The following is an excerpt from "Getting a Recovery Foothold in the N.C. Mountains," written by Tim Peeler for NC State News.

In the two weeks since Hurricane Helene swamped the North Carolina mountains, NC State students, faculty, staff and alumni have pitched in to help with recovery and relief. There are multiple efforts to give immediate aid in critical economic sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and tourism through sharing information, creating supply drives to provide lifesaving necessities and simply doing hard work.

North Carolina Cooperative Extension, a partnership co-led by NC State, staffs offices in each of the state’s 100 counties and with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Extension experts have shared information through the North Carolina Disaster Response Center and the Western North Carolina Tourism Response Resources.

There are a multitude of other experiences that have emerged from the 25-county disaster area, including horticulturalist-cum-emergency operations manager Jerry Moody and his Extension team's efforts in Avery County.

A Rodeo Rider

Jerry Moody, N.C. Cooperative Extension director for Avery County, has been serving the people in Newland and the surrounding area with their family farms and Christmas tree operations since he was first hired in 1995 after graduating from Clemson.

Since Hurricane Helene hit, however, he’s just trying to make sure everyone is accounted for and fed as the de facto manager of the emergency operations center in the region.

The longtime director has been going nonstop for the last two weeks, using generators for power and spotty cell service for communication with the outside world. He’s been gathering food and water for people throughout the county from his wife’s employer, grocery chain Food Lion, and storing hay and feed for livestock in three different donated warehouses.

"Everyone thinks someone else has it worse off than they do, so they want us to take [donations] to them instead."

“I went to school to be a horticulturalist, not an emergency operations manager,” Moody says. “You know how people say this isn’t their first rodeo? Well, this is mine. I’ve been thrown off the horse four or five times already.”

But he keeps getting back on to help the people who, in some cases, defer donations to their neighbors.

“Everyone thinks someone else has it worse off than they do, so they want us to take it to them instead,” he says. “We just leave it for them and they eventually use what we give them.”

While he’s doing a job that is not necessarily in his wheelhouse, he is getting it done for the people he serves as Extension director, accepting donations by the pallet- and truck-full, to the point of capacity.

“I’ve seen more Chinook helicopters in the last 10 days than I have in the entire 29 years I’ve been in the mountains,” Moody says. “It’s kind of like herding cats, chickens and giraffes, all at the same time.”

He also did it for an entire weekend without knowing about the safety of his son Bryan Moody, who works at Elk River, on the other side of the mountain from Boone. Jerry Moody, his wife, and Bryan’s wife and newborn didn’t know if Bryan had survived the storm until he showed up at the family home last Monday, having walked 25 miles through the woods.

“It was a stressful time for all of us,” Jerry Moody says.

Taking care of the rest of the county helped keep his mind occupied, and he believes Avery County is also emerging from the woods.

“We’re not in search and rescue anymore,” he says. “We’re starting to be more in recovery mode. We will start working with the Department of Transportation and Mountain Electric [Cooperative] and Duke Energy about restoring power and roads.”

And there’s plenty of food from charity organizations, local companies and federal agencies that have brought in food trucks and mobile kitchens to prepare, serve and deliver it.

“We have some people who have told us they are eating better than they ever did before the storm,” he says. “We just have to keep it up.”

View the full original article, "Getting a Recovery Foothold in the N.C. Mountains," at NC State News.