Local effort continues to help North Carolinians devastated by disasters
Glenn Norris, right, takes a picture with a mother and son who were recipients of a camper to live in after fall storms destroyed their home in North Carolina.
SHERRODSVILLE – local volunteers have been sending campers to North Carolina to house people who are still homeless months after storms and floods devastated the area.
Glenn Norris of Sherrodsville is leading the effort to help North Carolinians still reeling from the disasters that destroyed towns this past fall. He is worried that the plight of those devastated by the storms has been lost in the news cycle.
“It’s a little more difficult to get people to donate now because they think it’s all fine, but there is still a drastic need,” he said. There is no quick recovery from the storms that killed more than 100 people, wiped out bridges, roads and water and sewer systems, and damaged or destroyed more than 120,000 homes in North Carolina.
Norris says the people he has helped have lost homes and were living in their cars. He shared their “unbelievable” stories, including 11 members of the same family lost in a mudslide, a family’s home destroyed by a giant oak tree blown down by a tornado, and more.
“There was a guy who got caught. He didn’t get out in time, and his house went in. He was out in the river on a tree, and they couldn’t get to him. He was on that tree for like seven hours and then he went down the river. He died. They watched that. They couldn’t get him.”
“It was the middle of the night when the water got so high. They saw the water was so high, and a couple of them said they had just enough time to get out of the house and run up the hill. Then a little bit later, their house was down the river. They lost everything that they had except what was on their back when they left the house. That’s a pretty common story down there.”
Norris and those helping him, including the Dellroy Church of the Nazarene, will have sent a total of 14 campers and mobile homes to at least temporarily house people who were left homeless. They have filled them with supplies.
“We get some of them from Atwood Camper Trailer because he buys them at auction and he sells them to us for about his cost. We get donations. That’s how we get the campers. When we get enough money in, we buy another camper. Same way with the supplies that goes in them – blankets and utensils. Those people down there lost everything. They lost their houses, their bedding, their everything.”
They’re sending two campers down this week and two more next week to the Swannanoa area.
“I have seen the transformation in their faces when I talk to them – from hopeless to having hope. It’s just incredible.”
To help, contact Norris at 330-691-0440, on Facebook or through the Dellroy Church of the Nazarene.
A house in North Carolina damaged by the fall storms.
