Their motto is “Rescue, Relieve, Rebuild.” For the last two weeks, members of the Louisiana Cajun Navy have been focused on the first two efforts in three states after Hurricane Helene barreled through the Southeast, leaving a trail of destruction that stretches across six states.
The Louisiana Cajun Navy is currently stationed in Afton, TN, and already worked in Perry, FL, Black Mountain, NC, and parts of Georgia before settling in for the long haul in Tennessee.
“All of our focus right now is helping people get in for rescue and relief missions. We’re doing our best to give them up-to-date routes and make sure they have a clear path,” says Clyde Cain, who founded the Louisiana Cajun Navy in 2016.
Clyde says he stays behind to manage communications and keep things as organized as possible amid the chaos, but his teams are working long hours amid all the destruction. They’ve also teamed up with the United Cajun Navy. In the initial days after the storm, that group was doing many of the helicopter rescues — most of them in hard-hit Black Mountain, just outside of Asheville.
“I have no idea how many rescues we did; the communication is hard, so it’s really hard to know exactly what’s going on at all times,” shares Clyde. “[There were] flood waters causing mudslides, rain causing mudslides … it’s just unprecedented rainfall that was in front of the hurricane, and the way it curved, it caught a lot of people off-guard. There was so much rain dumped at one time, and they’d already had rain, so when the rain started dumping, it just broke out everywhere. The only warning some people had was they just heard rushing water — they only had minutes before it took everything away.”
Clyde says what’s left behind has made many roads impassable and some neighborhoods entirely inaccessible.
“It’s very hard to access places; we’re using every kind of resource we can,” he says. “One of the groups was up there with pack mules; there have been drones, helicopters … Whatever we can get, we’re using it.”
In addition to the rescues, Clyde and his team are working hard to get supplies to people who have been without food or water for days.
“I send out my core members to set up a distribution point, and then we work with local volunteers on the ground to get everything to the people in need,” explains Clyde. “Right now, we’re in Afton, TN, and we have another distribution we set up in Newport, TN.”
Clyde admits it’s been hard, though, with new challenges every day.
“People are cut off. It’s hard to get everything to the people who need it most. We’re just trying to get to solid places to distribute from. At the border at Afton, we’re actually down to just one bridge getting in, so it’s a struggle just getting in the trucks. Bridges that were ok one day are collapsing the next. We’re navigating in all our loads, trying to get in emergency supplies, but it’s not easy. Right now, we’re shipping in supplies, water, and food — the main necessities they need right now. Whatever we can get on these trucks, we just need to get it to people.”
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