General

Hurricane Helene

It’s been several weeks since Hurricane Helene caused much destruction and many deaths in the Southeastern United States. Those weeks have been filled with conflicting emotions and memories of a former natural disaster that my husband and I had experienced in 2005.

Helene was one of those hurricanes that featured rapid intensification in the Gulf Of Mexico going from a minimal hurricane to a monster in less than 24 hours. Hurricanes are categorized by wind speed and are Cat 1 to Cat 5. Helene was a Cat 4 when it blew ashore in Florida. Winds and rain continued to beat the US even as it weakened and moved inland in a northerly direction. Death and destruction continued until the storm exited the mainland four days after that landfall in Florida.

We are in the habit of watching and listening to weather reports off and on during the day and evening at our place. When Helene first became a tropical storm with winds over 39 MPH I remember telling my husband that I had a bad feeling about the storm. That feeling was the same one that I felt as we were evacuating for Hurricane Katrina in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi 19 years earlier.

Unfortunately, my gut feeling was a prophetic warning of what was to come. The next two or three days were filled with concern for friends and family in Florida and Georgia. Power outages and no cell phone service made it difficult or impossible to hear from those loved ones for an extended period of time.

But that wasn’t the end of Helene. Massive amounts of rainfall fell in the states of South and North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia and other states along the Appalachian Mountains. Massive flooding along creeks and rivers as well as landslides destroyed entire towns. Not only were there massive power outages but roads and bridges were washed out isolating communities and making rescue nearly impossible at first.

My emotions during this time were those of concern for loved ones, relief when we heard of their safety, anxiety over those we hadn’t heard from and undesirable memories of our own experience nineteen years ago.

As I dared to breathe a sigh of relief when Helene was no longer over land, the bottom dropped out from under me.
I received a message from a friend in the mountains of Virginia that a creek had diverted through their property, washing out their drive and causing damage to their home and property. They had lost power, cell service and internet. Julie had driven an hour in a side by side to get cell service to contact me. Her message ended with the word HELP.

My friend’s husband (Gino DiDio) is an artist and is a fellow member of Fine Art America/Pixels, the same fulfillment company that I use for my artwork. We are also connected in life through her late mother Diane.

Diane had been a former neighbor and close friend of mine in Bay St. Louis. She and her husband lived in the same neighborhood as us and had also lost their home and everything they owned in Katrina. It was unbelievable to me that history was repeating itself by also destroying her daughter’s property.

Recovery will not even begin until Julie and Gino exit the Survival mode. However, when they enter their recovery stage they are going to need a ton of help, both physically, spiritually and financially.

There will be ways listed at the end of this post that you can help financially if you are able. One link will take you to a site set up for their particular community and another link will take you to a GoFundMe page that was set up by Gino’s daughter. A link to Gino’s Fine Art America site will also be listed. There is no link for spiritual help since many of you know that prayer is available to everyone and at all times. It is certainly needed now, not only for my friends but for the thousands of others that are also in Survival Mode.

We still have a few family members and friends in Florida and Georgia that do not have any power but at least we’ve heard from them or from their family members and we know that they are safe.

Thank you to each of you in advance for any and all ways that you are able to help my friends.

Click here to visit Gino’s art site.

To get to the GoFundMe page click this.

Community photos and information can be found by clicking on this word. 

The Venmo donations go straight to the community center and is a nonprofit and tax deductible as per Julie (Gino’s wife).
@ VenmoTaylorsvalleyCC

*The featured image was taken in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.