Community News

6 MONTHS LATER: Rebecca's miracles

A volunteer carries canned goods to a family at the Blue Ridge Commerce Center warehouse the county used for weeks to store and give away donated provisions. [LIGHTNING FILE PHOTO]

By Bill Moss, Published: March 28, 2025

As overwhelming as they were, the first few days of Hurricane Helene did bring a series of lucky breaks that boosted the county’s recovery effort. Rebecca McCall calls them miracles.

“One of the miracles was the internet reception at King Street that we had for a while and then the weather,” McCall, who was chair of the Board of Commissioners when Helene struck, said of the makeshift headquarters of county government and string of sunny days that followed the storm. “I think having the warm weather was a miracle because if it had been cold, just think how much more devastating that would have been.”

Brand new, empty warehouse

A string of coincidences enabled the county to commandeer a giant warehouse that would receive thousands of donations and hand out food, water and supplies to hurricane victims.

“The sheriff comes in,” McCall recalled, “and he had been through that experience with the wildfire in Edneyville, and he said, ‘I’m just telling you right now there’s going to be donations.’ We remembered when we got all the donations and we had more Beanie Weenies and Vienna sausages than you can even imagine.”

Then someone thought of the brand-new industrial warehouse complex off Upward Road. Although no one knew the owner, it was known that Cooper construction had been involved in the project.

“Miraculously enough, Zach Cooper had Starlink at his house, so he was able to get a call — another miracle — and he had the number for the guy with the company that owns the building,” McCall said. “He called him and told him the situation, and they said, ‘Yeah, that’s great, fine.’”

Once they got there, the commissioner and her companions could not open the real estate lockbox that contained a key. McCall drafted her neighbor, Candy Guffey, a real estate agent.

“If anybody knows how to work this box, it’s Candy. So I got her, and we went over there, and we got in there and we looked at this building,” she said. “The only thing in there was a puddle of water. It was like 157,000 square feet of empty space.”

Next miracle: Marcus Jones, the county engineer, “went into the other building first, not realizing which building it was, and he saw a bunch of brand-new fork trucks sitting there,” McCall said. “Fork trucks and hand trucks, with power. We just brought ‘em on up to the other building. You ask for forgiveness later.”

They had space to fill.

“Monday comes around, we’re ready to open for business and I walk in and there’s five DSS employees sitting there, all ready to work, and (tax collector) Harry Rising was out there,” she said. “I panicked. We had one pallet of water sitting there in that big old building. My son works for Coca Cola. I called him and said, ‘How can I get a truckload of water?’ And he got me in touch with a guy, and they sent us a truckload of water.

“After that, it was car after car after car and trailer after trailer and tractor-trailer after tractor-trailer — companies and individuals and churches — it was just coming from everywhere.”

The warehouse on McAbee Court became an anthill of relief activity. Volunteers logged in donations and gave out supplies. On day 2 or 3, a U.S. Army National Guard logistics team arrived to help organize and run the place.

“When the National Guard showed up, I was responsible for feeding them three meals a day,” she said. “I used every food truck I could use in town. We had a freezer trailer and a refrigerated trailer out there. These restaurants that didn’t have backup generators didn’t want to lose the food. They didn’t want it back, they just wanted it to be used.”

McCall herself spent about two weeks at the warehouse fulltime, until County Manager John Mitchell told one of his employees to send her home for rest.

‘I need $20,000’

The p-card episode was another of McCall’s miracles.

The county needed generators — for shelters, churches and businesses that had set up relief efforts and for essential retail like supermarkets and gas stations. Trouble was, no home supply stores were open.

“Who knows how to get in touch with the manager of Lowe’s? Tommy Laughter goes, ‘Well, Steve Wilkie is friends with the manager. Does anybody have Steve Wilkie’s phone number?’”

McCall did.

“I was able to get in touch with him, miraculously, and told him what we needed,” she said. “‘Do you have generators?’ ‘No, but I’ve got a truckload coming. They should be here tomorrow.’”

McCall arranged for her son and other people with pickup trucks to pick up the generators. But someone had to pay for them; Lowe’s would not invoice. McCall planned to use her county-issued purchase card.

“I was at King Street (in the county building) and I told John, ‘I need a credit card for at least $20,000 and mine’s only up to five,” she said. “Standing behind John was a guy that works for the finance department (Randy Cox). And he said, ‘Go ahead. By the time you get there, I’ll have your card up to $40,000.’

“What were the odds that he was gonna be standing there?” she asked. “Things fell into place. Every time we needed something, it appeared. Every single time.”

The special wheelchair

Which segues into what McCall describes as her “favorite miracle all.”

“We’re getting in all these donations of just random stuff, just things that you wouldn’t even imagine,” she said. “Somebody sent a small wheelchair. It wasn’t child size, but it was smaller than a normal adult would use. What are we going to do with this?”

Soon enough, a woman pulled into the donation pickup line.

Distraught, she said: “You’re like the third, fourth, fifth place I’ve been. My daughter is handicapped. She’s 21 but she’s small framed and when we were trying to get out of our house to avoid the storm, her wheelchair was damaged. I’m looking for a wheelchair.”

“And we pulled the wheelchair up to her car,” McCall said, “and she started crying, and she said, ‘It’s the perfect size.’ The handles on the arms were painted pink. She said, ‘Pink is her favorite color.’”