When Hurricane Helene brought historic flooding and devastation to western North Carolina in September, Water Mission, a global charity based in Charleston, South Carolina, immediately mobilized to provide hurricane victims with generators and clean water.
In the wake of Helene’s devastation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) faced sharp criticisms for their slow disaster response and mismanagement of funds, leaving thousands without power and water for weeks.
Water Mission president and CEO, George Greene IV, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the charity was compelled to take action when they saw fellow Americans struggling to find clean water in their own backyard.
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“Anytime there’s a need in the [United States], as a [United States] organization, our hearts are drawn to trying to figure out how we can help,” said Greene. “This has been a real special relief effort for us for being able to do that.”
Water Mission is a Christian engineering nonprofit that provides sanitation and safe water to developing countries around the world. Since 2001, Water Mission has provided safe water solutions to more than 8 million people in 60 countries, as stated on their website. Additionally, they provide global disaster relief after catastrophic events such as earthquakes, hurricanes and flooding.
A spokesperson for Water Mission told the DCNF “Water Mission has responded to more than 60 disasters around the world, including select instances within the U.S.; Hurricane Katrina, Winter Storm Uri in Texas, and now Hurricane Helene in [Western North Carolina].”
After Hurricane Helene dumped trillions of gallons of water onto the south in September, causing catastrophic flooding in western North Carolina, FEMA received criticisms for failing to properly respond to the disaster. More than a week after Helene struck, on-the-ground volunteers noted a lack of response from FEMA with volunteers telling CNN that people were “begging” for help, and that there was still “no FEMA, still no military, still no nothing.”
READ: Florida’s September Revenue Exceeds Expectations Despite Hurricane Helene
Three weeks after the storm hit, thousands of homes and businesses were still left without power, while the entire city of Asheville, North Carolina, with a population just shy of 100,000, lacked safe drinking water, USA Today reported.
Water Mission, in response, began mobilizing an on-the-ground disaster relief team the day after Helene devastated the south.
“We have a handful of staff in the western North Carolina area. So immediately, we kind of had first hand reports of just how bad things were,” Greene told the DCNF. “We keep some inventory of generators and water treatment systems. And so on Saturday, we had just a little skeleton crew come in load up a box truck with 30 generators, couple of water treatment systems.” The day after Helene struck, Brock Kreitzburg, head of disaster relief programs, drove to Boone, North Carolina, to begin providing the devastated community with much needed generators and water treatment systems.
“Water and power are two big needs that you have coming out of disasters,” Greene told the DCNF. “He [Kreitzburg] drove up to Boone that Saturday, and got there that evening, the next day we started unpacking generators and getting them prepped to be able to start distributing.”
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During the Helene disaster relief, Water Mission distributed 1,100 generators and 124,000 water purification packets to those in need. Additionally, Water Mission installed 15 water treatment systems which convert dirty water sources to safe, drinkable water, in some of North Carolina’s hardest hit communities. These systems provide safe drinking water for up to 5,000 people a day.
Water Mission utilized these water treatment systems to help Asheville public schools get students back into classrooms when school administrators were struggling to find water solutions after Hurricane Helene rendered the city’s water undrinkable. Greene reached out to Dr. Maggie Fehrman, superintendent of Asheville city schools, after watching a national news program where she described that schools were struggling to reopen due to a lack of safe water.
“Very early on, we actually were connected with the superintendent of the Asheville public school systems and started a conversation with her,” said Greene. After being asked by Fehrman to help source months of bottled water for the staff and students, Greene suggested Water Mission make water treatments systems available to the schools.
“I came back and said, ‘What if we put water treatment systems in place at the schools and actually made really useful bottles available?’” Greene told the DCNF. “And ultimately, it led to a really neat kind of school program that we have.”
Fehrman praised Water Mission in a statement published by Christianity Today in October. “Their state-of-the-art water filtration systems have allowed us to reopen our schools faster and with full instructional days. The entire Water Mission team from their CEO to their local response team has been a joy to work with over the past weeks,” Fehrman told Christianity Today.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.