The floodwaters from Hurricane Helene were still receding in the North Carolina mountains, the extent of the almost unimaginable damage still coming to light from two weeks ago, when some employees at Pinehurst Resort suggested using leftover boxes from the U.S. Open as collection bins stationed around the resort and the village for residents to drop off essentials to help the thousands coping with the devastation three hours to the west.
Within a few days, a tractor-trailer had been filled with items and was making its way into the mountains where food, water and other essentials are still desperately needed as the autumn chill settles over an area where heat and power haven’t been fully restored.
“We had bath tissue, paper towels, pallets of pet food, hand sanitizer, water, Gatorade… We started taking blankets and towels. People were taking things out of their pantries to donate,” said Alex Podlogar, media relations manager at Pinehurst Resort.
“A gentleman walked by and said he had a friend in Lake Lure and he was going to Wal-Mart to spend some money to help. It was very organic.”
At the nearby Moore County airport near the epicenter of one of the most golf-rich areas in the country, more than 30 truckloads of materials have been sent to the mountains in U-Hauls, horse trailers and long-bed carriers. More than 3,000 pounds of hay have also been delivered for livestock, and more than 15,000 care packages were produced and delivered.
For some of the most remote areas, a few Special Forces members from nearby Fort Liberty voluntarily helped coordinate package drops via private planes into hard-to-reach spots.
According to a story in the Asheville Citizen-Times, approximately 100,000 residents are still without running water, and approximately 100 bridges are destroyed or will need to be rebuilt.
Tim Kreger, the executive director of the Carolinas Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, has worked with the organization’s approximately 1,800 members to gather and distribute necessities to those in need while many golf courses, which provide hundreds of jobs, are dealing with the direct effects of the storm.
Individually, Jon Rahm’s longtime caddie Adam Hayes and his wife, Brandy, worked with friends to collect generators, heaters, clothes and blankets and drove them from their home outside Charlotte to an area in need in the mountains last week.
Hayes will donate $1,000 for every birdie and $2,000 for every eagle Rahm makes this week at the DP World Tour’s Andalucía Masters, and Rahm will do the same.
At Springdale Resort in tiny Canton, North Carolina, the golf course resort which employs approximately 60 workers escaped serious damage and is donating 50 percent of its greens fees to hurricane relief while providing lunch to those in need across the community through donations.
In the aftermath of an enormous disaster that has permanently altered parts of the North Carolina mountains, there is a continuing effort to provide aid.
“It all started on the Saturday and Sunday [September 28-29] after the floods. Some of our course superintendents, even some of our salespeople, were calling about what we could do,” Kreger said.
“They are pillars of the communities, the course crews and their families. The golf course makes up a substantial part of these little pocket towns in the mountains, and we started getting calls about what to do to help.”
“The cool thing is, you have vendors who are competitors, and it doesn’t matter. They are running semi-trailers around for us. They have the logistics in place to distribute these products. We make a phone call to them, and it’s up to these areas.” – Tim Kreger
Kreger said vendors began opening warehouse space to handle the donations in Hendersonville and Boone, two hard-hit areas in the North Carolina mountains.
“The cool thing is, you have vendors who are competitors, and it doesn’t matter,” Kreger said. “They are running semi-trailers around for us. They have the logistics in place to distribute these products. We make a phone call to them, and it’s up to these areas.
“We are hoping it morphs into labor support. We are trying to coordinate central points to run day shifts up there to help. If we can get five to eight guys together, we have the transportation to run them to a golf course for a day.”
Golf is a small part of a massive tapestry, and while some courses won’t reopen until next year or beyond, there has been a willingness within the golf community to help where possible, understanding there are bigger things in play than getting the mud and debris cleared off courses.
The GCSAA now has a handful of pick-up stations through the Carolinas including Charlotte, Hilton Head and Raleigh.
“It started with us taking bottled water, and now with it getting colder, we’re taking winter goods,” Kreger said. “We’re working with local fire departments and volunteer stations to get these things in the hands of the people in need.
“Golf has come together to see what we can do to help these people.”
In some cases, it’s getting supplies across waterways where small bridges have been washed away, sometimes using cables and john boats to move the necessities.
When Hayes and his wife drove a truckload of supplies to Burnsville last week, he saw those cable crossings. He also talked with a man who had lived in a mountain community for 70 years who showed him how high the water had reached in the worst flood ever. The man then pointed to a mark 30 feet above that, Hayes said, to show where the water went with Helene.
Hayes saw former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle flying his own helicopter into remote areas to help distressed families and, with his wife and friends, decided to help.
“We bought 10 generators and maybe 50 heaters and took those up with clothes and blankets,” Hayes said. “It’s like they’re camping now. We are getting eight 55-gallon drums from a race team that will be filled with gas to help power the generators and the saws.
“We want to help them so they don’t have to rely solely on others. Having lived in Florida in the past and going through hurricanes and tropical storms down there, I know how the help is there at the start, then kind of goes away. We want to keep it going, and we plan to find a family or two we can help long-term.”
Now that the floodwaters have receded and the task of rebuilding homes and neighborhoods and lives goes on, Hayes and others want to make sure the help and the support continues long after the silt and the debris have been brushed away.