Relief Efforts In North Carolina

Welcome to the Christian Car Guy Radio Show. I say this calls for action and now.

Good morning. You'd think that Robbie Dilmore would be here but you would be wrong. Robbie is enjoying time in Spain and when he goes out of town sometimes I am lucky enough to come in and fill in for him. This is Bill Nixon. I've got two wonderful people to be on the show with me today. We've got Senator Dana Jones of the 31st Senatorial District and Tony Kropchak who in the past worked with Samaritan's Purse. He doesn't represent them but he has been doing some wonderful things in the hurricane relief area and that's what we want to talk about today. We want to talk about the hurricane relief and the problems going on in western North Carolina. Good morning Dana.

Good morning. Dana was the leader of our school board and did a wonderful job. We all cried when she left but she became a Senator and she's a new Senator representing our part of the state. You went in, they put you to work just last week?

Absolutely. We're in session and working hard for North Carolina. Jeff took a group to the Dominican Republic and just got back.

Before that he was taking some groups up to Boone to work with Samaritan's Purse. Good morning. Good morning. It's great to be here. Tell us a little bit about Samaritan's Purse and what you know about all the wonderful things that they've done so far. Sure. They're a fantastic organization.

They are a Christian non-denominational nonprofit international relief group and but you know they do a lot of great things all over the world but they certainly don't neglect their opportunities in the United States and they're based in Boone, North Carolina so they've been helping their neighbors. Now you went up with a couple groups. Some people think I don't know how to do anything. What could I do to volunteer?

And then there's some people that say you know I can put a house together in a week and you know they're just going to make me sweep a floor. Give me some idea of what your group did. Sure. Yeah there was plenty of opportunities. We were taking groups from our church every Saturday from immediately after the storm all the way up through Thanksgiving and then we took a break for the holidays but yeah you didn't need any special skill.

Really the skill that you need is willingness and a person that's willing can find something to do to help in western North Carolina and there's many organizations that are utilizing that volunteer help and Samaritan's Purse is certainly excellent at doing that. Dana you were in a workshop with school principals. Talk to us a little bit about what the schools are going through right now and a little bit about that workshop please.

Absolutely. So last weekend I was able to attend the Hunt Institute focused on education in North Carolina and it was great at the one of the last sessions on Saturday we were able to talk to the superintendents and some of them also had principals with them. It was just a roundtable and to talk specifically about the needs that they were having in their particular counties. So I had the opportunity to talk to two of those one in Yancey County and the other one in Henderson County and though they're close their needs were well the damage to their district was quite different and also their needs are very different. Superintendent Amos from from Yancey she shared with us that out of their seven schools they lost four of those and so they also shared that their high school was kind of a central base for the National Guard so they actually housed over 300 National Guard in the in that facility and just the devastation that they have seen there was you know quite a bit. One of the things two of the schools were lost in a flood they were probably rock schools beautiful schools I can imagine in my mind that had been there since the 30s and the 40s and just they're just gone. They one of their things obviously is transportation you know in their area as their position most most of the residents there have a have some sort of bridge which is a private bridge going over the river into their residence so right now a lot of those are just makeshift as people are doing the best they can to get in and out but a lot of a lot of needs there for a smaller county but also shared the great stories that they utilized their staff came together checking on each other and then principals and teachers and guidance counselors all went out and started checking on their families and you know even though that they had maybe lost homes or you know had four feet of mud inside their own homes they were out checking on their students and so it was a good group you can tell it's a good community and they're gonna neighbor helping neighbor and they were out of school for seven weeks they're back in now but just a lot of needs there still a lot of displaced families for staff and students. Tony sort of describes some of the work sites you worked on volunteered on. Yeah so my primary focus was in the Boone area although you know we would meet there on those Saturday mornings and have orientation and then deploy from there so we were going anywhere from you know right five minutes out of town to an hour away and you know there was you just can't describe words can't describe the devastation one of the houses that I worked on more than one time had four feet of floodwater in the second story so just imagine and that was those folks retirement home they'd built it themselves and you know it planned to spend the rest of their days there comfortably and now here they are you know their houses repairable but in really really bad shape so you know four feet of water in the second floor kind of tells the story other homes you know that were at or near a river had significant flooding and you would frequently see like a little patch of trees down by the river and that patch of trees would be the thing that catch caught all the debris as it came down the river and we were pulling parts of homes out of trees you know just to get cleaned up but you look at something and say what is that up there and when you figure it out it's a wall that's somebody's house that had come down the river and cars and wheels and tires and shipping containers and all these things were were in motion during that flood and passing through people's home and their properties and and doing you know it's bad enough the water coming through but then the debris in the water you know is is is like a ammunition in the river coming at your house so we saw a lot a lot of devastation a lot of hurting people um and a lot of people just really grateful to have any help and we would show up in in large force and help in huge ways you know do months worth of works and days i went up to lake lure now i love lake lure when i worked in insurance we would go up there at least once a year and have a golf outing and beautiful place all these homes and the city above just washed right down into the lake i mean some of the pictures that look like you could walk across the lake on the trash and i went by there about a month ago it's just phenomenal how much progress they've made fixing that all up that lake's got a lot of money living around the edge of it i think they might have gotten a little bit more attention than some of the other areas i was up around ashland the the number of mobile homes up there now just absolutely blows my mind and they're bringing in all these i mean they aren't even tiny homes it's like a a shed that you see outside of lows or home depot and they've turned it into living space um there are a lot of people that were living in a area that you can't you shouldn't have built on begin with this within the hundred year flood plain but since it'd been there so long it was there but point being you can't rebuild it it's not in an area that's safe to rebuild and all the plumbing all the the septic system lines and the the plumbing lines just washed away and what used to be a nice little creek now looks like a big river bed the other thing that i you know almost all of the waste treatment plants were built in the area where if there was a flood the waste treatment plants no longer there it's just gone that the amount of work that still needed to be done so that the city can operate and provide just water and waste treatment facilities is difficult to wrap your mind around i don't know does it some of the stuff i read says the army corps of engineers has been reinforced and that there's more money and help up there in the mountains but i don't know if there's any truth behind that or not have you heard anything about the the amount of relief effort that has been put in the mountains recently yes so they um definitely have um army corps of engineers i am looking forward to hearing about this on the other side of this break if you will tell your friends to tune in we'd love for them to uh think about robbie you're having his good time and stay tuned for a little more discussion after the break you're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com welcome back we're so glad that you've tuned in and we are a call-in show our phone numbers 866-348-7884 866-348-7884 if you have actually gone up and worked if you have real documented information about something everybody needs to know about if you've got a story first hand of going through the floods in the mountain we'd love for you to call in we want to discuss that there's still a great need for people to go up and help that there are lots of people that need help that a lot of people are living in tents and other temporary structures that they're going to there's going to be a move to put people back in real homes but to do that they've got to get over the temporary bridges that were put up and have real bridges put in and the plumbing's got to be fixed um tony tell us a little bit about what you know of the volunteer opportunities in the future near future up in the mountains sure sure i i know that uh samaritan's purse is working diligently to get their rebuild program stood up um so you know immediately after a storm they'll do what's called relief work and that's what we were working on you know prior to the holidays and maybe even some through the holidays um but now they're transitioning into a rebuild program where they actually go back in and either build a new house or repair the old house or even you know potentially replace a mobile home or things like that so that's uh on the horizon coming soon and my understanding is they're going to have three different locations set up in the western part of the state to help basically all areas that were affected so that's that's coming soon and um i guess i'd like to just encourage people to keep this on their radar you know right after the storm i was going once or twice a week up to boon to help and 421 at 5 30 in the morning has never seen so much traffic and i was so proud of the citizens of our state hopping on that road and heading west to to the place that they've enjoyed so many vacations and sending their kids to college and all those kind of things there is literally traffic jams on 421 of people going to help and we need to keep that up that that traffic jam needs to continue that's a good traffic jam it's the best i mean i've never been so happy to see a traffic jam but we do we need to keep that up as uh uh these rebuild programs kick off uh they're going to need lots of volunteers for a long time this is going to be years this isn't a 12 month in and out rebuild i've seen those you know after hurricanes you can go and have a significant impact in 12 months this is going to be years my i mean i'm thinking two three years just to get anywhere close to back to normal and and many more after that yeah i went to school at appalachian state and i lived in a 30 year old mobile home and we had to do all kinds of things to make it weather tight enough not to freeze the plumbing often froze and i was glad that i worked at the pool and boons so i could shower i'm just thinking of all these folks up in the mat i mean we've had record colds i can't imagine having a family with kids living in a tent or living in a small motor home and trying to figure out how to get my life back together again uh i i do know i have seen lots of pictures of extra dump trucks heading up to the mountains and moving all the stuff that's got to be moved and i know that the president signed some papers to have the army corps of engineers help with the highways up in the mountains dana what do you know from raleigh what have you heard in the capital about what's going on up in the mountains well from what i've heard from my colleagues in the senate who represent the western they live in western north carolina and represent the the great folks of the that part of the state they are happy to see more support obviously coming from the federal government now that we have the trump administration in office but again as tony said this is this is a long haul this will take many years and so i believe phase one was to kind of temporarily get people into housing and sort of temporarily bring back infrastructure power broadband but it's my understanding now that really we have to talk about surveying crews coming in and understanding we're missing we're missing land it's not just putting your house back in the same spot which a lot of times is what happens in eastern north carolina when a hurricane comes through there but now that we actually are missing the land's not there so surveyors coming in to find out um you know what are we working with now and my understanding was we had 900 power poles that were that were gone and just in i think yancy and uh hinderson and so some temporary power put in but now that's going back and figuring out okay let's survey let's assess where can we put these permanently and one of the um one of the numbers that i heard for just the removal of of trees just trees and brush would be well over 40 48 million dollars to just remove the the vegetation and that's not all of the other things that have to be removed so um i can say for sure recovery for western north carolina is the number one concern for the general assembly going into session this year and so that has been um the conversation and will continue to be the conversation of how do we make sure that we get them funding that they need and then also the resources on the ground they need working again with the federal government to make sure that we can get the highways back the infrastructure back with what you were talking about the water and the sewer it's going to be a process but it seems like that it is well under underway and um we have i mean they the people of western north carolina are resourceful and so what we've also heard is that you know it's great organizations like samaritan's purse and other organizations like that and the the will of the people of western north carolina help or helping neighbors helping neighbors um obviously the government has its role in helping um but um right boots on the ground it was neighbor helping neighbor and in organizations like samaritan's purse that we're getting those things done in the beginning it's great to see now that we're having more federal support and of course the state's been there the the whole time to support but i think we're going into phase two um to figure out okay how do we now start the rebuild process and and to do it in a smart way in the most efficient way um and you know obviously in any disaster or anything that's going on we want to ask the people what they need right so we know some of the infrastructure that's needed but when it comes to some of the other resources making sure we have those conversations with the local elected officials because they really know um what what the needs are in each particular area well we're so glad you're listening today we hope you'll stay listening and be back when we come back from the break keep this station in your prayers keep the folks in western north carolina in your prayers we will be back in a minute you're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com good morning uh we're a christian car guy show you probably expected to hear robbie dillmore and this is bill mix and robbie is having a wonderful time in spain and i was lucky enough to be called in to help this morning i've got two wonderful gifts here and we're talking about what's going on in western north carolina and what needs to go on in western north carolina to recover from the hurricane and dana is brand new in the senate this is i think she served a month total probably and i'm asking her an unfair question about the the two chunks of money that luckily north carolina had a surplus fund in thank god that north carolina had a surplus fund and uh was wondering you know how's that money being spent and how does somebody go get a bucket full good question um so yes there have been two allocations of funds to western north carolina and both of those were were going to supplement agencies that are already in the area to try to help with some of that initial recovery one of the things that the general assembly is doing right now and they had a joint commission i believe it was on thursday to also talk about some of the things that maybe have not gone right with hurricane recovery in the state and of course that would be in the eastern part of the state we do not want to duplicate or recreate issues that we've had before and so that was some of the legislators were talking about that on thursday and so we want to do this better and smarter and and that's that that's kind of where we are right now well wonderful i appreciate that um tony's been you actually went down and was sort of the the point man for samaritan's purse on the coast once right uh i don't know if i'd say the point man but uh yeah i had a a program that i oversaw down there after hurricane florence and uh yeah we did some some great work there helping people recover from that storm certainly what what are some things that samaritan's purse has done in north carolina i i know they do a great deal but i really don't understand how many different disaster areas that they've gone in and taken lead on sure sure so when there's a disaster you know like i said earlier they'll send the relief teams in immediately after the disaster and help folks with those immediate needs getting the tree out of the driveway or uh tarping a roof things like that mudding out of house um and then when there's need and opportunity and resources uh they'll come in behind and do a rebuild program so that's what i was a part of and like you were just asking about hurricane florence they had uh i think three different sites set up um one in south carolina and two in north carolina helping people rebuild their homes after that storm and and like i said earlier sometimes that's a brand new house and it's at no cost to those homeowners it's paid for by the donors and it's built by the staff and volunteers and uh it's uh it's as good as any house that i build here in winston-salem it's it's a high quality house and and um nothing to to be ashamed of it's it's it's done well everything they do is to the glory of god and that's reflected in the quality of the work that's done um if you want to give a donation and you want to be sure it's going to exactly what you want it to go to i recommend you do a little bit of research on samaritan's purse you can go to their web page you can dial in on exactly which one of their projects worldwide that they're working on and make sure your money goes to that particular part of the budget um it's one of the few that i sponsor i like to help because i feel like the money is going to be used the way that i expect it to be used um it's amazing the things that they've been able to do out of the now they've got an office in blowing rock right that's the training center main headquarters is in boon and then the north american ministries is in north wicksboro isn't there a training center in blowing rock there's a training center blowing rock it used to be a theater and i think they acquired that at some point yeah um i've got family and friends and other people that i've known that have gone all over the world to help i know i one relative went and was the front man set everything up for haiti when they went in and they did haiti and spent all the time energy and money there uh we are lucky enough that our representative jeff zinger who's here for our next show dropped in and i asked him if he would say hello to this audience hello great to be here uh he has just done all kinds of great things he got re-elected and he's been appointed the chairman of some of the more important committees down in raleigh and it is so wonderful which committees are you going to be in charge of i'm chair of regulation reform which i did did last time and then also housing and development committee which is a new committee we've started to deal with uh you know housing prices are just going sky high and we have a housing shortage in north carolina and so we put together a committee to really try to jump into that and uh and look at that and what what do you know about the i know you personally have been up and done a lot of work in western north carolina you've taken your trucks and your tools and your crews and your friends and you've gone up and done numerous projects up there what what have you done up there so far well what immediately when the hurricane hit that was on a friday my son actually lives up there and we kind of watched it happen and by the end of the day saturday we knew it was really really bad so i got up sunday morning early and loaded up all my equipment loaded up gas cans bought water you know and just went and so when we first got up there i will have to say you know one of our our new representatives is from wilkes-brough and he actually works for samaritan's purse his name is blair eddins so i called blair and he said come on so we went up and we did a little recon that sunday afternoon and went over to alliance church where samaritan's ministry was mobilizing and then we went out from there the first priority was communications were down there was no cell service anywhere and so we had to rely on the viper towers for the emergency signals but those are on backup power but they don't have unlimited power so we had to we had to go clear those roads to get there so they could add fuel to those on the generator because nobody knew how long power was going to be out so we went and did that and in the process of doing that we ran into new trees down everywhere but then mud slides you know we got a bunch of trees out of the way go around the corner now we got three feet of mud went around the corner and then we find driveways we found people that were you know we found one couple they were in their 80s and they were absolutely trapped there was no way they were getting anywhere and so we had a couple of guys that actually had to hike up to their house to check on it and make sure they were okay we were able to get that cleared out and so what was really encouraging about that and i'm going to sing samaritan's purses praises because they were mobilized but we had the other thing i'm going to sing the praises about it the people in north carolina that entire i was up there for the whole first week and that entire first week it was all private sector people everybody there wasn't government there it was it was citizens coming i don't know how to do anything but i am here to help and samaritan's purse did a great job at mobilize them we had people coming with equipment we had equipment coming from everywhere you had the baptist men you had samaritan's ministries you just had you know had one guy in my district called me and said hey listen i've got equipment i've got fuel i've got a portable fuel tank can i fill that up and bring it absolutely and so it was fascinating and exciting and encouraging just to see the people in north carolina loving the people in north carolina and that's what it's really all about it amazed me the helicopter pilots from all over all over the country but mostly in connecting states we had hundreds of helicopters that were coming in and taking things to places nobody could possibly get to they saved so many lives and i didn't know that there were so many people in north carolina had a helicopter i kind of felt a little left out and i was like why don't i have one well they had mule trains too you could get you a mule train that's probably yeah that probably fit me a little better it was amazing to see i mean there were hundreds of mules brought in from around the country to take insulin to people that couldn't get insulin to other prescriptions that needed to be taken care of the amount of help that poured in from other states just was flabbergasting to me the other thing that sort of messed with my head i sort of assumed there would be somebody in charge of trying to figure out how to get item a to need b and i remember one story there were some people i were communicating with they had a a private airstrip and they had helicopters that were coming in and going but they had four or five helicopters they couldn't get off the ground because they couldn't get the fuel to them and they needed a fuel truck yeah and i said i don't understand can't you just call fema and say i don't know who's in charge but surely the air force the army that there's on all these military bases there's got to be a fuel truck somebody could jump in and drive up there well and i think that's why you see the president say you know we need to rethink fema we need to rethink them i'm telling you if it weren't for the private sector the light the loss of life and um the the misery that these people have gone through would have been a lot worse and so that just illustrates the problem we went up to um the following week we appreciate you listening we are a call-in show eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four if you've got a question feel free to call in if you have a first-hand story we'd love to hear it we'll be back in just a moment you're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com this is the christian car guy show robbie's having a wonderful time in spain i'm having a wonderful time here we've got some great guests uh we've been talking about western north carolina relief work uh samaritan's purse and what they've got going on they're going to start working on putting actual homes in instead of converting those sheds that are in front of lows and home depot that have been made into living space and all those folks living in tents i hope that our audience will be praying for samaritan's purse for the volunteers the volunteer effort all those folks that are not living in the facilities and the lifestyle that they had once all those that weren't that need to be living in a more sound and reasonable way to to spend their day um we need to be praying about folks going up and volunteering there's still great needs in different areas i'd say to you before you take a collection of stuff i'd call where you plan to take it absolutely call them and say what is it you actually need in some cases what they need is 40 people to go up and get what they already have organized um but there's still a need to do collections as long as you collect the right thing and take it to the right place um tony tell me what what are you thinking you've been boots on the ground up there what do you think's needed well i i do i think the big thing that's needed is just practical help people going to help and meet those needs whether it's an individual a dad with his kids or a group from a church or wherever organizing those teams and setting aside time to go help your neighbors and like we were talking about earlier this is not going to be solved in the next month or two this is going to be years two three four five years this is going to be going on so don't don't don't lose that enthusiasm to help your neighbor just because it's not the first story on the news anymore we've got to keep that going um jeff you've been up you know people up there that are doing the boots on the ground to get work done what are your thoughts yeah i think the key is and it's a great opportunity let me back up and just say when we when i was up there and i was talking to you all about how everybody came together what it was was the fragrance of christ the fragrance of christ everywhere and it was so i've never i've been i've been able to been fortunate i've been able to do a lot of different ministry things but to see that come together was absolutely incredible and the spirit was incredible but what's going to be the key what's really going to make the difference in this is going to be the private sector you know we're in the legislature and i can tell you the next two budget cycles in north carolina is going to be all about western north carolina the federal government our our our our congressman and senators from north carolina will be appealing to the federal level and they're going to come in and do some things but they can't do it all and we can't do it all and so the difference is really going to be the private sector and so i'd really encourage folks this is a great opportunity for ministry it's a great opportunity to be the fragrance of christ to love people the door is wide open for the gospel there's people that have just they literally have nothing and so i'd echo what you were saying about the needs are constantly changing and so it's important before you collect stuff that you call first and find out what you need have to have some place to go to get to give these donations and then donate the right stuff and bring the right people with the right skills to jump in there and be involved but this is going to take you know this is going to take years years yeah i understand we need to have a laser focus on western carolina and i'm assuming you're overstating things some because we got a lot of people in our own communities that have nothing and need help and we need to keep in mind that we've got homeless friends in our own counties that need to be taken care of and loved and worked with but yes somehow we've got to keep an eye on both balls senator jones you got anything you're thinking well i would just to echo i think what tony and jeff said that these are really opportunities to to share the gospel of christ with with people to show them with our actions and i would you know i would challenge i think these are opportunities to talk to your small groups talk to your bible studies to say okay how can we be intentional to connect with a church another group and and maybe you know make some connections from this area to western north carolina to where it's an ongoing support whether that's a women's bible study with the women's bible study there um you know there's a lot of connections i know there's a group of ladies that are in kernelsville that meet um uh it's an organization called so to sew and uh they started off helping missionaries they also uh bring new clothes and things for schools here and for scythe county um but they were able to connect to a school district up there and were able to go in and bring brand new clothing um to hundreds of families so um you know and it was just a it was just a personal connection that was that was made so you know i think that um we should pray pray over that and see what we can do as the local body of christ here to continue to do the work that we're doing in this community but to extend that and make some connections to western north carolina jeff help me understand we've got this great amount of money that was in the surplus and with earmarked it for western north carolina how does that get divvied up dispersed supervised but what does that money actually go to so what we did over the last dozen years is we created a rainy day fund we were putting a half a billion dollars a year in that um and and i will say that that was difficult we had people kind of say no you should be spending on this that or the other thing and we we held to it and so we had six billion dollars in that fund when the hurricane hit um and it was a rainy day fund and guess what it rained and so what we were able to do immediately within the first three weeks is we cut loose we had two bills that we did the first one i think was 273 million and the second one was 600 and some million dollars it was just short of a billion dollars that we were able to cut loose um to get moving up there uh so that so that what that did is it went to different departments that were able to come in there and help everything from dot to you know whatever um so that they had the cash to go on dot's outlays right now in dealing with western north carolina are triple what their average is over the years the good news for north carolina taxpayers is we were able to write a check we were not borrowing this money so we still have another five billion dollars that will go that will continue to get released we'll continue to go back but what we have to do is be very very smart there are certain things that we have to spend money on and certain ways that we have to spend it to get fema reimbursement and so the other thing is is even though you cut the money loose like you can only spend it so fast and so we had another bill that was really a lot more a policy issues we were trying to suspend some of the building regulations and stuff because we were like listen people need to get in winter's coming and there wasn't any money in that bill or there was a little bit and people were some people were fussing at us about that but by that time we had cut loose a billion and only 50 million or so had already been spent like it's it's in the pipeline and it's ready to go but you can only spend it so fast and so we will continue to do that I expect that the state's portion will exceed that over the next few years combined with what the federal government is going to do so it's important for us to be great great stewards of that money again the good news is we've got it sitting there just for such an occasion now I'm guessing if it's a federal highway that the federal government's responsible for the expenses the contractors making sure all that gets done yeah they have like existing contracts for dump trucks and for different things like that and they'll jump in and and and be involved in the federal stuff but of course a lot of the roads are really our state roads and it was really down in the hollows where the stuff gets is really been bad if you go to Boone and you get up in the higher level things look pretty normal even even the Walmart there is now open and that kind of stuff but if you go just a couple miles outside of Boone and you get down in those hollows and man you've got bridges and roads and everything else are just gone and and not just one I mean multiple all the way down the road so a lot of it is really going to be state roads that after that we're going to need some help from the federal government to fix that as well and it was great to see the president come last week and said you know hey you know what you need he came Friday and said you need the Army Corps of Engineers on the ground Monday Monday there was all these videos popping up on social media of people just astounded about how much equipment and stuff was showing up and so we're going to need it's all hands on deck. Well we appreciate everybody tuning in today we ask you to be praying for the hurricane relief we ask you to pray for all our senators and congressmen in our capital trying to make really great decisions together I ask you to pray that they find ways to come together to find solutions for the problems we have I ask you to keep Samaritan's Purse in your prayers and to figure out how you and your group can be