Still without electricity, rural hurricane survivors need camping heaters, stoves

St. Charles Parish residents can donate essential camping gear to help people impacted by recent hurricanes survive extended periods without power or working heating units.

On Oct. 21, the United Way of St. Charles announced the relief effort, which aims to help people in rural areas of Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, who are still recovering from Category 4 Hurricane Helene. The non-profit is collaborating with disaster response coordinator Rev. Dave Henderson, who helped the parish after Hurricane Ida.

Residents can send camping heaters and stoves to Cokesbury Church at 9919 Kingston Pike in Knoxville. The appliances should be compatible with small, camping propane tanks. UWSC posted Amazon links to compatible items that residents can purchase, but residents can also send used camping heaters and stoves.

John Dias, executive director of the United Way of St. Charles, said officials had not completed search and rescue efforts in these rural areas until last week.

“It’s really tragic,” Dias said. “People are going back into their houses, and they’ve lost everything. It’s getting cold and they have nothing.”

Dias said the UWSC already sent 20 stoves and 35 heaters, but there are tens of thousands of people in rural areas who are in need.

“One of the things that I have learned after Ida is that the national news cycle is really short,” Dias said. “We saw stories for three or four days on this devastation, but those folks are going to be dealing with that for years. We know that here from what we went through.”

Dias said the request from Henderson got his attention because it was personal.

“When the guy who was here rebuilding our homes called and says, ‘hey I need some help,’ that really resonated with us,” Dias said.

Henderson is a disaster relief coordinator for the Holston Conference, an organization of nearly 1,000 United Methodist churches in East Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama and West Virginia. He said he coordinates relief for 16 counties across Tennessee and Virginia.

The flooding from the hurricanes damaged heating and cooling systems in homes and businesses, Henderson said. About 1,000 homes still have no electricity.

“Last night in the valley – where I live – it was 45 degrees,” Henderson said. “In the mountains where a lot of this damage occurred, it’s already below freezing a night.”

He said it could take months for people to get their heating and cooling systems repaired. Relief efforts could take five to six years.

“People are shell shocked,” Henderson said. “But they are also a very resilient and strong-willed people. These are mountain people.”

He said the Cajun attitude is the same way.

“We may have gotten knocked down, but it didn’t knock us out,” he said.

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