RAMSEYTOWN, N.C. — As the Black Hawk helicopter slowly descends into Ramseytown, North Carolina, a plume of sand shoots up. When the dust settles, the vast sea of stones and twisted metal beams becomes clear.
Several people gather near Byrd’s Chapel Baptist Church and watch as National Guard members conduct essential business for them. The muddy embankment they stand on flows into the murky Cane River that separates them from the help they need.
The area is unrecognizable from what it was before Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina last month. Google Street View images taken in April show a grassy area where the rubble now lies, as well as a bridge connecting the area to the houses and church across the stream.
A man on the other side jumps into an inflatable boat and pulls himself across the river with a yellow rope to grab supplies. This is the only way to cross the river now after the bridge collapsed. A red truck that lies largely in the water is a reminder of this.
“The landslides and the destruction and things like that have taken out most of the bridges along this river,” said Jonathan Behuniak, National Guard Chief Warrant Officer 3 on the scene. “There is actually no access from the outside world.”
National Guard members from across the country are delivering supplies to mountain communities like Ramseytown in Yancey County that remain difficult to reach. Their varying daily assignments are largely determined by local wishes. Guard members often learn what their next mission is while completing their current task. Two Associated Press journalists boarded a helicopter with the National Guard on Tuesday to accompany them on a day of deliveries to remote mountain communities in North Carolina hit hard by Helene. More than 6,000 Guard members have been deployed in the southeast in the aftermath of Helene.
But priorities are also shifting now that the cold weather is approaching. While basic needs like food and water are always in demand, the National Guard is also being asked to bring in supplies to help during the fall and winter months.
Avery County resident Jerry Markland has been through a lot in the past week and a half. In his job as a nurse, he helped countless patients while his hospital had no power, water or communications. He trudged through waist-deep mud to get his mother to safety after she injured herself trying to climb over rubble to escape her home.
He also survived a landslide, which came down “like a hand pushing all the trees down the hill,” he said.
“You’ll never forget the sound of a mud avalanche coming down your bank when you hear it,” Markland said.
But now he’s worried about something else: cold weather. He noted that temperatures are expected to drop next week. For families who have lost everything — ranging from rivers punching holes in homes or washing them away in floods — the cold weather will be a new burden, Markland said.
He and a few others from Elk Park Christian Church met the Guard members in an adjacent field after the helicopter landed to unload at about 11 a.m. The much-needed shipment included about $6,000 worth of cold weather gear, space heaters, camp stoves and other equipment donated by a construction company.
Since Helene struck, the church has become a distribution center for trucks and U-Hauls to deliver supplies to local communities, Markland said. While the National Guard’s help has been a major asset, Markland said, local churches have shouldered much of the burden of disaster relief in the area.
There will be plenty of time later to point fingers at how government agencies responded to Helene’s devastation, Alex Nelson said. But right now, he’s focused on helping people in Banner Elk and surrounding areas. Nelson, himself a retired noncommissioned officer, has been helping lead the relief effort from Elk River Airport since last week, traveling from Yadkin County and sleeping in his car.
When the Guard helicopter arrived at 1:06 p.m., the airport was busy with volunteers organizing and loading supplies into huge bins that served as community care packages. Volunteers driving trucks and vans deliver about 100 bags every day. Several small planes and helicopters belonging to locals also took off to deliver cargo to communities in need.
Banner Elk’s volunteer work is a great example of “seeing America get to work,” Nelson said.
“This area here is not going to be defined by a punch in the mouth,” Nelson said. “What this area will be defined as is what they did after being punched in the mouth.”
In Ramseytown, Yancey County, where the Guard next landed, air supplies are essential after Helene made most of the winding mountain roads inaccessible.
One of the other ways to provide help is through animal power. So Kelly Ryan and Racquel Starford traveled from Virginia to help the isolated community with their three horses and a mule. The pair expect to be in the area for about a week, Starford said, spending “as many hours on the ground as possible.”
“We’re just trying to go where help is needed,” Starford said.