When Category 4 Hurricane Helene made landfall in late September 2024, Team ROWW was stationed in Western Georgia, prepped and ready to respond. As the storm cleared reports began coming in that Asheville, North Carolina was hit hard and would need extensive help ranging from immediate search and rescue to long term infrastructure rebuild projects to restore the town to what it once was. Reach Out WorldWide had a Search & Rescue (SAR) team in NC within 12 hours after the storm hit. Our team settled upon Reems Creek Fire Department in Asheville, NC, and found that they were in dire need of assistance that we could provide. The station had been flooded and their entire bottom floor was ruined by 4 feet of water. ROWW was able to assist the firefighters with calls, wellness checks, accounting for people within the community, along with working on SAR missions. About 7 days after the storm hit, ROWW had our secondary teams come out to aid the same community with the help of many local and nearby state volunteers with supply distribution, tree and debris removal from roads, driveways and homes that were critical to remove.
Lowe’s of Asheville, NC Store #2201 stepped in to assist ROWW with products like chainsaw fuel, carbon monoxide detectors for people using generators for power, and even helped supply the Reems Creek Fire Station with needed appliances that were damaged during the basement flooding.
Donors from around the world provided much needed funds to keep our team onsite and working around the clock. Over 30 volunteers clocked more than 960 hrs. Team ROWW eventually moved from the fire house to the Revol Church and used that location as our donation and distribution center. At this point we had split up into 3 active teams 1. Ongoing search and rescue missions, 2. Donation and Distribution Center, and 3. Home Muck & Gut team to mitigate home damage from flood water.
Team ROWW worked close to 10-12 hours per day for more than 13 days while deployed for Hurricane Helene. Only to shift and pivot down South to Western Florida as Hurricane Milton was inbound and predicted to be one of the worst hurricanes to make landfall.