One year ago, Pastor Mike Hearon and his wife, Sandra, wandered through the destruction of their Augusta, Georgia, neighborhood, grateful to be alive. It smelled of garbage, natural gas, and something burning: “Like what I suspect ground zero of a war feels like,” he said.
With no power or outside communication, they felt isolated from the world.
But as they surveyed the damage, they met other church members and neighbors emerging into the wreckage. Over the following weeks, First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, where Hearon is senior pastor, would play a leading role in Augusta’s recovery efforts.
“Community is the life that God has called believers to live in and extend,” he said.
As the anniversary of Hurricane Helene approaches, First Presbyterian is sponsoring a series of neighborhood memorial events: brunches or cookouts for church families and their neighbors to gather, share their stories, celebrate the progress that has been made, and remember what was lost.
Sandra Hearon is helping to organize the events, along with other church leaders. She said the hurricane has given them increased connections in their community.
“It seemed like there were no strangers in Augusta anymore. There was an instant connection with everyone,” she said. “That has led to a lot of gospel opportunities, and we pray this continues.”
Today, Mike Hearon said that every part of the city still bears the scars from the hurricane, the landscape serving as a visible reminder of the invisible wounds which have not fully healed. He said there is a “lingering state of unsettledness and sadness throughout the city and the region.”
It’s a similar story across the southeastern United States, where Helene swept through between September 24 and 26, 2024, followed by Hurricane Milton in early October. From Florida to the Carolinas, PCA congregations continue to rebuild, heal, and walk alongside the hurting.
In Lecanto, Florida, communities are used to coastal flooding, and at Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church, teams have spent years building relationships with flood-prone communities. When Helene hit with its record flooding, they were ready.
“We’ve increasingly built these relationships with these pockets that get hit the hardest,” said Michael Hart, Seven Rivers’ pastor of discipleship. When the flooding hit, Hart said the social service agencies had the resources but lacked the community knowledge and trust; so Seven Rivers directed volunteers to the hardest-hit areas and used their own existing relationships to open doors.
“That’s one way we’re just trying to play our part in the community,” he said.
Erin Gutierrez is the care and mercy mobilizer at the church. She said that the hurricane provided opportunities to reach people outside the church’s normal influence.
“We start in the homes of people we know, then branch off to their neighbors and friends,” she said. “It really touched people.”
Hart and Gutierrez said that the long-term needs continue today. Some homes were condemned, and the church has helped families find new places to live. People lost jobs. Insurance payouts take a long time to come through.
That chain of hardships can extend for months or years beyond the initial storm damage and cleanup. Gutierrez said it gives the church an opportunity to come alongside the hurting, ask what they need, and learn how to help them during the difficult season.
Steve Jessen is the disaster response specialist for the Carolinas with Mission to North America’s Disaster Response. He said MNA had full-time disaster relief teams working in the areas through the end of January, when they closed the base camp at Arden Presbyterian Church in Arden, North Carolina. MNA continues to respond to issues as needed.
“We’ve definitely made a lot of progress. There are still some needs that come up from time to time that we address,” he said. “We find sometimes people fall through the cracks.”
Jessen said that the fund set up immediately after the hurricane provided grants to eight PCA churches in Highlands Presbytery, as well as to individuals. More than 600 volunteers have participated in various capacities over the past year, and the Sheds for Hope program has provided storage sites for displaced families.
“This brings encouragement to folks, that they’re not alone, and their PCA family cares about them,” he said. “We’re coming alongside people in their pain, and when they feel forgotten it’s nice to have someone come alongside you with the love of Jesus.”
Jessen said the past year has also given him a front-row seat to how God directs his people. He gave the example of a crew he sent out to work on a damaged property in the early days after the hurricane. Before they left he offered some advice: you can’t do everything, like rebuild bridges, so focus on what you can do.
As the crew headed out on Friday to remove flooded sheetrock from a damaged property, they found that the property owner had rigged a makeshift bridge over a stream using an extension ladder and plywood. But that particular crew knew a bridge builder, and they brought him in on Saturday to build a usable bridge by the end of the weekend.
“God taught me to be careful what I say. We can’t build a bridge, which is true, but God can,” Jessen said.
In Asheville, North Carolina, Pastor Trevor Allen of Fairview Christian Fellowship said it’s been a long process of recovery. His family was displaced from September until March, and had to throw out more than 80% of their belongings because of flood damage. The hurricane and corresponding mud slides wiped out the road that leads up the mountain to his community.
But Allen said that Fairview has been able to raise about $250,000 toward rebuilding both his road and a nearby mountain community road. The money raised went first to the Rocky Fork project, a smaller community of 13 homes with a private road.
As of early September, the creek in Allen’s community had returned to its banks after being rerouted during the storm. The lower culverts of the private road that winds up the mountain have been restored. Crews are working on the road outside his home, and he estimated they have completed about a quarter of the project.
Further up the mountain, he said, the damage was even worse.
“Really the next steps are having the neighborhood decide what they want to do. We’ve done a lot, and … I’m exhausted from everything that we’ve done this past year,” he said. “It’s going in the right direction, but we’re not there yet.”
In the broader community, Allen said there are some families who were barely affected while others lost everything. Driving to church, he passes an empty lot where a family of four once lived; they were washed away with their home. He knows people who helped recover bodies buried in the debris, and who, months later, break down weeping at the memories.
“There’s still recovery of the heart that’s taking place, as well as physically,” he said. “There are those who still have those kinds of scars.”
But through the hard work and the pain, Allen sees God at work. Over the past year he has developed a relationship with a woman he described as a “total God-hater” from his neighborhood. Through texts, phone calls, and conversations, Allen watched her change. Now the woman is part of his congregation.
“I’ve talked to multiple people who’ve truly come to know the Lord through difficult conversations,” he said.
It’s that sort of opportunity Allen continues to pray for: “That the Lord would use our church to be able to be that light and that salt and to point people to Jesus,” he said. “That the Lord would add seats to the table, and that he would use us to do it.”