Looking for God in the midst of the storm
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 4, 2024.
The wind was rushing so strong that it sounded like someone left water running outside as I woke up early last Friday morning.
When our kids found their way through the dark house to our room, we looked out the window to see what was going on. Directly across the street, a large tree was laying on top of our neighbor’s house, allowing the rain to pour in. We later learned the woman who lives there was huddled in a room with her daughter, hearing sounds of the storm pouring inside their house.
Then when we turned to our right, a giant oak had been ripped from the ground and fell across the road. That’s when we knew this storm was going to be far worse than anything we’d ever experienced in the upstate of South Carolina.
As somebody was knocking on our neighbor’s door across the street, we saw an emergency vehicle slowly approaching the tree from the other side, with no ability to pass. With wind gusts approaching 70 mph, I wondered if at any moment one of our century-old oak trees might crash into our house with us inside. And we were surrounded by them.
Hurricane Helene dumped more than 40 trillion gallons of rain in its nearly 350-mile-wide wind path. It takes 619 days for that much water to flow over Niagara Falls. According to the Associated Press, it was as if Lake Tahoe dropped out of the sky.
Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Water Center, said, “I have not seen something in my 25 years of working at the weather service that is this geographically large of an extent and the sheer volume of water that fell from the sky.”
With the soil saturated, trees that were not used to Helene’s high sustained winds didn’t have a chance.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp compared the winds approaching 140 mph to a 250-mile-wide tornado.
In Tennessee, people fled due to the threat of dams breaking, while hospital patients had to be airlifted by helicopter due to waters rushing in.
In South Carolina, firefighters were killed as trees fell on their truck during a call, while others died due to trees crashing onto their homes.
In North Carolina, mountains gave way to landslides and flash floods as roofs collapsed with people on top, causing them to drown. With rescue efforts underway, bodies have been found in trees. Entire communities have been washed away.
To make matters worse, many people in the region lost cell phone coverage, keeping them from being able to contact loved ones, call for help or have any idea what’s going on.
And even for those whose homes have remained intact, the amount of work needed to restore power is unprecedented for this area. For the Duke Power customers in the upstate of South Carolina, which is just one of the power companies, more than 6,000 power poles have been damaged and need to be replaced.
But most tragic of all, at least 200 people have died, and 600 are still missing.