Veterans heeded the call to help after flooding from Helene devastated mountain towns. Many found the new purpose they had been looking for.
Four days after Hurricane Helene ripped through Western North Carolina, I arrived to document the destruction as a photojournalist. The storm, which had upended entire communities, left 96 confirmed dead and dozens still missing.
The deeper I traveled into those ravaged mountains, the greater the destruction, stretching on endlessly, unfathomable in its scope.
I have traveled the world, seen countless places, and there’s something undeniably remarkable about the people I met in the Appalachian Mountains. They are proud, kind, generous, fiercely self-reliant and tight-knit. But even they were struggling to overcome the devastation they faced. In the months since Helene’s flooding passed, a groundswell of aid — both volunteer and official — has arrived to support in the aftermath. During my time covering the relief efforts, I noticed a pattern: Military veterans from across the country were having an outsize impact on relief efforts.
Their backgrounds make them well-suited for a disaster response of this magnitude. “This is what we do when we go to war. We go into bad scenarios with towns turned upside down,” said Mark Elkhill, an Army veteran with the relief group Christian Rangers. (The name Christian Rangers is taken from an exercise in Robin Sage, the nearly two-week special field “final exam” for would-be Green Berets.)
Most of the group with Elkhill are former U.S. Army Green Berets and this is exactly their mission: to train local people to recover, sustain and protect themselves, he said while taking a break from cutting firewood that locals will use to heat their homes this winter. “The only difference is we’re not getting shot at here, which makes it a thousand times easier,” Elkhill said.
One cold autumn morning at a relief operation set up in Swannanoa, I meet Steve Santos as he readies himself for another day of cleanup at a nearby campground. Santos moves with a quiet strength as he manages logistics for his team, his demeanor steady and unassuming. A U.S. Air Force special tactics operator with 17 years of military service, he’s spending all of his vacation time here, immersed in relief work alongside his father, Errol Santos. Errol, a former New York Police Department detective, National Guard veteran and a 9/11 first responder, also volunteers in disaster recovery missions worldwide.