Echoes of Helene, Article 1: Intro
- B.Burney
- Sep 25
- 4 min read
Until a few years ago, there weren’t a lot of short term lodging options in McDowell County. When Old Fort mountain would freeze making it impassable, there was nowhere for people traveling to stay. Now Glenwood Baptist Church is prepared to become a community emergency shelter in a very short amount of time, whether it’s for one night or an extended period.
Jennifer M. is a main point of contact between the EOC and the Glenwood emergency shelter, but she doesn’t manage it alone. Natasha M. and other church members jump in right beside her to ensure that any guests coming through the doors are treated with kindness and shown the love of Jesus through their actions and their words.
The longest the shelter has ever been needed was 5 days, 7 at the most but that had always been due to snow. Getting “stranded” in the shelter for snow has always been more of a fun outing than anything else, because of course they take advantage of the inconvenient situation by sledding and building snowmen. Even in the longest stretch, they really only had to fill a section of the church, and it was more like a hotel stay with each individual traveler or family getting their own room upstairs.
But that changed on Wednesday, September 25, 2024 when Jennifer’s phone rang. Much of the South was getting pummeled with heavy rain. The forecast didn’t show a break before a hurricane was supposed to make landfall in the gulf. The governor of North Carolina declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the storm.
Jennifer received a call on that Wednesday from Adrianne with Emergency Medical Services. “The storm seems like it is going to be pretty bad, we’re needing to open up a shelter, can you start the process?” Jennifer said yes to the call, never knowing that a storm named Helene would be a life changing event.
The process of transforming the church into a shelter is relatively straightforward. Make sure the church is open, has some food on hand, and simple meals are planned. Thinking it was just going to be a few days while the storm was passing overhead, Jennifer put a 3 day meal list on the fridge.
Then she continued the process by contacting the volunteers needed to staff the shelter and the Glenwood Fire Department to let them know the shelter was on standby. The next step of that process was EOC bringing a large generator on a trailer to be hooked up to the church. The EOC had already contacted some outside agencies to bring various things like Cast trailers for shelter guests to safely board their animals while staying at the shelter.
What began as a routine shelter opening quickly became something no one at Glenwood Baptist had ever experienced. By the end of the week, the shelter would no longer resemble a “snow day hotel,” but rather a lifeline for an entire community.
Natasha: Jennifer had asked me if I would head up the kitchen. I said, ‘Sure, whatever I need to do.’ We thought it would be for 3 days so we bought supplies from West Court Food Center while the rain was pouring down. We only bought 3 bags of cereal, a few gallons of milk, a couple loaves of bread and stuff to make spaghetti. “It’ll be a few days just like it’s been before,” is what we thought.
Jennifer, Natasha, and the volunteers began preparing the shelter by moving some furniture around, making sure the food was ready. Then Glenwood had the regularly scheduled Wednesday night service.
Jennifer: After the service and making more preparations, I got in my car at 10 pm to go home. I had just pulled out of the parking lot when EOC called to say they were concerned and evacuating people right now. EOC asked, “Can you open the shelter at 11 pm?” I said sure, whipped my car around and opened the door. I called Glenwood Fire Department to let them know what was going on, and never looked back.
Natasha: Jennifer called me at 10 that night. My first question when the phone rang was “What’s wrong?” She said she was opening the shelter now. I said, “I’ll be there in the morning.”
Jennifer: We received our first guest that night, a man and his dog. More people came in, but it was mostly preventative measures - people that lived on river banks that were concerned and/or didn’t have transportation. Only a few came that night. Carolina Emerald, a local campground, was evacuated. Anyone willing to evacuate was brought to Glenwood.
Jennifer: The next day, we continued to get stuff ready, and waited for the storm to arrive.
Natasha: We went to pick up a few more little things like sandwich meat and then fed a meal to the few guests that we had at that point. I went home. On Friday my family moved to the shelter and didn’t go home for 14 days.
Those first few hours felt like just another storm. But by Friday, Jennifer, Natasha, and countless others would step into a reality none of them could have imagined. Their story of faith, resilience, and community will continue on September 27.
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