‘This is my community:’ Locals with ties to North Carolina desperate to help after Helene

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Locals with connections in North Carolina are desperate to help their families and neighbors.

Helene made landfall in Florida as a category 4 hurricane last week. Even though it lost intensity as it headed inland, there were strong winds and flash flooding 500 miles away.

Some people living in Ashe County, North Carolina can’t get in or out because of washed-out roads.

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“It is just an absolute nightmare, this is not a once-in-a-while kind of thing, this is never-happened-since-Noah’s-Ark kind of thing for my county,” North Carolina native, and Jacksonville resident Sierra Walton said.

Our Action News Jax Weather Team said Helene was one of the most damaging storms in North Carolina history. Ashe County in the western part of the state felt Helene’s wrath.

“It’s just a small town that’s not getting a lot of help and it got wrecked,” St. Johns County firefighter Michael Gallatin said.

Gallatin is an engineer with St. Johns County Fire Rescue at station one in Palm Valley. He has property in Ashe County that he said is like his home away from home. While Gallatin said his property fared well, his neighbors – not so much.

“Down in the valley, it just got decimated with the storm like everything you see on the news in North Carolina,” Gallatin said. “People up there just lost everything – houses, cars, clothes, everything.”

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As for Walton, a native of the City of Creston in Ashe County, she said her family is struggling.

“It has really broke[n] my heart. I sat at nighttime with my husband in my room and I just cried because this is my community, this is my people, this is where I was raised,” Walton said.

Creston has roads and bridges that are also impassible or washed away.

Walton and Gallatin said people need essentials like batteries, paper towels and even warm clothes.

“Winter is coming, and people don’t have jackets, and clothes and essential items just to survive,” Gallatin said.

So, Gallatin and Walton are teaming up to send supplies up to North Carolina in about 10 days.

“It’s definitely gotten bigger to the point where it’s looking a U-Haul truck,” Gallatin said.

Gallatin said there are donation sites set up at Station One in Palm Valley and at the main fire rescue headquarters in St. Johns County.

He and Walton are asking for clothes, baby items, batteries, canned goods, blankets, and towels.

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