and when you pop back in I'll get you on there. You are Okay good. Yeah, you're right. A lot of rain came ahead of that and that made it all the more worse, and especially when it took that turn to go right at the mountains. What can you tell us about what the ministry is doing up?
Speaker 2:there Very active, really being the hands and feet of Christ and helping people, first and foremost, and showing unique service. A lot of activity. Samaritan's Purse is highly active in this area and I'll share their website shortly. Also, the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team, which comes in after disasters for the spiritual recovery of people. If they just simply need someone to talk to someone to sort of vent the process with, they are there and they are sharing. They are there and they are sharing, whereas followers of Christ, we say, are hope-wise and that is in relationship with Christ. Samaritanspurseorg, and then for the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team, the Billy Graham Rapid Response Facebook page, is the best place to go. Samaritan's Purse is five-star in terms of disaster relief and you'll hear that from inside the Beltway in DC to people who've experienced their ministry and they are beats on the ground and highly engaged throughout the West Dakota area.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's great. That's great to hear. How about? We've heard a lot about the private response versus the government response. If people want to get involved and get things to people up there, some are saying you know, they get turned away because the National Guard or whoever's in charge will want to be the one coordinating the rescue efforts or to get relief efforts out there. What do you think is the best way for people to actually get involved to help the people up there?
Speaker 2:Dr John Baxter, it's a great question. The best way to help is through organizations that are specialists in these kinds of distributions. Everybody wants to do something. Sometimes bringing hard goods can be helpful but very inefficient, whereas making a gift to those who can buy those goods in tremendous quantities is very easy.
Speaker 2:So I've learned from people to look at relationships. They have a relationship and see two things get delivered, as opposed to driving up Highway 25 or I-26 to come up here to deliver yourself. That could end up being frustrating for those and it might not be efficient in getting to those who need the help. Stores are opening again here and the stuff pretty good. There is ample water now. That's important, though, and we'll need more, because they're talking about months before the water system may return and Asheville a city of about 90,000 people, buncombe County, about a quarter million that's the county Asheville is in To not have water until, let's say, roughly Christmas. There's going to be a need for a lot of water. The best move, john, is to go to the agencies that are prepared for this and to support their work, and certainly I would recommend Samaritan's Purseorg if someone's looking for a place to start.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, jim, I know with the signal coming in and out, I don't want to take too much more of your time. It's just so great to hear your voice. You're right there in the middle of it all and there is, I guess, a rewarding effort in such. It sounds weird to say, but being able to help people and to see neighborhoods, communities kind of come together through such a strategy is kind of the silver lining here.
Speaker 2:It is, and it has been, very inspiring. I'm glad you pointed that out. People have you know, neighbors help neighbors, Sometimes neighbors who don't even know each other. Now they know each other checking in on one another. There has been a tremendous unity. If I ever had to fight a battle, I'd want to fight it with the people of Western North Carolina. They are rallying together.
Speaker 1:All right. Thanks again, jim, for your time. It's great to hear your voice again. Glad your family's doing well. I know you have a daughter down here going to Anderson University and that's glad to hear. She's right around the corner.
Speaker 2:I can't believe she's getting so old. She's going to college. Yeah, we haven't talked in a while, all right. But thanks, jim, absolutely. We will catch up and I'm blessed by your call, blessed by this opportunity and for those who follow in Christ, the number one thing you can do is pray for the people in Western North Carolina and also the upstate, upstate Harvard.
Speaker 1:Yes indeed, all right, jim, you take care. We'll talk again soon. That's, thank you, John. Thank you, thank you. That's Jim Kirkland. He is the executive director of the Audio Ministry for Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which is located in Asheville, and he lives in Hendersonville. So he was right in between things, the good thing for him, not around a slope, as he said, a rushing river or big trees. So he has made it okay, has gotten power, the cell coverage a little off, but you heard him say there that things are improving in Asheville. Places are opening up, but water being the main need there and could be for quite some time Coming up. We'll talk with some more special guests on our coverage of Hurricane Helene, the aftermath here on MyPulse Radio Strength speed, endurance, power.
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Speaker 1:John Boone back with you on our Hurricane Helene, the aftermath a special here on MyPulse Radio. Back to the phone lines. We have Shale Rameen with us from the Anderson County Sheriff's Office where she is the public information officer, and that would be a pretty busy job, I imagine, these days. How are you doing, Shale? Hold on, Let me get there, you are right there, I pushed the wrong button. How are you doing?
Speaker 5:Oh, there we go. Hey there. Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, it's been a chaotic week, I think, for everyone involved, so we've been hard at work inside the Emergency Operations Center as we speak right now. So it's hard to imagine that it's been a week ago. We started the storm, so it's been a cleanup effort ever since.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Take me through from the beginning a little bit. When you know that there's a storm coming and this one actually wound up being worse than everybody thought, really Take us through your process of preparation for the storm as part of the emergency center.
Speaker 5:Absolutely so. The sheriff's office actually oversees emergency management and it's not like that in Heverett County, so we kind of serve as a dual role with that when storms like this hit. So Thursday going into Friday, we obviously knew that it had potential to be bad. We didn't know it was going to be this bad, so we were monitoring the trajectory of the storm all evening from Thursday into Friday. We didn't know it was going to be this bad, so we were monitoring the trajectory of the storm all evening from Thursday into Friday. We had teams in place scattered across the county, as you can imagine firefighters, ems, law enforcement, just basically getting ready to answer any calls. The issue was is that the wind, I mean as you guys know it reached? You know that the wind, I mean as you guys know it reached, you know, over 70 miles per hour at some points within this county, and so a lot of our first responders were trying to respond to calls and they were getting caught in the storm themselves, and that was the scary part of it. And that's how we knew that this storm wasn't like many other ones that we've seen before. We had, unfortunately, you know, a tree fall on a fire truck with a fireman inside and then we're hoping for his recovery. So we knew right around six o'clock in the morning in the EOC that this was going to be bad and it was an all hands on deck operation. We had, I mean, 800 calls probably pending at one time, not to mention our own power going out the generator trying to pop back on. So you know you're trying to serve as quickly as possible, but also you can't allow people to go out before it's okay to be safe in these kinds of conditions too. So it's a very tough position to be in and you want to help as many people as possible.
Speaker 5:And I think our emergency management team did a really good job of breaking up the county and figuring out what was our highest priority. And you know you run along things in a way. You know we had a crew that was stuck by power lines that had just dropped as they were trying to get to people. So it's a lot to manage, it's a lot to keep track of. So it's a lot to manage, it's a lot to keep track of, but you know at the end of the day that you're going to get through it and you have good team members around you to. You know, even if you need a second to take a breath, you know there's somebody else who's picking up the slack right behind you.
Speaker 5:So what exactly is your role in all this as the public information officer, with all this going around, going on around you, right? So information is vital during a time like this. So, obviously, people at the beginning, especially where I think, where I'm looking at the numbers right here, I think we're about 19% without power at this point throughout the county. So progress is being made, but my role specifically is to make sure that information gets out, and gets out quickly but also accurately from all of our officials, whether that be county officials, emergency management officials, the sheriff's office Hopefully everybody's been following our emergency management page, where we have helpful links to you know numbers for oxygen for people who are oxygen dependent, press releases out to the media. Obviously, when these things happen right after the storm hits, you have nearly every outlet calling you all at the same time in order to get an interview, get the latest information.
Speaker 5:So when this hit, it was a matter of managing with officials, different decisions, but then also trying to get information out to the public, whether that be through radio going live, because a lot of people didn't have power phones were, you know, at that point the only way or different press releases and keeping up with social media and just trying to engage and make sure the public feels you know, we're all in this and we hear you and we see you and crews are moving as quickly as possible.
Speaker 5:And I think something that's been misconstrued to during this a lot of people have learned that if there is a down, if there's a down tree and their road is completely not passable, the power company has to come out and get those power lines out of the tree before the road can even be worked on. And so I think, people's patience obviously we're definitely tried during this time, but I think everybody came together and we saw a lot of that too with, you know, chainsaw crews. I know our own sheriff went out there and joined some of those teams. So everybody came together nicely.
Speaker 1:It's just such a big deal and Anderson County is such a sprawling area that it amazes me we all complain. I lived in Florida for a while so I know how it goes with hurricanes and trying to get the power back on and all that kind of stuff. And sometimes you know you assumed you were going to be without power for about a week or so with every storm that went through. But you know these guys, how they coordinate who's doing what so that you know you're not sending a bunch of people over here where they're not needed and making sure this gets coverage and not being able to get to that. I mean the coordination aspect of all this is astronomical. It's got to be very stressful.
Speaker 5:It can be, but you realize there's a greater purpose and this is when we're really needed. This is almost like I don't want to call it the Super Bowl, but this is our Super Bowl. This is when we have to step up to the plate and realize you know, of course rest is needed, but you know it doesn't matter how many sleepless nights we have. We need to get the county back in order and really that comes first and you said it best that like this is really an effort to coordinate resources. You know this matters about county connections that everybody has. We're interacting with agencies like AIM right now to use some of their freezers to hold ice and school districts as a place for points of distribution to hand out food in Belton and water and things like that.
Speaker 5:Many of those people in Belton have lost power and a lot of them are on well water. So how do you get water to these people, and quickly? So obviously, I'm sure you've seen, even with our social media pages, I was just out with the National Guard yesterday going kind of to the hardest hit areas within the county and thankfully, you know, with support from the state, we've been able to bring in the South Carolina National Guard, the Air National Guard from Florida. So you know, know they're well-versed in hurricanes and it's just really been an around-the-clock effort to coordinate. And we appreciate people's patience too, because we know that, you know, people are waiting and people are still waiting for their lights to be turned back on something that we have nothing to do with.
Speaker 5:But our work, you know, obviously works hand-in-hand with them, and I mean, something else that I think is is crucial to talk about too is, you know, this has been, this has been chaos for a lot of people. It's been, um, hard to see the images come out of North Carolina, but we also lost four people within our own County. When this, when this storm hit, um, and that was devastating, just being inside of the EOC and getting that alert that we had our first storm death, I mean it hits you and you take a second and then you realize you kind of have to keep going in that moment because you have the rest of the county to serve. But you know, four people have lost their life in this storm in our county, not to mention the state, and then in north carolina as well, but whole southeast really, obviously yeah, yeah, and the power numbers.
Speaker 1:As far as getting power back on, south carolina was by far the state that needed more customers, uh, power back than than any of the states involved. So, although that wasn't hit as serious as some other areas, namely North Carolina. The power issue was huge in South Carolina and those guys are doing a good job to get a lot of it back online. What's the website that you were talking about there that people can go to to find out these emergency things?
Speaker 5:So if you log on to the Anderson County Sheriff's Office page, we do have a drop down tab for emergency management, but the best way to get in touch with any information that you may need about this hurricane is emdandersonsherifforg. Backslash Helene, and that's on all of our social media pages as well. And really what it is is it's a one-stop shop that we've created for anything that you may need Hotline cleanup numbers, debris pickup information, ice distribution, as well as you know, water distribution, any Duke energy numbers I mean, you name it. There's pretty much anything you could think of on here in order to get help, and we've just been encouraging people document, document like crazy if you are trying to clean up. And then we just actually released new information where we're going to have debris pickup rolling through starting early next week for pretty much the entire county.
Speaker 5:You know we're contracting with people and we're getting other, you know smaller municipalities signed up so they're taken care of as well. But there will be, you know, for lack of better words like a large debris claw truck about 50 of those will be rolling through the county to basically clear up any debris that's on the side of the road. We just ask that people push that away from fire hydrants, cars, any meters, things like that. That might block it. No trash can be in there, but they will pick up your debris, which has been, I know, a breath of fresh air for a lot of people who have been worried about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so that website one more time for me, please.
Speaker 5:Absolutely. It's emdandersonsherifforg backslash, helene.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:All right Now. I know your time is valuable. I'll only take a couple minutes more. What's your message to the people out there at this point, and especially for people that want to help? We've had this issue. We brought it up with our previous guest who's calling in from Asheville about. We hear a lot in the news about this, about private people trying to help and then the government needing to be involved. Oh, I have one needing to be involved. Oh, I have one more question after this Just popped into my head. But you know, how can people get the most out of helping here in Anderson County?
Speaker 5:Well, I believe that we have a lot of different efforts going on, and I know they pop up pretty quickly so, and a lot of people see them on social media efforts going on, and I know they pop up pretty quickly so, and a lot of people see them on social media. You know, we're aware of the. You know Anderson Airport collecting donations for people in western North Carolina, but we know that there's a need right here in our own community still as well too. So tuning up with agencies like AIM, different churches have have several drives going on right now. If you see any distribution sites like water or food being handed out, we could use as many volunteers as possible through a coordinated effort. So you would like to be assigned to certain things. We have an email address on that webpage that I have given out and it's em at anderson sheriffcom and they can inquire about any sort of volunteer opportunities and things like that, but really also just helping neighbors.
Speaker 5:You know, if you know of anybody who needs water, or especially in the belton honey a path area, they were hit very hard. Same with powdersville. There's a lot of people without power. So if you know somebody over there, pick up the phone. You know, hey, do you want to come use my shower or anything else like that. So we just don't want people to panic or to think that you know there's no hope at the end of the tunnel because crews are working and we still know that there's people without power. They have not been forgotten about and you know everybody's working together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely not been forgotten about. And and you know everybody's working together, yeah, absolutely. And the last question I has you've been doing a lot of work with the. With the guard being in town, how does it work to get them involved, cause they came specifically to Anderson County? How, how's that whole process work to get the national guard and then you know what. What have you been doing with them specifically, because I know you've been kind of traveling around with them a little bit.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's been an adventure because they really are hands-on. They will. You know, we've seen several fallen trees down power lines, things like that, and they just take the bull by the horns and don't hesitate and jump from site to site. But how it's all coordinated is it goes through our county roads and bridges and public works, and so these crews see where the problem areas are and then we put together a list I'm talking, you know, hundreds of streets and we give them those addresses and they go out road by road and start clearing it out. So some are obviously a little bit more devastating than others, and then, you know, other times they're just grateful to see anyone show up.
Speaker 5:I was out there yesterday and spoke to a neighbor who saw right next to her house there was a huge tree that had fallen directly on top of the house and thankfully, by the grace of God, no one inside was hurt. And obviously we saw that not be the case for two other people within this county in that same sort of situation. So I'm thankful that they're okay. But that's the kind of thing that these soldiers are going up against are these large trees that the coast doesn't have. So when we have this kind of hurricane, we have a different kind of cleanup effort than, let's say, what's on the coast. They're still looking at, obviously, large pictures of cleanup, but ours is a little bit different just because of the terrain that we have to work with here. So we appreciate everyone's patience. But those National Guard you know the Air National Guard they have a lot that they're up against and they're just basically checking off a list that our county crews have said hey, we need help and we need help in this location.
Speaker 1:All right, well, I'll let you get back to it.
Speaker 5:You've been doing a bang up job, great job, thank you, thank you and thanks for getting the word out there. We appreciate everybody sharing information, accurate information. We know there's a lot of like rumor control going on with these things, so just be sure to keep in touch with your official sources too.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you, shale. That's Shale Rameen from the public. She is the public information officer from Anderson County Sheriff's Office and of course the main thing we take out of that conversation is you know, help with your neighbors, start local. You know, you don't have to ship everything to North Carolina. It's great if you can get involved with organizations up there, but there are a lot of people around here that do have needs and if you can just help your neighbor neighbors, helping neighbors and if everybody did that, everybody would be taken care of. So let's try to do that. Let's not panic. Let's go to that website, emdandersonsheriffcom slash Helene and get more information and see what you can do and get what you need at this point. We'll be back with more on our Hurricane Helene Aftermath special on MyPulse Radio. The mayor of Williamston is scheduled. Next.
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Speaker 1:Back on the Boone Show on MyPulse Radio. It's just a part of the Hurricane Helene special, the Aftermath special. There's nothing special about Helene, but we're trying to kind of paint a picture for you today through some programming. Earlier you heard some music and some entertaining things that hopefully got you to smile a little bit. This hour, just giving you some flat-out information from different areas of our state at the upstate and North Carolina, ways you can get involved, websites. You need to go to all of that and right now we're just going to keep it right home with the mayor of Williamston, friend of the show, rocky Burgess. How are you, sir?
Speaker 8:I am better than I deserve. My friend, you have to forgive my voice. I've been doing, uh, quite a bit of yelling and talking over grinders and salt. Oh, bear with me okay.
Speaker 1:Well, as long as you're not yelling at wendy, I guess we're we're doing all right, so uh usually horse from yelling at me what's the? Reason I might add so let's, uh, let's on a small-town level. We just talked to Shale about what the county does to get ready for a storm and we spoke to Jim about things in North Carolina. So now hyper-local, the town of Williamston what was done in preparation to get ready for a storm like this?
Speaker 8:Well, you know, the usual thing is making sure that you have fuel. Well, you know, the usual thing is making sure that you have fuel. We anticipated lies down so our tractors and all were fueled up. Chainsaws were fueled up and, you know, we had to make sure our generators were available and on standby. We obviously knew there would be lots of trees down and power, whether it was a major storm or just your casual, you know, everyday storm that comes through. We've made about all the preparations we could possibly do and we found out pretty quick that that wasn't good enough. So this has been absolutely devastating to our area. However, I will say that our communities came together, we're getting through it and if you were to drive down Main Street right now, you probably wouldn't even be able to tell that we had a massive, devastating storm come through the area. But our secondary streets, there's still lots of debris down, lots of power lines down, quite a few folks without power, but most all of our other utilities continue to rock home that's good.
Speaker 1:That's good. I mentioned earlier, uh, when jim was on talking about ashville, the the biggest problem up there is water. They're not going to have water service that they can rely on for months. They say maybe up until christmas.
Speaker 8:So we're super fortunate in our water system never went down. I think we had some generators to, you know, maintain the pumps and that type of stuff, the altitude valves on the water tower, those type of things, but we did not lose water for any length of time. You know, to make that be a problem, but we do have. Water has came in and it's available there at town hall. We're putting pallets out in front of Town Hall for our local residents that are maybe just outside the city, that don't have our water services, maybe on wheels still don't have power. That's a pretty rough place to be in right now. Absolutely, the county's provided us water. We're putting it out there as quick as we can.
Speaker 1:I guess the silver lining for Williamston is you didn't have to worry about a whole lot of flooding. There's obviously some areas that flood, but you don't have a river going through town. You do have a creek that probably flooded the park quite a bit, which brings me to the next point. Is the park back open yet?
Speaker 8:The park is somewhat back open if folks want to go play pickleball or basketball. Basically that's the other side of the road of the park. That's perfectly okay. We're being reasonable about it. We do have some lines down in and around the shelters, primarily up around Main Street. We ask that folks stay out from that area. Those lines can become energized at any point in time. So the official word is the park is closed until we're able to get those lines restored. The unofficial word is if you're down there being productive and you're away from that area and you're playing pickleball or basketball or just, you know, exercising, going through the park, walking the trails, obviously strike your officer not to mess with folks.
Speaker 1:They use discretion and they're pretty good at doing that, yeah yeah, question as a mayor of a small town, how does the relief excuse me? The recovery, the rescue efforts, how are they organized, which you somewhat described already? But when does federal response come in for a small town? I know it hasn't gotten that bad in Williamston, but what is the order of how things happen in recovery?
Speaker 8:Well, let's talk first about what happened. At about 5 o'clock in the morning I was at my office there at Autek we're very fortunate we've got a generator there and I literally watched the town speed trailer. It's got six big 12-volt batteries, a little small form factor trailer, but it's a very heavy piece of equipment. I literally watched it do cartwheels across my parking lot and so I went bro, this is something, this is big. And so our firemen. They were already on scene. Most of those spent the night at the fire department. So our firemen, they were already on scene. Most of those spent the night at the fire department.
Speaker 8:Calls immediately became coming in for service trees, down power lines, down arcing, I mean all sorts of things that were coming in. 911 service became completely overwhelmed. We got to a point where officers would try to talk on the radio and you just couldn't get a response. The dispatcher were too busy taking all the calls, the phone lines. I think they've got about 40 lines coming in to dispatch. They were all. If you called, you just got a busy signal. And so we sprung into action and basically we took my son, austin. I called him into the office and I said look, we've got power here. We're going to become a dispatch center and that's what we did. We basically took that load off of central dispatch because most things coming in were emergency situations, but they weren't somebody having a heart attack or something like that. It was hey, there's a tree down across this road, and so we began triaging that information literally in an Excel spreadsheet and my office actually became dispatch for Williams to Police Department, williams to Fire Department in the cleanup and opening up road efforts. Our guys were out literally cutting a tree out of the roadway, so EMS and fire services, police services, could get to those areas and literally, as they're cutting trees down, you had other trees falling right beside them.
Speaker 8:It was a pretty dull and hairy situation, but what I figured out real quick and fast and in a hurry is that any time there's a natural disaster like this, you really are on your own For at least the first 48 hours or more. You've got to be prepared and you've got to know and you've got to be able to look out for your residents. And that's an awesome responsibility when it settled in on me. Literally the lives of our residents are in my hands and making sure that we're doing the appropriate steps, we're getting roadways open, so on and so forth. I've definitely learned a lot, and I think our staff has learned a lot in this situation. I'm very, very proud of our community, of our first responders, of our firemen, our police officers. They stepped right up our street department. They stepped right up and did the best they could, what they had to work with, and they did one heck of a good job. I'm very proud of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like they have done a good job. In driving around Williamston. I see all the work going on and, yeah, for a small town, definitely a great job with coming back from this. What would you say, though, if it were to happen again? What have you learned from this event?
Speaker 8:Again, the biggest takeaway I've got is that there's been some federal response. We've actually had airmen from the Air Force come in with heavy equipment to help clear. I think we had two more roadways that were just it was more than what our equipment could handle. As far as the size and weight, you had, you know, trees that were basically five foot in diameter entangled with power lines. We're not equipped to handle that type of stuff. I don't know that we ever will be, but those folks did respond.
Speaker 8:We've had lots of communication and cooperation with the Anderson County Emergency Operations Center. They've been helpful. They've got water to our residents. Again, that wasn't a major need for us personally, but every little bit helps. You know the generators.
Speaker 8:I can't tell you how many people have been without power for extended periods of time we had the last time I remember was, I think, 2003. In my lifetime we had a severe ice storm and ice was about excuse me, power was out for about two or three days and people just lost their minds. We're going on for a week and still we have areas of town that are still without power and no power to be restored in sight. You've got four poles on Edgewood, four utility poles that are still down, split in half, with power lines all over the place. Basically, duke has communicated to me that in those areas like that it's so bad that it makes no sense to repair. It's just a complete start all over and redo Brand new poles, brand new lines and everything. So those things are going to take quite a bit of time to recover from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how would you? I've been asking everybody this today. But how can you recommend people help, what organizations to get involved in or not organizations just help your neighbors. It's been a popular thing. But people want to help but sometimes they can get in the way of other people helping. That we've heard. So what's the best?
Speaker 8:way, the biggest thing is, if you want to help in the efforts, the biggest thing you can do is help your neighbor. Make sure your neighbor is taken care of. If you've got a generator, just like I'm very fortunate. God has blessed me more than I ever deserve, but I had a generator in my house. That's a whole house generator. I was not without power at any point in time. As soon as the power flickered, my generator kicked on and it ran for about a week. My neighbors were able to come in and plug into my outside outlets um, that I put in for other peripheral devices, but they were able to plug in, keep their food cold and uh, freezers going.
Speaker 8:That type thing, helping your neighbor is is absolutely essential in a natural disaster like this. You know the government. You can't depend on the government. I'm just going to tell you that straight up. There's no way you can depend on the government to take care of your needs. You have to be self-sufficient. We will help and we will help as much as we possibly can, but in most cases we're going to be tied up just getting the roadways open, getting 911 back active, making sure that we have the appropriate staff on hand, but you really are on your own. So you need to prepare and make sure that in all cases you're prepared at least with essential stuff to be able to feed yourself and your children and that type of thing.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, you've been doing a great job at that, Williamston, as everybody's stepped up and done a good job there was one question that. I hear you.
Speaker 8:I've watched, listen, I've watched some store. I could tell you some stories and when I know we don't have the time today, but one day when we've got the time, I'd love to tell some of the stories that are absolutely will make the hound hound, the back, you next, and a lot, of, a lot of love and a lot of support going on throughout our community. People have one another and that's essential.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and those stories need to be told. So yeah, we will do that one day. We did have a slightly off-topic question A lot of people talking about a sonic boom or something yesterday.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not going to ask you that today, but now that you said something, can you give us an update? No, I'm not going to ask you that today, but now that you said something, can you give us an update? No, I'm just kidding. There was a sonic boom of some sort yesterday a lot of people were talking about. Do you know anything about that?
Speaker 8:There was actually one. Today's the first day I've had a chance to get down to my farm it's actually at Abbeville to try to clear a path so Abbeville Public Utilities can get in. One of the main feeders cuts right through my farm so they can restore power for folks there. So I'm down here now. We actually had one there that is Lockheed Martin testing the F-16s and the good thing, I actually heard this, believe it or not, here in Abbeville, but for the most part I never even hear it because I'm half deaf and I've been running chainsaws for a week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So you're going to be even more deaf now.
Speaker 8:Oh yeah yeah, so you're going to be even more deaf now.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Well, thank you for everything that you do. We really, really appreciate you as the mayor of Williamston Don't thank me.
Speaker 8:Thank the folks that are out there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 8:Busting their butts every day. We appreciate them very much.
Speaker 1:All right, Take care of that voice and we'll talk to you again soon, all right.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Take care my friend, that's Rocky Burgess, the mayor of Williamston, and Williamston has done a great job in recovery. Just driving around and seeing all that there is to be done and knowing that they're limited, staff, wise and such, they've done a great job as a small town. We'll continue with our coverage in just a minute and then Mr Calvin Landreth and company will take over with more of a teenage perspective People telling some stories from different communities, teenagers and their families coming up in the 1 o'clock hour. So stay tuned for that. You're listening to our Hurricane Helene Aftermath special here on MyPulse Radio.
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Speaker 1:John Boone back with you on the Hurricane Helene Aftermath special here on MyPulse Radio, just a few minutes left of my section of this show. The kids have been doing a great job, our students at ACTC in the media broadcasting department giving you five hours of programming today. That hopefully has encouraged you, made you smile a little bit and giving you a whole lot of information as well. Made you smile a little bit and giving you a whole lot of information as well. And we're going to go right back to the phone lines before we wrap it up here and talk to my friend, angie Stringer. She's the executive director at the Cancer Association of Anderson. She's also involved in the Guard and figured she'd have a pretty good perspective on what's going on. How are you, angie?
Speaker 6:Hi John, I'm doing well. Thank you for calling me today. Hi John, I'm doing well. Thank you for calling me today. I hope everybody is starting to get their power back on and getting some semblance of normalcy back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how did it go for you personally and at the Cancer Association?
Speaker 6:Well, you know, we were very fortunate at the Cancer Association. We did not lose power and we didn't lose internet, which was amazing. The last storm we had there was a huge tree on East Calhoun Street that went down and we had no phone or Internet for almost two weeks and we were out in and out of power. So this was a blessing that we weren't out, but at home, a little bit different situation lost a lot of huge trees and it knocked our power out. So we were without power for a few days, learned how to warm water on the propane burner and pour it through our coffee maker for coffee. I don't want to eat ramen noodles for a while. I hear you Again.
Speaker 1:But other than that, hey, we're blessed're blessed we're here and everything's going well ramen noodles got me through uh, my first year out of college when I didn't have a job quite yet and had to cut the budget. But so I know exactly. He got creative with him after a while with how you use seasonings and such. But exactly. Anyway, I digress, tell us about the Cancer Association. I know you want to let people know what resources there are to help them at this time.
Speaker 6:Yes, well, for cancer patients, what we did yesterday we had a Coffee and Conversations event and we had patients and their caregivers and family members and even some people from the community just came and stopped by. We had bagels and coffee and donuts and different things for people to charge their phones. We brought in extra power cords and different kind of cables we could find for Android and iPhone and everything so that people could come in, and it actually turned out to be a very well-attended and a nice event. We had people just come in and stop by and, although going forward it's not going to be a formal event, we still have coffee, we can get donuts and if you need to charge your phones or anything or your ipads, come on by, we'll. We'll be available all next week for that um. So in anderson, um, that's what we're doing.
Speaker 6:We've had some some of our patients um without power for a while that weren't able to um get food, and so we have one grant that we get annually through the Etnair Foundation for helping us with nutrition for cancer patients and their families, and we were able to get some food boxes out to those patients and their families. So that's been a blessing. We had also some issues getting to some of our patients that normally use our vehicle to get back and forth to their appointments, and some of them were very tricky to get to. They were in areas with trees. You know, all across Anderson County we have some beautiful, beautiful old trees and unfortunately a lot of them were taken out by this storm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And now the other thing was that you're still involved with the Guard a little bit. What did you, what were you doing with that?
Speaker 6:Well, right now I'm just doing some operational activities from home. In past storms I've been deployed and let me tell everybody too, there is a difference between the State Guard and the National Guard. National Guard is as you know, they're a federal, they're under the Army and they answer to the Adjutant General for the state of South Carolina to do activities and deployments within the state. But they also can be activated on a federal level and go overseas. The State Guard is the oldest organization. The State Guard actually fought in the Revolutionary War. South Carolina has one of the oldest we're over 350 years old and we deploy within the state. Our commander in chief is the governor, so currently Governor McMaster, and then under him is the adjutant general, and so there's several branches or organizations under him, which is of course the National Guard. We have the State Guard, they have several other, the Joint Services Detachment that all answer. So the State Guard our motto is trained and ready and we go out within 24 hours we can be on the ground in an area. Right now we have deployments in Augusta, right on the border, and in some smaller towns and municipalities right around the Georgia-South Carolina border who are doing chainsaw work, clearing pathways, helping residents clean up their area. That's where our main group is now. We also have some near the coast and some other areas that were hit pretty bad. But the State Guard is a great organization.
Speaker 6:If you're looking to get involved with something where you can really make a difference, it's a great opportunity. I've been involved with them for well. Actually, next year will be 20 years that I've been working with the South Carolina Military Department through either the Joint Services Detachment or the State Guard, and it's a good way to help your neighbor and get involved and do some things. And if you want to look them up online, there's some resources and you can see some of the pictures of what our members are doing. It's sgscgov. And if you want some other resources out there, there's a couple of different sites that you can go to.
Speaker 6:If people are looking for just ways that they can get some help, whether it's from FEMA or from any of the other organizations, whether it's nonprofit or whatever South Carolina has an Office of Resilience that you can get to. It's scorscgov, and they have a lot of resources listed out there. A lot of resources listed out there. How you can, you know, fill out a form to get FEMA help if you've been, if you're in an area that has a disaster declaration. They have other information out there that you can find out just about other organizations that are helping. There's information about the Red Cross and FEMA and emergency shelters, closing and delays. Also, our SCEMD, which is the South Carolina Department of Emergency Management Division, on their site SCEMDorg, has great resources out there there too, and the State Guard works with other agencies. So we stay in contact with what's going on there and try to help out and undergird our state to strengthen our resilience.
Speaker 6:So if you're interested in State Guard and you think you might want to get involved, I'd be glad to talk to you, we'll sign you up John.
Speaker 1:I don't know what I can do these days, but I guess everybody can do a little something. But hey, we're up against the clock. But I appreciate all that information. That was good, because even I was a little confused about what was National Guard, what was State Guard, and I appreciate you sharing that, being involved as you are, and all the work you do with Cancer. Association of Anderson. Thanks for spending time with us today.
Speaker 6:Thank you, john, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Everybody stay safe out there. All right, that is Angie Stringer from the Cancer Association of Anderson. She's the executive director. Glad to hear that they weren't affected by too much damage. I did want to give a shout out to Clayton Caldwell. He was not able to call in today, but he's one of our former students in media broadcasting who is a pilot now and was flying one of those private planes into North Carolina to deliver goods and wanted to get his perspective. But guess what, he's too busy. He's actually in flight at this moment, so maybe further down the line we'll get his story. Thanks for joining me for this portion of MyPulse Radio's Hurricane Helene Aftermath special Calvin and the rest of the crew coming up next here on MyPulseRadiocom.