Survivors have become volunteers in the cleanup after Helene

It’s been a week of clean up and recovery for people hardest hit by Hurricane Helene as the death toll is still rising. In East Tennessee, survivors-turned-volunteers help in the clean up.

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It’s been about a week since floodwaters caused by tropical storm Helene devastated parts of the southern Appalachian Mountains. More than 200 people are confirmed dead, and the number is still rising. Kentucky Public Radio’s Justin Hicks reports on flood recovery in eastern Tennessee.

JUSTIN HICKS, BYLINE: Nearly a week after the flood, at a Walmart parking lot in Newport, Tenn., around three dozen volunteers are standing around waiting for marching orders.

I mean, it’s a pretty big crowd.

KAYLYNN COLE: It’s really cool. Oh, yeah. And this is – this will be – they trickle in as we go out throughout the day.

HICKS: That’s Kaylynn Cole. She’s a local who’s been organizing folks using Facebook groups and chats. And she says they’ve been doing this all week. It’s sort of a loosely organized, beautiful mess of people pitching in however they can. And each day, like magic, people from further and further away are showing up to help.

COLE: Oh, we really didn’t find them. They kind of found us. South Carolina was through a church that I have a connection with from doing community service for so long. They came down with heavy equipment, and I literally had a man knocking on my door this morning at 7 a.m.

HICKS: He’s part of the crew now. In the parking lot, Cole gives the group a game plan. They’re operating under the old adage that many hands makes light work.

COLE: We’re going to hit his garage and knock it out before we hit Hartford. It should take 30 minutes with this crew.

HICKS: Her and other folks share safety tips they’ve learned over the past few days – stuff like wear gloves. Don’t touch the mud. And if you do, sanitize your hands immediately. It’s mixed with sewage. Just before they break to head out, one volunteer adds this.

UNIDENTIFIED VOLUNTEER: I’m also going to add. If you’re going to stand around, we don’t need you. I mean, we need people working.

COLE: Tell them, mama (laughter).

HICKS: Officials here are wrapping up the immediate search-and-rescue phase. It’s taken about a week. But across East Tennessee, they’re now entering the first steps of recovery. That means shoveling the putrid mud out of their homes before maggots and flies start swarming. The first job the volunteer group takes on is cleaning out a flooded garage for an elderly couple. The couple entrusted their house to neighbor Ben England to be mucked out.

BEN ENGLAND: And so they left. And I was sitting there, looking at everything. I was like, I don’t even know where to begin.

HICKS: England knew he needed help, so he reached out to the group of volunteers he had seen on a Facebook post.

ENGLAND: I said, can somebody come help me? I didn’t know what to do. I just took a shovel and started getting mud, and then all these people showed up like that. So that’s a testament to this neighborhood and the county.

HICKS: Now, a team of about a dozen are throwing everything into the yard – tires, exercise machines and Christmas decorations. It’s all toxic trash now. If you look up from the mud your ankles are in, there’s these moments of beauty. There’s even some under the muck. One helper, Taylor Holt, unearthed a love letter. Between a flowery cursive script and the muck, we try to make out what it says.

(Reading) Feel like I’m an idiot telling you that I like you. My family says hi to yours.

TAYLOR HOLT: (Reading) Hi to yours.

Yeah.

HICKS: (Reading) My mom has already started about coming back down over the summer.

HOLT: (Reading) Love, Lisa. P.S. – your letter made my day.

That’s sweet.

HICKS: As the team moves from house to house, most everyone in East Tennessee says the same thing – we will build back. And somehow, some way, we will recover from this.

For NPR News, I’m Justin Hicks in Newport, Tenn.

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