When the First Baptist Church in Roan Mountain, Tennessee had its first flood, it was devastating. That was in 1998, when the former church building took on at least six feet of water, according to pastor Geren Street. It wasn’t salvageable, and had to be torn down. The church relocated, constructing a new building a mile up the road, on a hill and not next to the river.
So this time around, when the devastation of Hurricane Helene hit Roan Mountain, Street says the church was in a much different situation.
“The church received a lot of help back then,” he said. “And now here we are getting the chance to help our neighbors.”
Roan Mountain is a town in Carter County, one of the six Tennessee counties declared disaster areas by FEMA on September 27th. Around 2:30pm that day, Doe River rose to 10.78 feet, the highest since it reached 10.92 feet in 1998.
Street said that after seeing the emergency evacuation alarm that morning he and a deacon opened up the church at 8 a.m. They put the word out over social media that their doors were open for families needing a place to shelter during the storm. He believes seven families stayed the night in their classrooms Friday night. By Saturday, Street started hearing about the need for a distribution site in Roan Mountain.
According to the Johnson City Press, Cloudland High School was initially established as an emergency shelter and distribution center in Roan Mountain. But their lack of electricity made First Baptist Church a more sustainable option. Beginning the afternoon of September 28th, the church became the center of the town’s volunteer activity.
Street said they started serving three daily hot meals right away, up to 1,300 meals a day, but did not have a plan for how everything would go.
“The Lord just continued putting one thing after the next before us,” he said. “And we’ve just tried to be faithful to Him as He’s continued being faithful to us. And trying to love him and love our neighbor. Because we’ve received such great love from Him through Jesus.”
Donations poured in. Church volunteers quickly designated areas of the building for categories of supplies: food, clothes, pet supplies, hygiene items, work supplies and eventually a full room for baby supplies. They also set up an area with toys and children’s books.
“Just something that might help them get back to a little place of normalcy,” Street said. “Or at least get their mind off of all that’s happened through the storm.”
Too much help?
“Our sanctuary was literally ten feet deep in clothes,” said Dave Martin, a church member leading the distribution. “It was getting to a point where it was getting dangerous in here because you just had no room to work or walk,” Street said.
The church started storing supplies in a tractor trailer and sending supplies to other sites in the area and other communities in Tennessee and North Carolina. Martin said they had sent around fifty bags of clothes to other places, and had thirty more they were about to send out.
Volunteers have also been numerous. Street’s wife, Carley Street, was printing 320 stickers for volunteers checking in for their shifts. They would go through each batch in about two days.
With all the volunteers and an overwhelming amount of donations, they faced the challenge of creating an effective system for organizing volunteers and getting people what they needed. The process involved some trial and error, Street said, and some organizational thinking from people with experience, including some who had coordinated volunteers for church programs.
Students from East Tennessee State University also stepped in to help. On September 30, ETSU canceled classes and announced a policy of flexibility to allow students and faculty time to attend to their needs and those of their loved ones.
Students from ETSU’s Quillen College of Medicine decided to use their time to help flood victims. Noah White, one of the medical students, earned a bachelors in Disaster and Healthcare Mission Management from Lee University.
“I had this degree, I know what to do and I don’t feel good just not doing anything,” White said. “It’s what I like to do. My whole thing is to be someone that sees a need and I kind of want to help meet the need in any way I can.”
Three students — Philopatir Ghattas, Bo Cotten and White — delivered supplies to distribution sites in the area, made contacts and mobilized classmates who were wanting to volunteer. About 30 medical students split up between Second Harvest Food Bank in Kingsport and the Parks and Recreation Center in Elizabethton, where the three of them ended up.
“While we were there,” White said, “we had a lot of people come up to us saying, ‘Man, Roan Mountain is bad. You gotta go to Roan.’”
The students talked to leaders at Elizabethton Parks and Rec, who told them about needs at First Baptist. They decided to head to Roan Mountain to do a needs assessment and met the Streets and other volunteers.
“They came in at first and just went to work, anywhere they could volunteer to help,” Pastor Street said. “By the end of the week, just recognizing how talented they were at what they were doing, we had started asking them to help us lead in certain areas.”
The students found that the church had a system set up for organizing supplies, with leaders in charge of each supply area. White emphasized that the church was doing well. The students just had suggestions to streamline the process, including setting up volunteer logs because they knew the church could, later on, submit the hours to the federal government, which would in turn send reimbursement funds.
In the week following the flood, First Baptist served, with the help of the ETSU students and hundreds of volunteers, over 1,200 families in the span of three days, according to Street..
“They were here five days straight, some of them,” Street said. “They probably could’ve done anything they wanted with that time. And they spent it here.”
Moving forward
“What we’ve found is we’re getting a lot of things that people think people need, but it turns out we really don’t need it,” Martin said. “So we are accommodating and taking pretty much anything.”
He said people bring a lot of donations without calling to ask about needs. Volunteers take in donations and store excess supplies in case someone ends up needing it later. They’re working to be responsive as needs shift.
“This weather turns on a dime,” Martin said. “We’re down in the forties now. Next week it’s gonna be in the thirties. So heaters is now our big thing.”
Street mentioned there are other organizations who have come to support in the area, including Samaritan’s Purse, SEND Relief, Louisiana Baptist Disaster Relief and Texas Baptist Disaster Relief.
Street said he has talked with the Director of Emergency Management Agency in Carter County, and his understanding is that First Baptist will remain the main distribution site for as long as needed.
“Last week it was just, it never stopped, never slowed down,” Street said. “It’s begun to slow down to a much steadier pace, much more manageable pace, which is a good thing. That means a lot of needs have been met.”
On October 14th, the First Baptist Facebook account announced a schedule which included supply distribution from 4-7pm and dinner at 5pm. The church aims to continue sending out volunteer crews to mud out homes, repair roofs, clear trees, fix washed out driveways and other jobs volunteers can accomplish.
“I expect rebuilding is going to take over a year,” Street said. “Some of that is work that we’ll be able to help, needs we’ll be able to help meet through volunteers. I think some of it’s gonna be jobs much bigger than just what volunteers can do.”
To ask about volunteering or donating, call First Baptist Church at (423) 772-9424 or visit their website.
Isaac Wood is a writer living with his wife in East Tennessee. He is a NextGen Accelerator Fellow for Christianity Today and recently produced a narrative podcast series for the McKinney Center’s StoryTown Radio, out of Jonesborough, TN.