Episode Transcript
[00:02:39] In times of tragedy, what are our stories made of? Challenges that inspire us. Mother Nature, she has come. She's destroyed. And we as people, we rebuild. We use the power of prayer. Through the grief, we find solace in one another. Faith watches over us.
[00:03:00] Champions for good are found sprinting into action with a call to the masses to forge ahead. Born from the ashes after Mother Nature takes its toll on us mere humans. That is the story of the I40 corridor. The Helene flooding of eastern Tennessee to western North Carolina and beyond, reaching all the way to Florida, so it's been said. My troubles for this story led me to my contact, Patty. Patty was in the thick of it. Patti, a woman of past circumstance who lost her way through her own ups and downs, strife and pain, now dedicates herself to the help of others.
[00:03:38] That's where it all began for her and her mission to help others. You see, Patty escaped her own demons. Addicted to life's demise and ruin. Seen a light that was shined upon her and she accepted with vigor and pride.
[00:03:52] Patty found herself in the eye of the biggest challenge. The storm had taken a toll on the area like nothing ever witnessed. Lives were lost, entire families swept away. Nothing was off limits for Helene. Nothing was out of her reach. Once thriving farms were now gone by the savagery of the tides. Homes and animals lost to the water's depth and noise. A legacy farm now nothing more than sand from a distant shore. A school bus wedged into the now open fields where cattle once grazed. This was now the world left to Patty and those around her, but not only in western North Carolina, but for eastern Tennessee. And what I saw, it was unimaginable.
[00:04:39] The death toll endless. Countless lives left to ruin. They were all now traumatized by the horror that was lean. And words can't express what folks witnessed, those that lived to tell the tales of her savagery. It came, it destroyed, and it left. But death, he stayed and took claim where he could. The i40 corridor would forever be changed and so would the souls of its people. For Patty, she leaped into action and hooked up with James Lungsford, a particular kind of man that had had his own share of trouble. They began to put things into place. First by giving up a portion of his land to set the stage for campers to be brought in as a quick necessity for those that had managed to make it. The images are haunting, to say the least. People found themselves living on the edge of nowhere, knowing that that was now life and a future.
[00:05:33] Well, that was somewhere now, over a rainbow as a new beginning. Began to take shape. Campers began to roll in and they were quick to fill them. Once more and more families began to hear of the news of of the campers and the camp. The need was clear.
[00:05:50] There was no rest for Patty or James Lungsford and the volunteers that would soon follow. As a family arrived, so did its need to become more vocal. It started with a podcast episode with three others. Patty, James and a woman named Mandy and Jason. More on them later. Though the news began to filter around on social media. Then an appearance on Fox News by James Longford. The heart of America was quick to jump on board. Vigorous and abundant mounds of items began to flow into what had been formed, known as hubs.
[00:06:23] Hubs by the way. The need was overwhelming. Haven on a Hill was overwhelmed with the great need. From fuel to food to daily needs such as bathroom tissue and women's personal items. Not only the need, but the stories of life and ruin. When I arrived in the area, it was late, but Patty, my contact, was quick to let me know that James Lungford and family wanted to begin and have a sit down that night. So I drove another hour from my hotel in Asheville to the place further in the country. Feeling safe, I removed my sidearm. Patty met me at the door of my truck and we head into the house with the Lungsford family. The house was full of life and characters box were piled in a corner that had come from Amazon. Of the donations that people have been giving, people came from all across the country, even Canada to give.
[00:07:18] James was quick to tell me of how he had been inspired to help in his appearance on Fox News after an attack from a man that claimed he was charging those on the hill to stay there. Patty was also quick to jump in and clarify that that was indeed not the case and that the man from the article was simply looking for his moment of fame. I sat and listened to the talk of the table, the smell of cheeseburgers being made for dinner, while listening there to the various mentions of the effort that had been put into place by James Longford, defiantly insisting doing this was for the people who lost everything. Then the door opens and it's a woman named Dana Daemon, a character in her own right carrying a bag of substance.
[00:08:02] Unbeknownst to me, it was salad. It took me back for a minute. Salad in a sandwich bag. Dana then asked for a fork so that she could eat because she hadn't eaten all day. This salad out of a sandwich bag. Dana was a sweet girl who sometimes finds herself in her own circumstance of Life as it hasn't always been kind to her. Dana sat across from me and I tried to stomach watching this girl eat salad out of that bag. The environment was beginning to open up to me and the true image of the damage that had been done.
[00:08:33] It was people like Dana and all the others that would live forever in their mind of what had happened to them.
[00:08:42] Again, listen intently to Dana and her tell her story of her survival in the eye of Helene struck me as an impossible situation she and her companion had just lived through. I could see the pain on her face as the tears flowed, and yet she still tried to smile in front of me and eat salad out of a sandwich bag.
[00:09:05] I felt so much for her and I wanted to do something more.
[00:09:09] What I had no idea, she told me, of her life, its ups and downs. Dana had been stripped of what dignity she thought she had left the imprint, had been branded, if you know what I mean. What she thought life was and couldn't be for her happiness, love, ridding herself of scars of the past she just felt wasn't in the cards for her.
[00:09:33] There are many stories like hers. In a separate episode, I will be playing the recording of my interview with Dana.
[00:09:41] The house is lively at that moment. During the recording, there was no slowdown or quiet time for us to record, so you have to listen intently. My first day at the camp, however, with Patty was a quick start. We were going to be headed out of town later that day, she said. So Patty took me around the camp and showed me the in and outs of how it worked, in addition to how it all came together. Haven on a hill meant so much to her, with its people always on her mind. I have to acknowledge that Patty didn't have a moment's peace from her phone. It was constant. She'd hang up with one and it would regain another call again. It was clear to me that she was the glue, the grease of the bearings. It was all on her shoulders. Her and I took a drive to the out. The road now less traveled the broken and battered highway that once was I40. It's been seen countless times on social media, the ghostly image of Helene's destruction, the land's demise.
[00:10:43] We took a walk, gaze upon what brought such grief.
[00:10:47] It flowed less now at its normal pace. It was really quite beautiful looking at this calm, peaceful river now it was still hard to imagine what had just taken place here a short time ago. But here it was at peace with itself once again. Patty and I continued on and took a look at some of the road Work that had been done. Progress is slow, but it was being done and continues more today. At the time of this writing, one lane of i40 is now open.
[00:11:20] We then headed back to the camp. News had gotten out that a journalist was in town to cover and tell the story of the people of its area. Patty connected me with a couple from a camp that were willing to sit openly and talk. Most didn't because they just couldn't bear to relive the fought again. Before I began, though, I want to say, when sitting down, I wasn't prepared to hear what I was about to be told. It was one thing to hear Dana's story and how it made me feel, but this was something so much worse, at least in my heart. I just couldn't fathom what would come from the couple in front of me. Their tale would be told in a solo episode as well, like Dana's, so that you can hear it for yourself. It's impactful though, because their words, their feelings, the stories, they belong to them and it's my job to tell the world and share their survival. Please take note that these are real people. I'm just saying because no one else has so much talk of what FEMA did or didn't do, and I use that term loosely.
[00:12:29] No one has touched down to speak to the folks of the area. Not one YouTuber platform has ever talked about the human connection. So keep that in mind. You know, this story is vast. It's much bigger than I had anticipated and I'm going to continue to be here and share the pieces with you all. It ends well for some and not so well for others. It is action that we take as people when we hear about these kinds of things, these mass floodings, fires. But what was interesting to me is some of the other things that I learned. No goodwill touched down. No Salvation army ran commercials.
[00:13:10] No YouTuber showed up, said, hey, let's get a fun drive going so we can help these people. These are the people I've met. Not one. And within that area, one YouTuber that lives in West Virginia. That's all I'm gonna say. They spent a couple of times doing a couple of episodes about what FEMA hadn't done.
[00:13:33] Stolen the money. But no one went there. Maybe because they were too busy talking about I'm gonna get my World War iii, or they were too busy sitting in a basement talking about their no brand coffee. I don't know.
[00:13:48] But they sure in the hell didn't go to western North Carolina or Tennessee and saw what I Saw Black Mountain, Swannanoa, all of these areas that had been pummeled by the most unimaginable consequence of Mother Nature. It saddens me. And that's why here, when you listen here, part of your support is so I can continue to tell these stories. That's why I'm here. Sure, we cover those social issues and we talk about political policy, but these are the stories that get me because it's the human connection that we need to have again. I feel like sometimes we've become glazed over a society. But then I went here and I realized not so much the heart is good and it's full, and our country is plentiful of good people and good movements, not just the bad that the news shows, but why would they show a good movement on this area when they didn't even take the chance to even go down there?
[00:14:51] You know, James Longford and Patty and some others, that first night at the table at their family home had told me how women showed up from FEMA in high heels and blazers, high heels and blazers in the country in a holler. $750 went to a few people.
[00:15:13] I got confirmation of that. But most that didn't. And the ones that did get it, it was a joke because it was gone the minute it hit their hand because they had to survive. I don't know about you, but I can't even live on $7.50 a week. I'm just saying. But hopefully the tide is turning and change will come. Some of the change people won't like, some of the change people will. You know, it's a whole thing. But in the meantime, Media Labs will be here to share stories like this and others and talk about those social issues as we do and political policy. But it's these stories that I want everyone to hear and to listen intently with. It's your support that gives me the ability to travel to these areas and do these kinds of stories.
[00:15:57] So I ask you, join Media Labs, be a part of something bigger, and listen as I bring you more and more of these stories. It's real life. It's authentic. It's me on the ground. I'm Chronicles. This is Chronicles of a Nation.
