Car Accident Injury Attorneys in Shelby, NC

In the midst of widespread power outages, the struggle to find gas and groceries, and the ongoing task of cleaning up debris and fallen trees, there were bright lights shining all around Cleveland County in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Sunday morning, volunteers pulled up in pickup trucks and unloaded grills in the parking lot of Central United Methodist Church off of Marion Street while inside the building, a crew prepared trays of meat and sides for the grill. Evelyn Ribadeneyra worked with a headlamp in the dim interior, directing people where to go, handing out take-out trays and helping carry chicken, hot dog and pork out to the waiting cooks.

The tantalizing aroma of grilling food soon wafted over the parking lot and volunteers, including Mayor Stan Anthony, set up a table under a tent.

By the end of the afternoon, the church had served around 325 people in the community meals for free.

Ribadeneyra said on Friday she was talking with Ann Anthony, another volunteer at the church, about what to do with all the food in the freezers.

“The idea of meat thawing and going to waste is weighing heavy,” she said. “We had the idea to gather grills and get cooking and giving out what we could cook.”

Jamie Swofford, chef with Old North Farm, prepared sides while another chef from Asheville, Luis Martinez, worked the grill.

Martinez, who said he volunteers to help feed people with World Central Kitchen, said he had just helped cook for and feed around 3,000 people in West Asheville the day before and was waiting to find out where World Central Kitchen would send him next. While he was waiting, he said Swofford, who is a good friend of his, reached out to him about helping out in Cleveland County and he was immediately on board. Martinez said he also has a personal connection to Shelby, because it is where his mother in law lives.

“This is awesome,” he said. “We don’t need government, we just need people helping each other.”

Mark Greene, with First Baptist Church, stopped by and unloaded bread, milk and seasonings

Central United Methodist, which runs Open Table, provides free meals to the community each Saturday, but for the first time in many years, they missed their regular Saturday meal.

Ribadeneyra said they typically feed around 200 people each week, and offer them to-go style in the parking lot of the church.

She estimated they had around 100 pounds of meat, which they cooked and prepared Sunday.

By 12:30, the food was ready to be served and a line of people had already gathered to pick up meals.

David Lee, pastor of Central United Methodist, said he had just planned to start a sermon series that day called “love your neighbor.”

That sermon was put into action.

“We want to be able to love on our neighbor and help in any way we can,” he said.

Other churches and people came together to prepare and share meals, clean up and lend helping hands.

The New E Church on Eaves Road in Shelby served hotdog plates and Kings City Church on York Road in Kings Mountain served sandwiches and chips and gave out grocery bags with non-perishables Sunday after church.

And all around the county, people shared stories of neighbors helping neighbors.

Drew Mangione said his neighbors on Parkwood banded together with chainsaws and worked on cutting up trees blocking the roads. Other people said their neighbors did the same.

Carolina Workers’ Collective on Facebook posted various resources and relief efforts underway in the county and beyond.

(This story was updated to add new information.)

Extracurricular activities, including athletic events, have taken a back seat as power restoration and cleanup efforts intensify in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

Between four to eight inches of rain fell in Cleveland, Gaston and Lincoln counties, causing flooding of streams, creeks and rivers. Trees also draped across homes, roadways and power lines, forcing a host of customers in the tri-county area to lose electric service.

With conditions still less than favorable, school districts in Cleveland, Gaston and Lincoln counties announced they will remain closed on Monday. Cleveland County Schools will also be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Big South 3A athletic directors opted Tuesday to table Week 6 contests until season’s end, anticipating the NCHSAA will extend the 2024 high school football season.

Should that occur, programs have agreed to play the game missed at season’s end. If unable to, Big South 3A will use winning percentage to decide its two automatic playoff spots.

The lone exceptions are Forestview and Ashbrook, who will play their Week 6 matchup on Tuesday.

HELENE'S AFTERMATH:Epic flooding in North Carolina's 'own Hurricane Katrina'

Here are the Week 6 games awaiting completion:

Shelby and East Lincoln are the only teams who have completed Week 6. Shelby defeated Thomas Jefferson 70-0 last Wednesday, while East Lincoln lost 34-21 to Statesville on Saturday afternoon.

Helene floods Appalachian area, funding to go to infrastructure

Updated as of 6:04 p.m. on Oct. 4 to include video.

Fairview, North Carolina, residents Cory Weller ’20 and Shelby Sizemore were not concerned about Hurricane Helene when they got notice of a flash flood warning for their town. They didn’t fill their car with gas. They moved their basement furniture and prepped their sand bags like they usually do for storms; however, they never imagined the storm that would hit their area as hard as it did.

“We’ve gotten tropical storms before and usually by the time they hit the mountains they slow down,” Weller said. “Telling people to prep for a hurricane in the mountains, it’s like telling Florida, ‘Prep for a blizzard.’”

Hurricane Helene made landfall on the Florida Gulf coast on Sept. 26 and impacted the Southern Appalachian region the most, according to the National Weather Service. The Category 4 hurricane has raised the death toll since Oct. 3 in Buncombe County, where Asheville and Fairview are located, to 72.

The American Red Cross has opened or supported hundreds of shelters for evacuated residents and deployed almost 1,400 disaster workers to areas with emergency response vehicles, according to Kaitlyn Connelly, North Carolina Regional Communications Director of American Red Cross.

Weller said he was frustrated to hear that it took close to four days to receive resources within his town in comparison to Asheville receiving food and water Sept. 30, only a 15-minute drive away. Sizemore said the community has stepped up to become first-response volunteers by using their cars, building bridges and organizing routes to relocate residents.

“Our volunteer fire department has been out there saving people since the moment it happened,” Sizemore said. “If you own an UTV, you’re out there running people out of here. I think we get written off a lot in the South as stupid hick rednecks, but we look out for each other. We’re a self sustaining community.”

In Graham, Reverence Farms owner Suzanne Karreman has been organizing relief efforts through other local farmers and businesses to gather supplies. She said she has been using personal credit cards to pay for the resources, while having a fundraiser for those who would like to donate to help cover the costs.

During all this, she has maintained her farmstead as she said the “business of farming doesn’t stop.” Along with the farm, Karreman and her husband run the Stockholders Exchange, a mentorship program that originated from raising dairy cows.

“I’ve been on Instagram for 36 straight hours,” Karreman said in a statement to Elon News Network. “It’s amazing what you can do to work when you find people who are good hearted and have a small connection, then a larger connection and suddenly you’re in a whole network. It’s important to never burn bridges. It’s important to always build them.”

Whitley Younger was 10 hours away from her home in Lansing, North Carolina, when the storm wiped out any communication to her family that she had. A freshman at Columbia University, her plans to come home at the end of October are now under question as power is expected to come back to the area next month, according to Younger.

“It was really stressful not being able to get a hold of anyone, not being there and seeing on the weather app that it was still raining showing no signs of stopping,” Younger said. “Even on a good day, you don’t really have cell service in my town, unless you’re in the middle of town or have cell service that you can only get from Carolina West.”

The town of Lansing’s population is recorded as 236, according to the 2022 census. Younger said she feels these small communities are not being accounted for in national coverage and those that live out-of-state think North Carolina was as prepared for the storm as Florida was.

“Lansing is really suffering from it,” Younger said. “These smaller towns that aren’t really well known, some people don’t know they’re affected. The reality is that hurricanes don’t hit western North Carolina. This is not something any of us were prepared for.”

Elon environmental science and geography professor Ryan Kirk has been researching the Appalachian area for over 20 years using geographic information systems. He said the last storm this big in western North Carolina was over 100 years ago with similar impacts, like railroads and roadways being destroyed.

Looking over weather patterns, Kirk said there have been increases in high rainfall that are “very likely” to continue in the future. North Carolina had high intensity rainfall events, where rain falls over 2 inches in a short period of time, two weeks in a row, which softened the soil and may have contributed to landslides and trees falling. Kirk said North Carolina’s infrastructure lacks the stability to manage the amount of rainfall that accumulated.

“The biggest impact has been on our transportation or our infrastructure,” Kirk said. “Twenty to 30 inches of rain coming down in these communities, on the back of a storm that had dumped 6 inches of rain just the week before, that is what took out all the roads, power lines, electrical grid infrastructure. The destruction to the infrastructure is so widespread, and to me, that’s the heart of the issue.”

Weller said residents of mountain communities are stubborn to evacuate due to land prices, generational family histories and the community within the Appalachian region.

Sizemore, who grew up and whose family has a business in the Asheville area, said the support the inner city has for residents needs to come to the underserved communities.

She emphasized that funding from the city needs to go toward infrastructure, rather than tourism, in case another storm like this happens again. Currently, there is a Category 4 hurricane that has reached speeds up to 140 miles per hour in the Atlantic Ocean and a tropical storm approaching Florida. While it is slowing down, large swells are to be expected on the east coast. Sizemore said the acknowledgement for support brings the community up in their time of reconstruction.

“There are all these tiny towns outside of Asheville that nobody knows about that are deeply, deeply, deeply hurt by the damage Helene caused,” Sizemore said. “We are out here, too. We are trying to survive. We need help. We are a community. We have been taking care of each other for a long time and we will continue to do that.”