Three months after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, humanitarian organizations around the Tennessee Valley are still sending aid.
Johnny Maxwell, pastor of Nature Trail Church in Decatur, gathered church leaders from throughout North Alabama to help discuss ongoing relief operations as winter approaches the Tarheel state.
Maxwell said he routinely transports goods to North Carolina, and the most pressing need at the present is propane.
“Since people are still living in tents, quite a bit and campers, they are going through lots of propane, we’ve carried several hundred canisters of propane up there, I don’t even know how many heaters, let’s just say 100-150 heaters,” said Maxwell. “We’ve also carried the hose adapters so they can hook those heaters up to 20-pound cylinders but yeah the needs still there.”
He described the devastation as unbelievable and expressed his desire that people not forget about the people of North Carolina.
Maxwell plans to continue providing heat to individuals during the winter before assisting in the rebuilding of homes and infrastructure.
“If you just think about it if you lost everything you had and you had no money, you had no identity, you had no home, nothing, what would you do?” said Maxwell. “That’s what we are trying to do is at least help them get back on their feet.”
Nature Trail Church is one of numerous congregations working together to continue relief operations. If you would like to support this group, please call the church at (256)-686-1300.