Hurricane Helene Update #1

This letter is from a newsletter emailed on 9/30/2024

Hurricane Helene: HFA Fellows Evacuating Today

I’m sure many of you are aware of the utter devastation of Montreat, Black Mountain, Swannanoa, Asheville, and beyond. Given the lack of power, food, and water and decimated infrastructure, we are leaning on our community and evacuating the fellows and our Director Galia to Charlotte today. Thank you to Myers Park Presbyterian Church for offering us a place to stay for now as emergency services begin to make sense of the magnitude of damage.

Please continue to pray for our siblings in Christ who are struggling, without resources, cut off, and some who are still missing. We are heartbroken by the loss we are witnessing in real-time, knowing that more than 30 of our neighbors have lost their lives in this tragedy (update 3/15/25 - this number is now thought to be 106 in North Carolina and over 200 total lives lost). The scale of this disaster is hard to fathom and make sense of, but we know God is walking with us.