When Hurricane Helene struck northwestern Florida in late September as a Category 4 storm, Furkan Koc—about 10 hours away in western North Carolina—knew he wanted to help with recovery efforts in the beleaguered Gulf Coast region.

He and his wife, Dilek, had also been talking about visiting a church near their home to get better connected with their mountain community in Swannanoa, North Carolina.

But less than 24 hours after Helene made landfall, the couple, originally from Turkey, was awakened in the middle of the night by geese squawking ominously outside their front door.

Within hours, the nearby Swannanoa River—where the Kocs had waded and splashed with their young children—had burst its banks, filling their house with nearly five feet of water. “In 100 years, the river has never passed through here,” Dilek said.

Before abandoning their home, the Kocs moved their vehicles to higher ground and parked their riding lawn mower on top of their stepped patio, expecting to return home shortly after sunrise.

But come morning, this former textile town—located between Black Mountain and the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove in Asheville—looked like a muddy sea of debris as only rooftops of houses and storefronts dotted the flooded landscape.

“As I flew over in the helicopter, the damage from the storm and flooding is everywhere,” Franklin Graham posted on Facebook. “This community is just a few miles from where my parents lived and where I grew up as a boy. It’s heartbreaking to see the overwhelming loss for so many families.” As of early November, nearly 250 deaths had been reported in the wake of Hurricane Helene, including more than 100 in North Carolina.

On the other side of the Kocs’ recently remodeled home, Danny Bailey had evacuated his father, sister and her two grandsons from their mobile homes overnight for higher ground at the nearby BP gas station. “We left about 2:30 in the morning,” he said. Later that day, Danny couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “The water was raging over the bridge. It covered everything.”

Just across the road from Danny’s house, Emily Russell didn’t evacuate in time. After the floodwaters filled her house, the eight-months pregnant mother floated on a mattress with her dog inside her home for nearly eight hours before her husband was able to traverse the strong currents and rescue her.

And less than a mile away, Mitchell Beddingfield looked on in horror as the Swannanoa River surged over its banks behind his house and catapulted two of his neighbors out of their mobile home. The middle-aged son and his dementia-suffering father clung to a tree limb for several minutes before the violent current overpowered the elderly man.

“I was on my front porch,” Mitchell said. “I saw him swiftly carried downstream.”

When the floodwaters began seeping into his house despite its nearly six-foot-high foundation, Mitchell tried to contact a relative. “I texted my brother, ‘All is lost, all is gained,’ and there was such a peace that passes understanding that just said ‘you’ll be all right,’” he recalled. Shortly after sending the text to his brother, Mitchell said, the water stopped rising in his house. 

And within days of the floodwaters receding, an army of blue shirt chaplains with the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team (BG-RRT) and orange shirt-clad volunteers with Samaritan’s Purse started arriving across western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, south Georgia and northwest Florida. 

After a couple of days of trying to shovel mud out of his house and searching for possessions that had washed away in the flood, Furkan was running out of hope. Then a Samaritan’s Purse volunteer visited him and asked if he needed help salvaging his house.

“I gave up the day before,” he said. “Next day, one crew came. More people came the next day, and more, and more, like 20, 30, 40, 100 people. They were everywhere. And they are still here after three weeks.”

As of early November, Samaritan’s Purse had completed more than 350 helicopter missions to mountain regions where mudslides and washed-out roads and bridges had left residents isolated without electricity, food and water. The air missions delivered more than 22,000 gallons of fuel, nearly 3,900 generators, 3,300 propane heaters, nearly 3,000 electric heaters, more than 24,000 food bags, 13,700 blankets and 17,200 solar lights. The organization also established an emergency hospital in Newland, North Carolina, and shelters to refill more than 1,000 oxygen tanks in the mountain towns of Burnsville and Spruce Pine.

The Cove, which sustained minor damage in the storm, suspended normal fall programming to open its doors to serve those assisting flood-ravaged communities in the mountains of the Tarheel State.

BG-RRT chaplains, Samaritan’s Purse volunteers, and North Carolina Highway Patrol officers are receiving hot meals and lodging while they use The Cove as a home base for their operations.

In just the first five weeks of the North Carolina recovery response, the BG-RRT and Samaritan’s Purse together had mobilized nearly 27,000 volunteers and recorded 84 professions of faith in Christ.

“Samaritan’s Purse will be working here for a long time, and Billy Graham Rapid Response Team chaplains are also there making a difference as they pray with and minister to residents of these devastated communities,” Franklin stated on Facebook.

Josh Holland, international director of the BG-RRT, met the Kocs shortly after they returned to assess the devastation to their flooded property.

“We really sensed that God is using all this in their life to answer prayer and draw all of us closer to Him,” Josh said. “We offered to pray with them, and I prayed in Jesus’ Name. 

“We had a chance to talk through and look through Steps to Peace With God. We talked about the plan of salvation and what Jesus did on the cross, His resurrection and our personal response to receive Him, and both of them prayed to receive Jesus.”

Furkan describes the outpouring of love and help his family has received as a “miracle.” Josh introduced Furkan to the pastor of  Valley Hope Church just a half-mile from his house. “We have a bigger community now,” Furkan said.

And Furkan’s neighbor, Danny, who slept in his truck for several days after losing his mobile home, tractor and two vehicles, was gifted a camper and the promise of a vehicle by volunteers from a church in Virginia.

“If I didn’t know the Lord, I’d be driving myself crazy,” Danny said. “He’s got a purpose for this, and I don’t know the whys, ifs and how comes, but He does. And eventually He will show me. I can either say, ‘Lord, it’s Your will’ or I can sit here and cry and go crazy and get filled with hate and bitterness, and that ain’t no way to do.”

And for 75-year-old Mitchell, the retired, seminary-trained postal carrier is counting his blessings—like the dozens of volunteers who helped save his home from being condemned. “It’s been a real punch in the gut,” he said. “But spiritually, it’s just been ‘morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided; great is Thy faithfulness.’

“I don’t know what it will look like when I come out of the trauma, out of the shock, but the Lord is there every step of the way. So, to Him be the glory. The God of the mountain is the God of the valley. Even in the darkness, He is light.”

Philip Tenorio of Albuquerque, New Mexico, said his deployment as technical advisor for Samaritan’s Purse’s Water and Sanitary Health Team was humbling as the team purified filthy water pumped directly from the Swannanoa River through a series of sand filters, bag filters and charcoal filters to provide clean drinking water for members of the community. Nearly 500,000 liters of water have been purified as of early November.

“It’s the most clean water you’ve ever seen,” he said. “It’s really encouraging just seeing the Body of Christ coming together. Sometimes we need a reset button to get people’s priorities straight and really come together and help each other in a significant way. And it’s a blessing to be a small part of that. To reach people where they are, you have to go to the dark places, and that’s where our light shines the brightest.”

Heath Williamson quit his construction job three years ago to volunteer full time with his wife, Bethany, and their two middle-school aged sons. They help Samaritan’s Purse with tree removal services in disaster-plagued areas and worked in the Asheville, N.C. area for over a month.

“I don’t cut trees because I like cutting up trees,” Heath  said. “We cut up trees because we want to share the Gospel.” ©2024 BGEA

Photo: Ron Nickel / ©2024 Samaritan's Purse