Help Houston Trim Rebuild WNC After Helene

There are no words to adequately express the damage done by a 1000 year flood. The same problem exists when trying to convey what is needed to repair the colossal mess that Helene left. However, we will try.

Helene was NOT just another hurricane. Helene was 40 trillion gallons of water dumped in 36 hours on mountains who were already completely saturated from a week of rain. Entire communities were washed away overnight by newly formed rivers and mudslides. Mountain channeled wind speeds were recorded at over 130mph which instantly weaponize millions of trees against people and property. In what seemed an instant, Western North Carolina went from vacation haven to a total warzone.

From day one people have been working around the clock to repair the damage. Houston Trim is one of those people. Houston is a local businessman and owner of Innovex Renovations, one of Asheville’s leading commercial and residential renovation companies. Houston and his family were affected during the storm but he immediately got to work to help how he could. Bringing in large equipment and teams from out of town, Houston began the work of clearing road access to gain life saving access to trapped communities and families. Helene had made a dangerous mess of thousands of roads and the only way to clear it was a log at a time. The family pictured here hadn't seen other people for five days after the storm. Houston and his team set to work to clear the THREE MILES of felled trees that were blocking their evacuation.

Although we are a month into this natural disaster, we have only reached the tip of the iceberg in terms of work needing to be done. Much of Houston’s borrowed equipment has needed to be returned and volunteers have had to return home to care for their own families. However, the need very much remains.

This is where our ask comes in. We have been blessed with the use of a large excavator so that Houston can continue donating his time, expertise, and volunteers to do much needed debris removal, tree removal, bridge repairs, and caused demolition for areas still very much in need. We need a trailer to haul this excavator and equipment. Specifically a 13,000 lb capacity deckover trailer is needed and those cost north of $10,000. This is must needed equipment if we are going to be able to continue this much needed work. If you are looking for a way to donate that will directly help the people of Western North Carolina, this is it. Please consider giving and lending this helping hand out to us. Thank you for reading and thank you in advance for helping us help our WNC neighbors.