JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. – Volunteers have descended on western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee to help residents recover from the remnants of Hurricane Helene, including Curt and Ann Neal. The retired couple, from McKinney, Texas, says they’ve volunteered at a dozen disaster sites this year.
Recently their truck and 14 foot utility trailer, filled with tools, brooms and a spray washer, was parked outside a Jonesborough, Tenn. home that was flooded by the Nolichucky River. Volunteers noisily removed the floor, which was damaged by the silty river water.
“We took the laminate out and underneath the laminate was linoleum. So we're peeling that up as well,” said Curt Neal, who wears a blue hat because he’s this unit’s leader. The volunteers are also removing hardwood floors that Neal estimates were first installed 50 years ago.
As climate change makes flooding more frequent and intense, water is reaching places that never used to flood.
“When we finish with the house, we'll try to spray wash it – get it completely cleaned out. And then we have a sanitizer that kills any mold that may have accumulated or starts to grow,” said Neal.
The volunteers wear bright yellow shirts that read “Texas Baptist Men” – earlier this year the organization changed its name to Texans On Mission. Ann Neal has painted her fingernails (and toenails) to match the blue lettering on the shirts.
“I'm actually the team chaplain, so I spend a lot of time with the homeowner -- huggin’ on ‘em, lovin’ on ‘em, listening to them.”
Ann Neal said it’s important to let them “tell their stories” as “part of the healing process.”
The Neals say the yellow shirts brought them to the organization. They saw a group wearing them at church, while visiting their son.
“They were there because of a disaster that had taken place – a flood. And we just kind of looked at each other and said, ‘When we retire, this is what we're doing,’” said Ann Neal, who retired at the end of 2016. They’ve been going to disasters ever since.
“How many have we been to? Probably a dozen this year,” she said. Curt Neal estimates they’ve volunteered at 60 disaster sites over the years.
“We've been to Poland, we've been to Israel, we've been to Cuba. We were in Lahaina, Hawaii, last year to help with the fires there.”
While they’re Christian evangelists, the group says its help comes without strings. Mollie Freeman said she appreciates the group’s assistance – the flooded house belongs to her mother-in-law.
“Very thankful, because we had gotten everything cleaned out of here – you can see the furniture is gone,” Freeman said, but there wasn’t time to tear up the floors yet.
That’s because Freeman’s family was busy helping others who were even worse off.
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