We are now “those people.”
A sentiment thousands of people across the Carolinas have shared since Hurricane Florence hit. “Those people” who lost their homes. “Those people” whose businesses went underwater. “Those people” who are sleeping in tents in their neighborhood soccer fields because their houses are filled with mold and sewage water.
We have seen “those people” before on TV–on the news, in the documentaries–and we have seen the sorrow and the devastation, but we have rarely seen what happens afterwards.
Well, let me tell you.
I live in Wilmington, NC. Ground zero. Hurricane Florence made landfall five miles from my tiny, ground floor apartment while I evacuated with my kids to stay with family in Raleigh. After the hurricane, Wilmington was literally an island for a couple of days and we had no idea what we would come home to, or if we would have a home at all.
Praise Jesus we returned to find only the tiniest spot of water damage in our bathroom, despite our complex facing flooding and wind damage that made it appear a tornado had gone through.
But many others walked through their front doors to discover collapsed ceilings and mold growing everywhere and the fresh snow of wet insulation covering all their belongings. Drive through neighborhoods and you’ll see piles of soggy sofas and crumbling drywall on people’s front lawns–towers of everything they lost. The devastation is everywhere.
But that is not what this is about. This is about what happens after the aftermath. When people have lost their food and their paychecks and their homes.
There, you can find hope.
It’s in the big things and the little things.
A mom at Walmart wrangling two angry kids with two shopping carts and a malfunctioning self check out who was literally about to sit down on the floor and cry because she was so overwhelmed by it all. A stranger watching who helped her re-ring everything and insisted on pushing one of the carts out and helping her buckle her screaming kids in.
A roofer from Nashville who drove all the way to Jacksonville to fix stranger’s roofs for free and contractors who drove overnight from across the country to repair homes of people they didn’t even know simply for the sake of helping.
Residents who helped stock shelves at a Richland’s Piggly Wiggly grocery store while the high school soccer coach bagged groceries at the register to make sure the store ran smoothly in the midst of the chaos around it so everyone could get the food they needed for their families.
Hundreds of citizens from all over the country driving towards the devastation with their personal boats in tow, ready to put themselves in danger to help rescue those who needed it.
A woman evacuating up with 95N in Virginia who passed a convoy of about 35 emergency vehicles with flashing lights heading in the opposite direction. When she passed, the side of their cars read NYPD. On the anniversary of September 11th, they were coming to help.
A group of people with no connections who raised enough to buy a woman a new vehicle to transport her and her seven rescued dogs to safety. More people with few or no connections who donated flowers, officiating services, and venues to help out a couple who had to cancel their wedding to evacuate.
Strangers who wrote to strangers on social media asking if they could drop off home cooked meals to make things just a little easier. A mom who started a Facebook post asking the community about one small thing that could make their day better and then coordinated efforts to make it happen for every person who commented.
Marines (my husband) who spent their normally early release Friday tearing up moldy carpet that had been sitting in water for two weeks, cleaning out tubs filled with black water, ripped out drywall and fighting back throwing up from the smell and tears from the heartbreak they witnessed, staying hours late trying to help a family who lost everything get their lives back together.
A couple, Lauren and Garrett Gottfrieds, who had an in-home photography session set up before their home flooded with several feet of water despite not being in a flood-prone area and yet they decided to go ahead with the session anyway. As their photographer from Infinite Delights Photography shares, “after crying and crying about everything they lost, they picked themselves up and started to clean…They have such resiliency in this incredibly hard time and…it’ll be quite the story to tell…to remind them how strong they were.” The photos in this post are theirs.
Who would have guessed a hurricane would make us fall in love with this state? Yes, some are leaving for good, but many more are coming together in ways they never expected. I connected with more in my community in a week than I have in my two plus years of living here because this darn hurricane made us all turn to each other for help.
The last few weeks the country has been watching, fascinated by the floodwaters and the giant mosquitoes and the aerial footage of towns and highways underwater.
Now let the country continue to watch us, fascinated by how an area so broken can have so much hope. Let them watch us be Carolina Strong.
