Recovery Has Just Started – Much More Needs To Be Done

Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed in Bob’s Blog are solely those of the author and do not purport to reflect the views and opinions of the Office on Aging or its staff.  Posted: October 17, 2025

This is the first of two posts on the damage caused by Hurricane Helene and the recovery from it.

This one gives a general overview of what has transpired since the flood and what remains to be done.

The second is on one non-profit and all it has done to help those affected.

At the end of September of 2024, Hurricane Helene devastated six counties in Northeastern Tennessee and much of western North Carolina.

News reports for several months focused on the lives lost, the roads damaged, businesses forced to close and homes and apartments destroyed or damaged severely.

As is true with disasters like this, many people not living in the area originally were shocked. They decided that they would send donations, food, clothing and other items necessary to help those affected. As time has passed, many figured the crisis was over.

The crisis and damage were soon a distant memory. They assumed everything had been repaired and life was back to normal for all of the people affected.

Let me tell you. . .It’s Not.

For the Most Part, Recovery has Just Started. Much More Work Has to be Done.

You may be wondering how this can be. It’s now a year since the hurricane. Haven’t people been doing all they can to make the repairs necessary and to get back to a normal life?

Let’s look at this more closely.

After a major flood, there are 3 stages in Recovery.

Survival

Rescuing all of the people displaced.

Providing food and the other essentials for daily living

Cleaning out businesses and factories so people can return to work

Repairing bridges and road so people can get around as easily as they could before the flood occurred

Cleaning up the trees, destroyed homes and other debris left after the flood.

Providing counseling and emotional support for the people who experienced traumas as a result of the loss the flood caused them.

Temporary

Getting those who lost homes or apartments into some type of temporary housing

Continuing to provide them with groceries and the other items essential for living.

Providing ongoing counseling and emotional support for the people plagued by dreams and memories of the flood and their losses.

Rebuilding or repairing houses and apartment buildings so people could return to them

Repairing businesses and factories so people could return to work

Helping people find temporary work so they could have some income to help with their needs

Repairing bridges and road so people could get around as easily as they could before the flood occurred

Long Term

Rebuilding homes and apartments so people could get out of their temporary residences.

Continuing to repair of business and factories.

Getting people back to work as soon as businesses reopened.

Continue ongoing counseling and emotional support for the people who needed it for the trauma they experienced.

Hurricane Helene – a One Thousand Year Flood

The flood caused by Hurricane Helene was a 1,000 year flood. No one ever expected anything like this would happen. There was no way they could have been prepared for it and to do everything necessary on their own to get back to normal lives.

Survival Mode

People drowned. Many homes and businesses were destroyed or damaged. Roads and bridges were washed out. This wasn’t in one city or in a small area. Six counties in Northeast Tennessee (Carter, Cocke, Greene, Johnson, Unicoi and Washington) were affected as well as a large area of western North Carolina.

The initial efforts during the storm and after it stopped and the flooding subsided were to find and save people who were caught in the flood. In addition, the people were shell shocked. Very quickly aid started to pour in from other cities and other states.

This aid was in the form of water, food, clothing, medical supplies and other items the people needed on a day to day basis. Places had to be set up to store everything that came in and workers had to figure out how to get it to people who needed it.

Two of the organizations of tremendous help here were the Red Cross and Second Harvest.

Initially there was no coordination between the people and the organizations providing this aid. Many times, they got far more than they needed. At one point, they had to ask that no one send any more bottled water because they had too much.

Temporary

While the immediate needs of the affected people were being met, temporary housing had to be found for those suddenly homeless. Initially, the only thing available was tents. Winter was coming. Tents are not great to live in during cold weather. Campers became available and people moved into them.

Campers are designed for short stays and not to be lived in for extended periods of time. There also is not much space in most for families of 3 or more. While they may have been a temporary solution, other long term arrangements were necessary.

Some of the people affected by the flood became anxious, depressed and experienced panic attacks. Frontier Health, the leading provider of behavioral health services in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, made counseling available to those who needed it at a reduced or no cost

Long Term Recovery

Remember – This was a 1,000 year event.

No one in these counties had ever dealt with anything like this before. They had to figure out what had to be done and how to do it to restore the area to what it had been like before the flood.

People at the United Way of East TN Highlands along with people at various non-profit organizations and in local government asked the East Tennessee Foundation, the First Tennessee Development District, the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD), and the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) for help.

In January of 2025, the United Way of East TN Highlands took a major step and named Kat Latham the Regional Director of Long Term Recovery. Her job was to spearhead the efforts to address the recovery in Carter, Cocke, Greene, Johnson, Unicoi, and Washington counties.

Kat and her staff along with all of their community partners worked together to set up Long Term Recovery Groups (LTRGs) in each of the 6 counties. The organizations provided the funding and resources for these LTRGS to hire staff, implement recovery programs and maintain ongoing support for the communities in each county.

Long Term Recovery officially started in January of 2025. The focus of each LTRG was to get their county and the people in it back to where they were on September 27, 2024

Listed below are the names of the directors of the LTRG in each of the six counties along with their contact information:

 

County	Name	Title	Phone / Email
Carter	Leya Martinez	Operations Director	423-754-8407  Lmartinez.lrtg@ gmail.com
Cocke	Laurie Spring Duckett	Executive Director	423-248-2797  director@cockecountyltrg.org
Greene County	Abby Keller	Executive Director	423-588-1564  abbycolekeller@gmail.com
Johnson County	Becky Wright	Operations Director	685-393-8915  ltrgvols@gmail.com
Unicoi County	Suzy Cloyd	Executive Director	423-926-4755  director@unicoicountyltrg.com
Washington County	Caroline Rush	Project Manager	703-967-5846   carolne@burelsonconsturction.com

The directors and their staff have had a monumental task in their jobs. Here are some of the things they have had to coordinate:

• Demolition of homes and businesses destroyed by the flooding
• Rebuilding of Homes totally destroyed
• Rehabbing Homes that were not destroyed
• Running water and electric lines
• Removing debris around the homes, businesses, bridges and roads in their counties
• Repairing roads and bridges
• Getting the necessary materials for all of the work
• Assigning volunteers to projects to work on.

With each of these there were several steps necessary before the work could be done:

They had to prioritize each job in the order of importance. On the residential side, the demolition and total rebuilding of homes was more important than just rehabbing those homes which were not as damaged.

Then they had to prioritize the order in which demolition and rebuilding would be done.

Next, they had to arrange to get the materials they needed for each job.

Then they had to make sure they had the people necessary to do the work. Many of these people were volunteers. The majority were unskilled. Most volunteers were not able to work on a project from start to finish. In addition, volunteers were not always available for the work that had to be done.

A Slow and Painstaking Process

Then there were 6 counties competing for the available materials and volunteers needed for each job.

As a result, it actually has taken much longer to rebuild and rehab a home than it normally would. Families who had been displaced spent more time in their temporary residences than they expected. In September of 2025, the majority of cases are still open. Many people are still in temporary residences.

Each LTRG has case managers working with them. Many of the case managers came from UMCOR. Frequently these case managers are working out of their homes or cars.

An individual, couple or family in need fills out an application for the help they need. The case manager reviews the application and determines when the work will start based on when the materials needed can be secured and when the workers including volunteers may be available.

The Need and The Progress

Here is an idea of the scope of this disaster on the people and businesses in these 6 counties.

Carter County

675 individuals and families were affected. Much of the construction material needed comes from God’s Warehouse in Elizabethton. This warehouse was set up by Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.

Johnson County

At the beginning of September of 2025,136 homes had been rebuilt. 119 cases had been closed. As of September 2025, there are still 428 open cases. Most of these are homes which have to be rehabbed.

Unicoi County

The major damage in Unicoi was to businesses and companies. It was estimated 31 businesses were affected.11 were destroyed. 14 others had major damage and there were 6 with minor damage.

The flood ripped through the industrial park in Erwin. In August of 2025, 3 companies in Erwin, Foam Products, PlastiExports and PolyPipe, received $4 million in grant money from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development to rehire employees.

Each of these companies were in the preliminary stages of reopening. Foam Products had suffered $20 million in damage. The damage to PlastiExports was more than $14 million. PolyPipe was completely destroyed. The cost to rebuild it was $27.1 million.

Unicoi Hospital in Erwin was completely destroyed by the flood. The hospitals owner, Ballad Health, is committed to rebuilding and reopening a new hospital on land outside the flood zone.

On the residential side, the initial number of cases they had in case management was 120. As time passed, more and more people applied for help. The number of open cases as of early September, 2025 is 275.

20 homes were destroyed. 8 were primary residences. The other 12 were rentals. It is estimated that a total of 1,000 homes were affected by the flooding.

In Unicoi County, they go by this motto: Together We Are Better. The More We Do Together The Better We Are.

Unicoi County has a Community Resource Coordinator. Her name is Melanie Montgomery and her phone number is 423-302-0718.

Washington County

The LTRG in Washington County is slightly different. It is run by the Burleson Construction Company. Burleson is a full-service Commercial Construction Company. Caroline Rush is a project manager with them and she was assigned to work on the recovery from Hurricane Helene in November of 2024.

175 homes were impacted by the flooding. 30 have been rebuilt. 75 are under construction in September of 2025. Of the 70 remaining, many are rentals and Airbnbs which won’t be rebuilt or rehabbed.

Case managers work with the people who need help. They schedule the projects to be done.

Bruce Treadway is the volunteer coordinator. Thus far they have logged 32,000 volunteer hours

Cocke and Greene Counties

Several attempts were made to contact the Executive Directors at both of these counties. They did not respond.

Complete Recovery – Five Years

Kat Latham and the executive directors at the LTRG Groups have indicated it will be 5 years before everything is back to the way it was in these 6 counties before the flooding occurred.

You may be surprised by this because it is such a long time. Take into account what has to be done:

The materials needed for each project has to be secured. Many times, these can’t be secured quickly because the number of projects that have to be done have created shortages.

Most of the work being done by volunteers. Frequently they are not available to work on a project from start to end. Also — they are not available all the time.

Volunteers

The local people in these counties, especially those who have experienced loss from the flood are doing all they can to rebuild and repair the damage done. However, it just has been overwhelming.

Immediately following the flood, volunteers poured in to help with the recovery, They came from many different states. Some even came from California.

The overwhelming number came from churches and religious organizations. Many were high school students or church youth groups who came during spring break and the summer. The local people have nothing but praise for the churches and religious organizations which have helped.

They all pitched in and did the work they could.

The number coming has ebbed and flowed. When school restarted in the fall of 2025, less volunteers came.

There is still a critical need for volunteers. To rebuild and repair homes, there is a critical need for those in the skilled trades. Some of the trades are:

Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers, HVAC people, Painters, Dry Wallers, and Roofers

People who don’t have skills are also needed to help keeping the skilled trades people with the supplies they need, cleaning up the sites, landscaping and many other tasks.

You can help. If you would like to volunteer or are in a group that is interested, please contact the LTRG group in the county where you would like to help.

If you are interested in volunteering in Unicoi County, contact Melanie Montgomery at 423-302-0718.

If you want to help out in Washington County, Bruce Treadway is the volunteer coordinator. Caroline Rush can give you his phone number. Caroline’s number is 703-967-5846.

For the other counties, please contact the directors of the LTRGs.

Older people have valuable skills and can volunteer. They will not be turned away.

If you know someone in the skilled trades who would like to, let them know they are needed and tell them about the county LTRG.

Financial Donations

If you would like to make a financial donation, The United Way of East TN Highlands has set up a web page where you can make this donation. To reach it, please click here.

Just Remember

The people in these counties who have experienced loss from the flood have been devastated. One day they had normal lives. The next day they had lost most if not all they had. Many even lost their jobs.

Just imagine what their lives have been like since they were forced out of their homes.

How would you have reacted if this happened to you?

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If you have any comments on what you have read in this post, I would love to know them. Please email them to me. Also – if you have any ideas about subjects you would like to see discussed in future posts, please send me an email and let me know. My email address is bob.ooablog@gmail.com.