
"I Want My House Back."
In the Wake of Hurricane Helene
As Miss Paula watched the floodwaters rising in the street outside her home during Hurricane Helene, she didn't realize that meant the water was rising in her ten-foot crawlspace as well. After all, she had lived in her home in Hendersonville for twenty-one years and it had never flooded. "I never even considered water being in the basement…it was like a spring coming up through the floorboards and out the woodwork. Then I kind of knew I was in trouble," she said.
Her faith in God gave her a sense of peace even as the water started rising in her house. Miss Paula knew that if she didn't survive the flood that the Lord would take her home and she would see her husband in heaven. Fortunately, a neighbor came to her house in a kayak just in time to get her out, just as the water was covering her walker. It was quite difficult for her to get in the kayak at 75 years old and with the water so high in her house, but they managed to do it. The current was too strong to go down the street, so they were forced to escape by going between the houses.
In the backyard Miss Paula fell out of the kayak, and she was unable to swim. The neighbors were trying to figure out how to get her up a steep bank to safety, so they lowered an extension ladder. But Miss Paula couldn't climb up the ladder, so they had to tie a rope around her and pull her up the embankment to dry ground. Days later they found her sweater back there.
Her home was flooded and left completely unlivable. The money she got from FEMA went to pay a company to gut her home, before she knew that there were churches and organizations coming to help. "Nobody knew how to handle this. I didn’t know there were organizations that would come in and help you. Everybody just said time was critical. ‘You gotta make a decision. You gotta do it, because mold is gonna set in.' and when you’ve never been through it..." When she met Crisis Response staff in her neighborhood and was asked what she needed, Miss Paula replied, "I want my house back." Several of her neighbors, overwhelmed by the loss and the memories of the flood, have already decided not to move back. After everything, she still wants to fix up and live in her home, the house she bought with her husband before he passed away.
Life looks different for Miss Paula during this season - she comes to her house every week to meet the volunteers working on her home, she learns new names each week and sometimes makes airport runs to pick up Crisis Response staff. When the weather got cold this winter she found a way to make chicken noodle soup for the volunteers with only a hot plate and a crockpot. Each volunteer gets a magnet to take home so they can remember Miss Paula. “I’m not gonna let these volunteers get away from me. Honestly, I love them too much.”
Miss Paula is hopefully that the community will come back even stronger. Almost every home in her neighborhood was damaged in the storm, and they are in various stages of repair. Neighbors across the street come to community meals held at Miss Paula's, and our volunteers are quickly being recognized on prayer walks as people who will listen and pray. Crisis Response has teams scheduled to serve for the whole year, and once we are done working at Miss Paula's we will move to other homes in the neighborhood. Please pray for the relationships in that community to grow stronger, and pray for the community Bible study that will prayerfully be starting in the spring.
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