Cajun Navy activates in Hurricane Helene aftermath, says devastation comparable to Katrina
Hurricane Helene has caused devastation of "biblical proportions" across parts of Appalachia, inspiring comparisons to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, according to a volunteer search and rescue group official.
The death toll from the hurricane climbed to at least 190, and that number is expected to rise in the coming weeks as officials continue their rescue and recovery efforts.
"I personally lost everything I owned in Hurricane Katrina, which was one of the reasons why I do this," said Ben Husser, vice president of Louisiana-based search and rescue group Cajun Navy 2016.
"I can say that it's going to take time. This is not going to be an overnight recovery. We're talking years, and these people are going to be hurting. They need every resource that's available to them and will be available to them. It is going to be a long, hard battle to come back from this."
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Husser said Helene is "absolutely" comparable to Katrina.
"These are hardworking people. They're just trying to get by day to day. Most of them would not be properly prepared for a devastation of this. This is biblical proportions. … I've heard people … comparing it to Katrina. Absolutely. I would say, in some ways, I think it's worse because this is spread out over a huge area. We're talking, you know, hundreds of hundreds of miles."
Fairview resident James LaTrella told Fox News Digital a neighbor gave him cash and gas after his house was destroyed during the hurricane. Other locals have been traveling into town from their neighborhoods nestled in the mountains to collect water and food for elderly residents or young mothers with babies who need diapers and formula.
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"We're pretty rugged folks up here, but this thing is bigger than all of us," Richard Blaloch told Fox News Digital as he picked up non-potable water that the Fairview, North Carolina, Fire Department had been collecting from a nearby creek for residents to use for flushing toilets and other plumbing purposes.
Volunteer pilots have been offering private helicopters to deliver supplies and rescue people. Other volunteers have been delivering Starlink systems to remote areas without power, roaming data or cellphone service.
"I think that folks are really … just kind of shell-shocked, still wondering, 'Where do we start? What's happening?' People are still missing. But … something that's a defining characteristic of these North Carolinians and these folks that live in the west part of the state, they're not like, ‘All right, let’s just give up,’" Charlotte, North Carolina, City Councilman Tariq Bokhari, who traveled to Lake Lure over the weekend with friends who live there, told Fox News Digital. "It would be real easy to just be like, ‘This is too much. I give up.’"
Bokhari added that "hundreds, if not thousands" of Charlotte residents have reached out, asking how they can assist people in the western part of the state.
"It's a resilient group, and it's a group that's very positive," Bokhari said of those affected by Helene. "It just shows you that no matter how bad something is — and it seems really bad, like as bad as anybody's seen around here — that spirit is what will ultimately drive them to adapt and to figure it out."
Numerous in- and out-of-state volunteer organizations have been stationed in western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, parts of Georgia and Florida since the weekend.
First responders and military personnel from across the United States have also traveled to the affected areas to assist with rescue and recovery, as well as donation drop-offs.
Samaritan's Purse, a Christian humanitarian aid organization based in Boone, has volunteers in several states hit by the hurricane, and it has set up an emergency field hospital in Linville with 20 beds for patients in need.
"The devastation is really heartbreaking. And so many families are without power, without water. It's difficult to stay in touch with people and communicate because so many of the cell towers are down. It's really overwhelming," Kaitlyn Josten, spokesperson for the organization, told Fox News Digital.
"People have lost homes both to flooding and mudslides and to wind damage with trees coming down and crushing houses. So, it's unlike anything. I'm from North Carolina. Unlike anything I've ever seen there."
Josten added that people are still "trapped in their homes, especially in the mountains, in some of the more rural areas where it might already be a gravel road that now they're not able to get out."
"I think it's difficult to know right now exactly what the scope of the damage is that we're dealing with," she said.
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Samaritan's Purse is asking first and foremost for Americans to pray for those affected by the storm. The organization is also looking for more volunteers to serve across five different response sites. Volunteers can come help for the day if they live locally or stay overnight with other Samaritan's Purse personnel.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) arrived in western North Carolina Monday after Gov. Roy Cooper announced President Biden had approved federal resources.
In Fairview and other nearby towns such as Swannanoa, Black Mountain, Biltmore Forest and Boone, some residents became trapped in their mountainside homes after roads were entirely washed away by floodwaters, with no way to communicate with their loved ones or emergency personnel.
Curtis Drafton, an Army veteran and founder of the Veterans Hall of Fame, has been responding to natural disasters for 13 years with other veteran volunteers.
Drafton initially deployed to Florida to respond to devastation there, but when he started receiving pings for emergencies in his home state of North Carolina, he and other volunteers regrouped and headed back north.
"So, when we got on the ground, there was probably … six, just to be modest, six feet of water still flowing, rapid flow," Drafton recalled. "So, we know there's probably going to be the need for water rescue, rapid water rescue, with that. We start unloading, we start getting the rafts ready and we finally make contact with the sheriff's office. And he asked us to deploy to a certain area off 26. Within 90 minutes, we probably had to evacuate 50 people. That is very irregular."
Drafton described destroyed roads and bridges, mudslides and rockslides.
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"A roundabout to think about it is that every bit of training we've had for any kind of terrain, all of it minus desert training, was right there at one time in heavy, heavy downpour," he said. "I mean, it was just massive amounts of obstacles to have to go through to get to these people … but it's what we're used to."
He said those in the areas devastated by Helene have lost "everything."
"America needs to come together. You got to imagine these people lost everything. Everything. So, I tell people that when we are doing donation drives, there's no such thing as, ‘Will they need this?’ They need everything. From food, water, hygiene, medical supplies, tents, tarps, the whole nine — they need everything," Drafton said.