Hurricane Relief Trip to Boone, North Carolina
In early October, a team from Church of the Good Shepherd in Bermuda Run traveled to Boone, North Carolina to serve in hurricane relief efforts. The team was led by Christopher Reeves and Charles Herring. Below Christopher Reeves shares about the team's work and experience in Boone.
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Their team did great work, but there is still much to be done in Western North Carolina and the other areas impacted by the recent hurricanes. These areas will be healing from these natural disasters for years to come. If you would like to support relief efforts financially, you can donate here. To connect with others looking to serve from our diocese, you can email
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Summary of Trip to Boone
by Christopher Reeves
Our experience in Boone, N.C. was probably not very unusual. We had left early and driven a little over two hours to reach our destination and had been seeing the destruction Helene left in her wake for the latter half of that time. As we drove along, I noticed that in a few areas, the surroundings looked almost normal; however, in most places the damage was obvious.
Pieces of the road had been gouged deeply or washed away altogether, and even the parts of the road which had gone largely unscathed had a small stream where the shoulder should have been. Tree limbs lay scattered to either side of our way (and sometimes in it), piles of garbage, formerly valued possessions, were heaped in front of many of the houses, and some of these were still being added to. At one point later that day, I heard a man from the area with whom we were working say, “After having to throw everything away, it makes you wonder why you saved anything in the first place.”
The particular task we helped with that day was to clear out the workshop of a cabinet-maker. His house had thankfully been mostly spared but at the cost of his business and two outbuildings. The one was a total loss, as a side wall of the concrete block structure had been blown out, and on the opposite side, the water had dug a large ditch some five or six feet deep. The other building was sound, but the interior had been completely trashed. On seeing the mess, one man noted, “This building is a pretty good picture of how this whole thing has felt: muddy, and completely overwhelming.” All kinds of tools, projects, lumber, and various stuff he had stored in the building now lay about every which way, sunk in three and a half feet of muddy silt.
Before we began the day’s work, we said a short prayer of thanks and blessing over our labor and then got to it. We shoveled the mud by hand and dumped wheelbarrows of it into the many ruts and ditches, and the garbage we hauled out to two large trash piles which steadily grew larger. Once sufficient room had been cleared, a neighbor brought over a skid-steer, scooping out the mud as we continued to clear out the corners too tight for it by shovel. The wife of the man we were helping thanked us continually, saying how glad of the help they were, and when someone expressed sympathy for the loss of possessions they had suffered, she said, “We are so blessed; the only thing we lost was stuff.”
As we worked that day, I was repeatedly struck by the joy of the people who had been affected by the hurricane; there was heaviness to be sure, and grief for their loss, but they were not paralyzed by it, and the sense of God’s presence there with them in the midst of the loss and suffering was profound. In this time of recovery, I hope that we will remember in our prayers our brothers and sisters in Christ who have lost and suffered much from these natural disasters, and those who work to help relieve the victims. I also hope that we will continue to take this opportunity to very tangibly be the hands and feet of Jesus in an area that needs his grace and mercy now in a practical way.
“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Galatians 6:9-10
"Almighty God, by your Word you laid the foundations of the earth, set the bounds of the sea, and still the wind and waves. Surround us with your grace and peace, and preserve us through this season of recovery from Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. By your Spirit, lift up those who have fallen, strengthen those who work to rescue or rebuild, and fill us with the hope of your new creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." (BCP, Occasional Prayers, “In Times of Natural Disaster”)
A Few Photos from the Area When Team Arrived ...
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