One year later, Southern Baptists still serving areas devasted by Helene

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Hurricane Helene made landfall near Perry, Florida, late on September 26 and carved a unique, destructive path across the Southeast before dropping a deluge on South Central Appalachia.

The extent of 2024’s most destructive storm would not be known until days later as flooding in Western North Carolina and East Tennessee permanently altered the landscape, wiping away entire communities and claiming the lives of at least 250 people.

Southern Baptists quickly jumped into action, establishing one of the largest responses, in terms of geographic area, in the history of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR).

“What set Helene apart was the widespread impact of the storm. Southern Baptist Disaster Relief had to cover hundreds of miles of territory in the response,” said Josh Benton, Send Relief’s vice president for national ministry.

“Their ability to extend themselves that far signals the strength and capacity of the SBDR network,” Benton said. “Southern Baptists cannot thank their state disaster relief leadership and volunteers enough for the way they sacrificed to meet needs and share the Gospel in the aftermath of this crisis.”

During the response, 13,000 SBDR-trained volunteers from 33 states served through more than 40 response sites scattered throughout the Southeast. They prepared 1.23 million meals, assisted more than 10,000 families, and witnessed nearly 300 professions of faith.

Asheville, N.C., and surrounding towns suffer epochal flooding

In the days following landfall, the eyes of the nation shifted toward Asheville, N.C., as Helene pounded the metropolitan area and the surrounding mountain towns the weekend after landfall.

“The devastation was widespread. Floods swept through towns, trees and power lines came down, and families lost their homes,” said N.C. Baptists executive director-treasurer Todd Unzicker in a column for the Biblical Recorder. “Churches were damaged and lives uprooted. But North Carolina Baptists immediately showed up, ready to serve.”

Tom Beam, disaster response coordinator of N.C. Baptists on Mission, was staged in the basement of the North Carolina Emergency Operations Center (EOC) when Helene—after traveling nearly 500 miles through Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina—arrived on September 26.

“Rivers swelled past their banks, overwhelming entire towns and their infrastructure. Roads disappeared. Bridges collapsed. We had landslides unlike any we had ever seen,” Beam wrote in the Biblical Recorder. “The scale of destruction became clearer with each report. This wasn’t just another hurricane. It was a catastrophic, history-making event — the most destructive storm to ever hit North Carolina.”

In the EOC, Beam served as a liaison between government personnel, national disaster relief partners, as well as North Carolina’s own SBDR volunteers. His role in the EOC is one that SBDR directors often fill in state governments whenever a disaster strikes.

Send Relief, the compassion ministry arm for Southern Baptists, helps SBDR fill a similar role on the national level when necessary. That seat at the table underscores the reputation SBDR has earned over the years as a key disaster response contributor throughout the nation.

“It’s always important for us to be in partnership with Send Relief and our other SBDR partners. We rely on that partnership; we’re thankful for that partnership,” Beam said. “We’re thankful for the money that Send Relief sent to North Carolina as we were finishing up our recovery work. Knowing we were going to be doing rebuild, Send Relief sent us funding that became seed money for our rebuild efforts.”

Local Southern Baptist churches also regularly step up to meet needs as their facilities become SBDR response sites that house volunteers, and their own members, who have often been impacted in some way.

“Virtually overnight, our church became a regional distribution hub. At the peak, we had more than 600 pallets of donated supplies on our property,” Bruce Frank said in the Biblical Recorder. Frank is lead pastor of Biltmore Church, which has multiple locations in and around Asheville.

What Biltmore did on a large scale, dozens of other churches did throughout Helene’s impacted area as Christians rallied to support survivors who, in many cases, lost everything they owned.

Months later, the response shifted from recovery phase to rebuild phase, and N.C. Baptists on Mission established long-term projects to help homeowners rebuild. One year later, they have surpassed the 500-home milestone with hundreds more in the pipeline.

Helene left a wake of major damage in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee

When Helene made landfall in Florida, it was one of three hurricanes to hit Florida’s Gulf Coast in 2024. Two, including Helene, directly hit the Big Bend region. For Perry, Fla., the weight of multiple storms compounded a difficult economic turn for the community.

“Honestly, I’m hearing on one hand how much more can one community take with three hurricanes in 13 months, along with a major plant closure during that same time? Everyone is shellshocked,” First Baptist Church Perry pastor Steven Ruff told the FBC Witness in the days after Helene hit.

In Georgia, the city of Valdosta had seemingly just begun to find its footing in the aftermath of 2023’s Hurricane Idalia when Helene blew through with Category 3 force winds.

“As soon as it came, you could hear far more falling trees and wind than ever before,” said Robby Foster, pastor of Northside Baptist Church, days after the storm blew through. “And the bad thing was, Idalia came in the morning through about 12:30 in the afternoon. This one came at night at 12:30 for about two hours or so. It was just awful.”

Helene maintained hurricane level status into central Georgia as cities like Statesboro and Augusta suffered major blows, knocking out power, downing trees, and damaging homes.

“It has been a very fast-paced situation since Hurricane Helene came through our state,” Dwain Carter, director of Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief, told The Christian Index during the response. “This is the largest storm that Georgia has ever experienced and the largest response GBDR has ever been involved with inside of Georgia.”

Several East Tennessee communities endured devastation similar to neighboring North Carolina. Tennessee SBDR shifted to long-term rebuild called “Arise and Rebuild.” They have helped dozens of homeowners get back into their homes, but there is still work left to do.

“This has been one of the worst disasters that has ever hit Tennessee. However, it’s also given us lots of opportunities to serve people in Jesus’ name, to come beside them in their time of need and to share the gospel with them,” Garry Maddox, Tennessee SBDR lead for Arise and Rebuild, shared with the Baptist and Reflector.

“We wouldn’t be where we are right now without the cooperation of the SBDR network, the churches, Send Relief, and everyone who came alongside us, not just in the recovery but the rebuild as well,” said Tennessee SBDR director Wes Jones. “God has blessed through Send Relief, Southern Baptists, and the churches and other conventions as well so that we’ve been able to do way more than we may have originally thought we could do.”

Hubert Yates, state SBDR director for Mississippi Baptists, spoke with The Christian Index while serving in the Helene response in Alma, Ga. He recalled a time when a friend asked why he persists despite witnessing all the pain and carnage.

“I get to see God at work.” Yates said. “I could choose to live an isolated life and avoid seeing the pain in others, but I would miss out on that.”