Support the Jamersons: Recovering from Hurricane Helene

We are the family of the Jamerson's from Brevard, NC, are among the MANY devastated by Hurricane Helene.

Our names are Maddux and Makayla, we have 3 children: Gabe (10), Daxton (7), and Rhea (5).

We have lost our home and all of our belongings to the devastation from hurricane helene, and the flooding it has brought. We ended up with 4 feet or more of water throughout our entire home. These pictures are just some of the many, before and after pictures we have. After we safely left, water levels covered our entire couch, was above our kitchen table, reached to the of our bed ( we stacked all of our kids box springs , mattresses , and ours on top of each other with pallets placed on the bottom ) . We lived in a duplex, and lived in the bottom apartment. The bottom windows seen in the picture of our driveway are the our home. We rented, and have lived there for 2.5 years. We fled for safety before the water was at its highest point, and that is the level the water was at outside of our windows. Our drive way is sloped and it was so much deeper than we even could have possibly prepared for.

We were able to flee our home safely, passing our children , dog and all else through a window one by one, as the floodwaters poured in through door, walls and windows. All else was lost. It happened so fast, without evacuation accuracy or any real grasp on how devastating this would be for WNC.

We have spent the past 2.5 years trying to restart and rebuild everything we had lost prior to this absolute devastation, that we are now facing. Our children and ourselves have lost our everything , twice , in less than a 3 year time span. After we safely had the kids, and dog in the car, we both tried to pick up everything we could in attempts to save it. Especially, our children’s belongings. That was our focus, was to save as much of their stuff as we possibly could , before we knew it, in a less than 20 minute time span, we were in knee to thigh high waters. We knew in that moment, we had to let it go. 2.5 years of the extensive work we put in to get everything we know our kids loved, and patiently waited for while we rebuilt it all. We couldn’t save anything more than the kids, dog and what was already pre-packed inside of our car. These 3 have experienced more loss at 10, 7 and 5 years old than most adults experience by age 40. We lost not only our belongings this time, but we lost our home. We can not go back.

We are currently unable to work (or work VERY limited hours as our county’s are on a strict curfew for safety reasons, and we have been getting everything put in place to empty everything out that we lost) as our places of employment and coworkers have suffered destruction and loss from the flooding, as well. Future work hours and availability are undetermined at this time.

We are asking for ANY assistance to help pay to pay our monthly bills that will continue to accumulate over the coming months of uncertainty, and our children’s daily needs. (around $2,200 per month)

Outside of monthly bills, we will need help with necessities such as food, water, gas, and medication needs and costs ( Makayla has a severe neurological sleeping disorder and without her health insurance card, which we unfortunately lost in the flooding, and until replaced…her out of pocket costs for medication needs are over 1,500 a month. Some of these medications especially those to help with her sleeping disorder she can not function without. She has to have her medications ) - all of which are very limited.

Any additional funds would aid in savings , while trying finding a new place to live. Saving for first , last and deposit and 2-3 months after ( rent around here for the space we need is about 1,900- 2,400/mo) as we will also at the same time need to rebuild everything that was lost - clothing, shoes, furniture, homeschooling supplies, toys, for a family of 5. Unfortunately, it’s a lot of money to replace all of these things again.

Right now, anything other than survival seems beyond comprehension. We have been running for days on auto-pilot and shock from all the loss we have , and experienced all around us. It’s devastating , seeing the place I’ve spent my whole life growing up in, absolute agony and destroyed. I , as a Veteran can who was sent overseas to a combat area, can say that it really does look and feel like a war zone. Makayla and I , have built , lost everything and had to restart and rebuild again from absolutely nothing, in less than 3 years time. We are the kind of people that do not ask for help, absolutely bare minimum asks, when we do it’s followed with about 100 apologies, we like to help others , we will give anything and everything we have to offer to everyone around us, before we accept help coming our way. So for us to need this amount of help from others is extremely difficult for us to ask for, but we desperately need all of the assistance we can possibly get right now….We are lost. We don’t know where to start this time in order to rebuild, and have absolutely nothing to our names. Outside of everything Makayla and I had packed in the car and ready for ,the ‘ if it ended up being bad’ moment. Thank god we did this.

We are safe and temporarily staying with family, and are so blessed to be able to even say that.

We thank you, more than words will ever express , and we need help financially right now more than anything else at this moment , so we can start the long journey of recovery from this. Anything helps, and we are so grateful to everyone offering anything!

God Bless ❤️

-Maddux and Makayla Jamerson