Two weeks after Hurricane Helene downed power lines across western North Carolina, volunteers are bringing solar power to communities in the region.
Two weeks after tore through the southeastern United States, killing hundreds of people across multiple states and knocking out electricity for millions, volunteers are bringing solar power to .
Helene made landfall Sept. 26 as a powerful Category 4 storm, causing that destroyed neighborhoods and left at least 225 dead in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. North Carolina’s death toll accounted for around half of all of the victims as the hurricane brought several days of severe, torrential rainfall to the western part of the state. Around 1.5 million electricity customers in that region , and many remain without it in Helene’s aftermath.
For Bobby Renfro, the constant din of a gas-powered generator is getting to be too much.
It’s difficult to hear the nurses, neighbors and volunteers flowing through the community resource hub he has set up in a former church for his neighbors in Tipton Hill, a crossroads in the Pisgah National Forest north of Asheville. Much worse is the cost: he spent $1,200 to buy it and thousands more on fuel that volunteers drive in from Tennessee.
Turning off their only power source isn’t an option. This generator runs a refrigerator holding insulin for neighbors with diabetes and powers the oxygen machines and nebulizers some of them need to breathe.
The retired railroad worker worries that outsiders don’t understand how desperate they are, marooned without power on hilltops and down in „hollers.“
„We have no resources for nothing“, Renfro said. „It’s going to be a long ordeal.“
About 23,500 customers who lost power in western North Carolina still lacked electricity on Sunday, according to Poweroutage.us. Without it, they can’t keep medicines cold, power medical equipment or pump well water. They can’t recharge their phones or apply for federal disaster aid.
Crews from all over the country and even Canada are helping Duke Energy and local electric cooperatives with repairs, but it’s slow going in the dense mountain forests, where some roads and bridges are completely washed away.
