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Brother Corey Soignier was 20 when he volunteered to help with recovery operations after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. That was 19 years ago, and the impression that the water flowing into the city made on him hasn’t left.
Last week, during Hurricane Helene, he saw something similar in northeastern Tennessee, where, as a member of Glenmary Home Missioners, he is working at St. Michael the Archangel parish in the hard-hit town of Erwin.
Parts of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia were devastated by Helene. The storm, which made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend area as a Category 4 hurricane, left more than 227 people dead in its path. Hundreds are still missing.
Helene wreaked havoc on Erwin, a manufacturing and farming town along the Nolichucky River.
“This is as bad as Katrina in the sense of how fast the water came in down here,” said Brother Soignier, a native of Shreveport, Louisiana. “New Orleans, yes, it was bad, but it was in more of an isolated location, where this flooding seems to stretch on for miles and miles and miles and miles.”
Brother Soignier spoke by phone with Aleteia on October 4, after a full day of helping to unload an 18-wheeler truck that had arrived with emergency supplies for the community and an evening prayer service at St. Michael’s.
He described how, on Friday, September 27, the storm passed through Erwin and moved up into the surrounding mountains. As it did, he said, “we got more and more water coming out of the mountains as well, coming down towards us, and we just ended up getting more water than our river systems could handle. So they started flooding, and then the Nolichucky River, the banks started flooding over and into the hospital area, some factory areas, and also in through people's homes.”
Eleven workers at a plastics factory were swept away -- some were rescued, but later, two were confirmed dead -- and 58 people had to be rescued by helicopter from Unicoi County Hospital, after the hospital was almost entirely submerged. As well, part of a set of bridges on Interstate 26 spanning the Nolichucky River were completely washed away.
Fields turned to mud
Many Erwin residents lost their homes to the flooding, and many people were without drinking water for a while. Also hard hit was the local farming community, which was about a month away from its tomato harvest.
The storm “really affected them a lot – just whole fields that were there one day and the next day a big field of mud because of the river leaving its mud behind,” Brother Soignier said.
St. Michael’s serves two farms in the area, celebrating a weekly Mass for mostly Hispanic migrant workers.
“We have been able to check on them, to visit them through this, and to make sure and help them meet their needs as well,” he said.
Soignier is coordinating supplies coming in from donors in other states and seeing that things get to people who need them. A challenge here, as in many areas, is the loss of roads. A significant stretch of US Interstate 40, the main route through areas hit by Helene, might be closed for months, due to parts of it being washed out.
“I have parishioners right now that normally could drive 10 minutes to get here, who are now having to drive 20 minutes up to Johnson City to cross over the river, and then drive 20 minutes back down to us,” Soignier said.
Glenmary spokesman John Feister said that the parish in Erwin had been planning to celebrate the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel on Sunday, September 29. Instead, parishioners diverted all of the food to flood victims, being distributed at a local high school.
In the midst of the cleanup, the parish is able to offer daily Mass, Brother Soignier said, as well as joint prayer services with the other church communities in Erwin.
“Those have been very powerful, very well done and orchestrated with all the different groups," he said. Various denominations were "all coming together as one body of Christ and being able to celebrate the people who have been able to survive, and to also be able to mourn the loss of life."
He added, “This whole community of Erwin, not just St Michael's, but the whole community has come together through this crisis and pulled together, and they're working to to drive this effort of being able to grieve, to be able to grow as a entire community of a county.”
Glenmary has opened a fund to help victims.
Asheville
About 50 miles south of Erwin is Asheville, North Carolina, a city that suffered significant damage and saw its share of death and loss.
“It's unbelievable,” said Fr. Patrick Cahill, pastor of St. Eugene’s parish since 2011. “People have lost everything: their businesses, their houses.”
He said that the parish lost a member of its Hispanic community, who apparently drowned when his car was swept away by the Swannanoa River. This past weekend, there were still “quite a few” parishioners unaccounted for.
“It feels like COVID 2.0 right now, only in a way, it's kind of worse, because you can't get in touch with people, and you don't have power and water,” Fr. Cahill told Aleteia.
Many homes and businesses – and the church itself – were without running water, because there was catastrophic damage to three of the four water plants in Asheville. “And they have to move hundreds of trees to get to them – and redo the road,” the priest said.
St. Eugene’s has stepped up to respond to the tragedy, helping to get bottled water and other emergency supplies to those who need them. Parishioners have been cooking for those who are not able to. The parish has set up a disaster relief fund on its website.
Catholic Charities in Charlotte, North Carolina, is providing much of the material, but so are individuals. Hundreds of people come to Asheville Catholic School for needed supplies.
Fr. Cahill and parishioners have been doing “wellness checks” on elderly residents and parents of relatives who called the parish because they have not been able to reach them by phone or visit them from afar.
“Cell service is so limited, and if their cell phone died, they're not getting it charged,” the priest said. Plus, a lot of people are stuck in their homes because of downed trees. “And roads are washed out, and there are just slippery, muddy conditions to get there.”
Fr. Cahill has seen sinkholes “the size of the church” or the area of “the parking lot next to the Walgreens.”
In spite of limitations, St. Eugene’s, an active parish of some 1,500 families, is keeping up its full sacramental schedule, “which I think is super important,” he said. The church and school is on higher ground and suffered minimal damage and flooding.
“For example, the 9 a.m. Mass this morning had probably over 70 people, and that's really high for a daily Mass, but people know they can take a break from all the craziness and just come into the church, even though we don't have power or water,” he said last Friday.
In fact, just as the storm was approaching, two weddings took place at St. Eugene’s – by candlelight.
“Both brides said they spent all year planning their wedding, and they said, ‘You know, I don't have it in me to plan another wedding like this. This was the wedding I planned,’” the pastor said. “And both venues had been washed out, so they didn't have the party, but one reception, they just had some cake in the social hall, and it looked a lot different than what they had planned. But they were married in Christ, and as long as the bride, the groom, and God showed up, I said, we'd have a marriage.”
