‘The mountains are calling, and so we go’

WALLACE — In Emily Ludlum’s River Landing home, there hangs a painting of five men gathered around a red pickup truck. Those men were from western North Carolina, and came to Wallace to help victims of Hurricane Florence in 2018.

“Fast-forward six years, two of them were part of the disaster in western North Carolina,” Ludlum said. “Six years ago, they came as strangers when we needed help, and we ended up helping them.”

Ludlum and her friends, Melissa Blizzard Stevens and Jennifer Johnson, along with several other residents of the River Landing community, have mobilized and organized in the weeks since Hurricane Helene devastated the NC mountains to do their part to provide food, water, clothing, generators and lots of love and support to those who need it most.

It all started with a lemonade stand that their children put together every year. The kids decided to donate the proceeds from this year’s lemonade stand to the victims of Hurricane Helene.

“They ended up raising $3,500,” Ludlum said.

“That was what started everything, that initial run,” she explained. “With the $3,500, we purchased seven generators.”

Friend Georgia Farrior scoured the internet and found the best spots to go to deliver the generators and supplies.

“We decided to go to the remote, hard-to-reach places where no one was getting supplies,” Ludlum said.

Their first stops were Hendersonville, Fruitland and Hooper’s Creek.

“There was desperation there,” Stevens recalled. “They needed whatever they could get.”

Johnson’s parents live in the area, and helped to guide the team in and out of precarious places where the roads were closing or collapsing rapidly.

“It was vital, I think, having someone local,” Stevens said. “We needed someone we could trust. They were counting on us, and we were counting on them.”

Ludlum and Stevens shared their trips through Facebook posts. “The Facebook posts were a way of showing just how bad it is,” Stevens said, “but also to show these people where their money was going.”

“We wanted people to believe us, trust us, and see that the job was being done,” Ludlum said.

Things changed so quickly that the group had one destination in mind when they left, but the next morning, it had changed, because the needs had changed.

She recalled the second trip they took, they went to Newland. “It was chaotic,” she said. “One of the things we learned was to push further. Don’t go to the first place you get to because everyone’s already been there. So we said, ‘OK, get us further in.’ One of [Jennifer’s] family friends took us deep in, to a place called Spear. When we got there, there was so much destruction and devastation, houses completely gone. All you saw was the footprint of the foundation, the river just full of cars and houses and mangled, tangled mess.”

Not only did they drop off supplies, they stopped and talked and prayed with the people right in the middle of the mess.

“I just wanted them to know that eastern North Carolina was supporting them, and we were bringing them things and just to stay strong,” Ludlum added.

Johnson told the story of one single-wide trailer, in which 10 people lived. The side of the mountain came down on top of them, and they all perished. Then there was a woman whose house had flooded, and she and her family were stuck in their attic, she said. “They got to the farthest point in the attic where they could get, and she sat down with her kids, and she prayed, ‘Dear Lord, I just pray that you let them die fast, because I don’t want them to suffer.’ Somehow, they were able to cut themselves out of the roof.”

That was the town of Spear, which Ludlum said they thought would be their last drop-off trip. “Spear was the one where we thought we were slowing down, and thought, let’s pass this to someone else, but when we got back from Spear, the donations started rolling in, and we just said Melissa’s mantra. Her mantra this whole time has been ‘There’s a need, we go.’ And so, we go.”

The team also learned of a hospice center in Spruce Pine, where 30 patients were using battery-operated oxygen tanks, and desperately needed electricity to use their regular oxygen tanks. Ludlum remembers telling the hospice nurse that they would take care of it and hung up the phone. “At that point, we were out of generators,” Ludlum recalled. “We did not know where to get any from. We did not have enough money to get more than probably two. Within five minutes, I get a phone call saying the shipment of generators we’ve been waiting on have been delivered. Twenty generators. I said, ‘OK, let’s figure out how to pay for them.’ So I put a Facebook post up and said there’s an urgent need. By 10:30, we had 10 generators, 10 kerosene heaters, 10 drop cords, 10 kerosene jugs loaded and ready to go for her.”

She pointed out that Jamie Duff from Island Creek Outdoor Products has provided them with high-quality Generac generators at cost.

“Everyone has a God-given talent and they are using it in the best of ways,” Johnson said. “It’s like it all just comes together.”

Next up for the group is a trip Oct. 19-20 to Newland, where they plan to feed the entire community breakfast, lunch and dinner for two days. They’re also collecting coats and winter gear, and will have those available for folks to pick and choose what they want and need.

“This all started with our kids dreaming big,” Ludlum said.

Their experience with Florence also helped ingrain in them the desire to help, Stevens said. “We’ve felt that kind of devastation. We know what it is to cry for two weeks.”

The ladies have no plans of slowing down their relief efforts either, even after eight trips, 31 generators delivered and 14 stops.

“The mountains are calling,” Stevens said, “and so we go.”