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Reeling from Helene damage, Coffee County residents get help from good Samaritans
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In Coffee County, hard-hit by Hurricane Helene, many of the donated goods and supplies are coming through one local church.
“I told my staff this morning that as far as I’m concerned, our church is a logistics hub for disaster relief until further notice,” said Douglas First Methodist Church Pastor Paul Elliott. “We’re still a church and we’re still going to have church, but we’re trying to do as much as we can. A lot of times what you’ll see is churches, they do a lot to take care of themselves. This is one of the times where we’re able to, as a church, take care of others, and so that’s my focus.”
Elliott spoke to the Recorder by phone Monday as volunteers sorted through pallets of food, toiletries and other supplies delivered by good Samaritans in semi trucks, trailers and passenger vehicles. He estimated that volunteers have sorted and shipped out about 500 tons or 1 million pounds of goods in the past week.
Another good Samaritan has lent the church a forklift to help organize the donations. Once they come in, a team of volunteers sorts through the items and delivers them to people who need them across the affected area.
Elliott said a number of different factors made the church the logical choice to handle the job.
“I used to do this kind of thing in the army for years and years, and so I just knew what to do with it. Our church is centrally located. We got the right kind of facility to be able to facilitate this kind of activity. We had the right kind of people that could come in and help us, the right kind of equipment, and we had, you know, just kind of the spirit of the mission and the good Lord with us.”
Coffee and other communities in the southeast corner of the state were among the hardest-hit in Georgia. As of Monday afternoon, more than 60% of homes were still without power, according to outage tracking site poweroutage.us.
'The worst of the storm and the best of humanity'
State Rep. Clay Pirkle, an Ashburn Republican who represents the area, said the destruction has been severe, especially for farmers, some of whom have lost entire fields that were ready for harvest.
“I’ve seen the worst of the storm and the best of humanity,” he said. “I’ve seen people that will get out of a hot bed because they still don’t have air, they don’t have electricity at the house, and go and help serve food for people that don’t have access to it. They’re still hurting, but still helping. It’s awful, but it’s encouraging at the same time.”
Elliott said the majority of the people volunteering at Douglas First Methodist on Monday didn’t have power at home.
“It’s very selfless service that these people are engaged in here, and I couldn’t be prouder of them. I’m not sure if pride is the right emotion that I’m supposed to feel, but I’m just very impressed and pleased with members of our church and quite frankly, just this community at large.”
At a Saturday press conference, Douglas Mayor Tony Paulk said repairs to distribution lines are complete for the city, and the next step is to reconnect individual homes, but it may still be a while before the entire community has power back, especially in homes where part of the electrical system has been damaged.
“Some houses are going to be very, very easy to connect, just pick up the service wire and hook it up, you have lights,” he said. “Some houses are going to be a little difficult. And this is where the frustration will mount. If there’s a broken pole or a transformer that needs to be replaced, we have to get a pole team out there to install a new pole, then we have to get a crew out there to put in the transformer. This is not going to be immediate.”
“I know you’re frustrated. You’re tired of sitting in the dark, and I am too. But these young men are human,” he said, referring to the electrical workers. “Fatigue sets in and they start to make mistakes.”
Paulk said one lineman had been sent to the hospital after falling and breaking a foot on the job. He is expected to be OK, Paulk added.
Looking forward
As power comes back on, people will begin to need different donations, Elliott said.
“We’re getting to the point now where people are starting to need cleaning supplies, you know, like squirt bottles, like bathroom cleaner or kitchen cleaner, because if they get power restored, the refrigerators are a wreck, and so they’re having to make things sanitary where they can actually re-occupy their homes,” he said.
Elliott said the church has received plenty of water donations, so no more bottles of water are needed, but non-perishable food will still be appreciated, especially pre-packaged healthy items that do not need to be cooked.
“A lot of these kids have been subsisting on potato chips and that kind of thing. I mean, it’s calories, so it’s good, but it’s not the healthiest thing in the world,” he added. “A lot of these places, their challenge is they don’t have electricity, so they can’t cook anything. So if you send them a can of corn, well, they’re going to be eating it cold, that’s if they have a can opener to get it open.”
Goods for babies like diapers, wipes and formula, are also in need, he said, and so are tarps for patching roofs, along with the nails to attach them.
In a Sunday briefing, Coffee County Emergency Management Agency Director Steve Carver said recovery efforts have been going well and the agency is also giving out supplies at locations around the county.
Carver said the agency is monitoring Hurricane Milton, which is now a Category 5 storm. That hurricane is not expected to directly hit Georgia, but it could inflict major damage in Florida and have offshoot effects to southern Georgia where trees have been weakened and soil made soggy by Helene.
“At this time, it’s expected to hit somewhere around Tampa, Florida as a major hurricane, Tuesday evening into Wednesday For us, the worst case scenario on the current track is we may have some strong gusts during that same timeframe, Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.”
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Georgia Recorder.
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