SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — “I’ve been with Convoy of Hope for almost six years now. I will say this this disaster, this hurricane in the Carolinas, the force of the destruction is some of the worst I’ve ever seen,” Eric Gordon said.
Gordon is in Asheville, North Carolina as part of Convoy of Hope’s response to Hurricane Helene.
“Our journey began about 24 hours before Helene made landfall. [Before] we went to Florida, we stayed in Mississippi, until the storm passed and then we moved in and to the Florida area. It wasn’t long after we kind of got in that impact zone where it made landfall and we started hearing about all the catastrophic damage through Georgia and the Carolinas,” Gordon said. “The journey began in Florida, but it is taking us through Georgia now, the Carolinas and Tennessee.”
He says the path left behind Helene is unusual.
“This one probably, as more for a hurricane response, more emotion tied to it. It’s not that [other hurricanes] didn’t have a motion tied to it, but the emotion in the Carolinas is different because hurricanes don’t hit here like that,” Gordon said. “Generational homes have swept down the river. [There’s a] sense of shock because they’ve never had to experience something like this before. This is very, very unique. I would say the emotions of this is pretty high, but it’s hard to kind of contrast and compare between other disasters.”