Lead for North Carolina Fellows Assist with Hurricane Helene Recovery

Lead for North Carolina (LFNC) places young people interested in working in public service into impactful fellowships in local government offices across the state to support communities and grow the next generation of public service leaders.

Just months into their placements for the year, LFNC Fellows working in western North Carolina faced unexpected challenges when Hurricane Helene hit the region in September 2024. Below are the stories of three Fellows working in western North Carolina and how they jumped in to help their communities recover from the disaster. 

Nora Sjue – Henderson County

As rain began falling in Henderson County, Nora Sjue and her supervisor drove through flooding streets to the County’s Emergency Operations Center, which houses EMS, rescue teams, emergency management staff, and the call center. Nora worked in the call center for the next five weeks, fielding calls from residents needing assistance and from those concerned about loved ones in the area. “The first five days after the hurricane, I was pretty much working 24-hour shifts to get us through. There were days that were so busy,” said Sjue. Unable to access her own home because of the storm, Sjue lived at the emergency operations center temporarily, sleeping on the couch in the break room.

Over the period that the call center was open, they received over 7,000 calls – many being requests for welfare checks on loved ones in the area from worried family members. Sjue and the call center team would reach out to fire departments to check on individuals and report back to their families. They would also receive calls from isolated residents, stuck due to impassable roads, calling for food or water deliveries or needing help getting out. The call center liaised with emergency response teams to help affected residents.

As time went on, the emergency call center operations tapered off and eventually returned to normal. Sjue’s job shifted again. She returned to projects, like grant applications, that were started before the hurricane, in addition to her new focus on hurricane recovery. Sjue assists with flood damage assessments, including site visits and data entry, coordinates meetings for the County’s recovery task force, and monitors the County’s hurricane response email account, among other tasks as the focus turns to long-term recovery. “Leadership provided a really strong framework for getting people involved in this work,” said Sjue. “Everyone has been involved in the effort.”

“It feels like this was a time when County employees understood that their job is public service. People really came together,” said Sjue. “I’ve been personally fortunate and well taken care of by the people around me. I’m glad to have been able to help through all this. It feels life changing.”

Abby Gillespie, City of Marion

When Helene hit the City of Marion, Abby Gillespie found any way she could to help. “I lost internet and phone service, and I couldn't really contact anybody, so I took the initiative to try and help out,” said Gillespie. In the early days after the disaster, Gillespie moved between various volunteer sites, assisting where she heard help was needed and doing whatever tasks she could – including distributing meals, re-packaging donated supplies, clearing mud out from under a house in Old Fort, and tearing out flood-damaged parts of a house along the Catawba River. “The biggest thing I found that people were needing help with was just somebody who could lift weight. So that was a lot of what I was doing,” said Gillespie. “There was a sense of ‘I'm glad I'm doing something’ rather than sitting at my house and being worried.”

Eventually, communication lines and roads opened back up and Gillespie’s team at City Hall returned to the office. “I'm back in the office, but we are trying to figure out how we can make a more sustainable form of aid, how to get resources to people on a longer-term basis, because the need that came from this hurricane is not going to end,” said Gillespie.

Now, Gillespie is working with West Marion Inc., a local nonprofit, on identifying long-term needs in the community and ways to support residents, as well as to address various inequalities observable in post-hurricane relief efforts. In addition, she has picked up the reigns again on important projects for the City that were started before the Hurricane. “We are trying to regain some semblance of normalcy and trying to ensure that the projects that had been started don't fall through the cracks.”

“I joined the fellowship because I wanted experience working with the public,” said Gillespie. “I think working with West Marion Inc. to understand how to make recovery efforts more equitable, culturally sensitive, and respectful is affirming my desire to go into global health and work with nonprofit organizations.”

Gillespie also spoke about the bond between the members of the sixth cohort of LFNC and how they supported each other during the initial recovery period after the hurricane. "There were a lot of Fellows who checked in on me because they knew I hadn't heard from anybody I know in Marion. The Fellows have been really supportive."

Betsy Norwood – Jackson County 

In the week after the hurricane, Betsy Norwood worked at the Emergency Operations Center for Jackson County, documenting all incoming and outgoing food and water supplies. Betsy and her supervisor also began outreach to banks, pharmacies, and grocery stores to determine whether they were still operational.

“In the distribution center I felt like I was doing something really helpful,” said Norwood. “I had the opportunity to work with groups like the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and the National Guard that I would probably never otherwise get to work with.”  

Businesses in the Town of Dillsboro sustained damage from flooding, so Betsy collaborated with her supervisor to develop a grant, which they presented to the County Commissioners and gained unanimous approval for. They also held office hours and helped the businesses apply for funds to recover from the flooding.

In her role for Jackson County, Norwood focuses on business retention and expansion, the plans for which have been heavily impacted by the storm. “I’m seeing a shift in our focus to now make Jackson County appealing to different types of industries, as well as focusing on how we can support the businesses missing out on tourism dollars in a time that typically carries them over through the whole winter.”  

Norwood initially joined the LFNC program to try out working in local government after getting her master’s in public policy and before beginning her career.

“This experience absolutely changed my views of working in public service,” said Norwood. “So much of the initial response was local government based. You had to be there to know what was going on, and that's where the response came from. It was really cool to see everybody in local government jumping in to help while we waited for the rest of the world to figure out what was going on. I didn't know that local government could do so much.”