Volunteers bring solar power to Hurricane Helene’s disaster zone

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BAKERSVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Helen downed power lines and washed away roads across North Carolina’s mountains, the constant noise of her gas-powered generator became too much for Bobby Renfro.

It’s hard to hear the nurses, neighbors and volunteers streaming through the community resource center he set up in a former church for his neighbors on Tipton Hill, a crossroads in the Pisgah National Forest north of Asheville. Much worse is the cost: $1,200 was spent on its purchase and thousands more on fuel, driven by volunteers from Tennessee.

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Turning off their only power source is not an option. This generator powers a refrigerator containing insulin for diabetic neighbors and powers the oxygen machines and nebulizers some need to breathe.

The retired railway worker worries that strangers don’t understand how desperate they are, stranded without power on hilltops and “screaming”.

“We don’t have resources for nothing,” Renfro said. “It’s going to be a long ordeal.”

More than 43,000 of the 1.5 million customers without power in western North Carolina still lacked power Friday, according to Poweroutage.us. Without it, they cannot refrigerate medications, operate medical equipment or pump well water. They cannot recharge their phones or apply for federal disaster aid.

Crews from across the country and even Canada are helping Duke Energy and local electric cooperatives make repairs, but things are moving slowly in the dense mountain forests, where some roads and bridges have been completely washed out.

“The crews are not doing what they normally do, which is a repair effort. They’re rebuilding from the ground up,” said Christy Aldridge, vice president of communications for North Carolina Electric Cooperatives.

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Residents who have access to gas and diesel generators depend on those generators, but this is not easy. Fuel is expensive and can take a long drive. Generator fumes are polluting and can be deadly. Small home generators are designed to run for hours or days, not weeks and months.

Now, more help is arriving. Renfrew got a new power supply this week, one that’s cleaner, quieter and more free-running. Volunteers with the nonprofit Footprint Project and a local solar installation company delivered a solar generator equipped with six 245-watt solar panels, a 24-volt battery and an AC power inverter. The panels now rest on a grassy hill outside the community building.

Renfrew hopes his community can find some relief and safety, “by seeing and knowing that they have a little bit of electricity.”

The Footprint Project is expanding its response to this disaster through sustainable mobile infrastructure. It has deployed dozens of large solar microgrids, solar generators and machines that can pull water from the air to 33 sites so far, along with dozens of smaller portable batteries.

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Through donations from solar equipment and installation companies as well as equipment purchased with donated funds, the nonprofit is providing hundreds of additional small batteries, dozens of other larger systems and even industrial-scale solar generators known as “dragon wings.”

Will Hegard and Jimmy Swayze are the husband and wife team behind the Footprint Project. It was founded by Hegard in 2018 in New Orleans with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from emergency response. However, the destruction of Helen was so catastrophic that Swayze said this work was more about supplementing the generators than replacing them.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Swayze said, staring at a whiteboard containing written lists of requests, volunteers and equipment. “It’s all hands on deck with everything you can use to power whatever you need.”

Near the highway in Mars Hill, the warehouse owner allowed Swayze and Heggard to begin operations and sleep inside. They wake up every morning to sort through emails and texts from all over the area. Equipment requests range from individuals needing to operate a home oxygen machine to pop-up clinics and community centers distributing supplies.

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Local volunteers help. Hayden Wilson and Henry Kovacs, glassmakers from Asheville, arrived in a pickup truck and trailer to make deliveries this week. Two installers from Asheville-based solar company Sundance Power Systems followed him in a pickup truck.

It took more than an hour on winding roads to get to Bakersville, where a community center run by Julie Wiggins is in her driveway and supports about 30 nearby families. It took many of her neighbors days to reach her, cutting their way out through fallen trees. Some were so desperate, they put insulin in the chart to keep him cool.

The panels and battery from the Footprint Project now power her mini-fridge, water pump, and Starlink communications system she built. “This is a game-changer,” Wiggins said.

Volunteers then headed to the Renfrew Center on Tipton Hill before their final stop at the Bakersville church that used to hold two generators. Other places that are difficult to reach. Hegard and Swayze even tried to figure out how many portable batteries a mule could carry up the mountain, and arranged for some to be dropped off by helicopter.

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They know the risks are high after Hegard volunteered in Puerto Rico, where the death toll from Hurricane Maria rose to 3,000 and some mountain communities were without power for 11 months. Duke Energy crews have also restored infrastructure in Puerto Rico and are using tactics learned there, such as using helicopters to drop new electrical poles, said Bill Norton, a utility spokesman.

The hardest clients to help are people whose homes and businesses are too damaged to be contacted, Sweezy said, and they are the reason Project Footprint has remained in the area as long as they are needed.

“We know there are people who will need help long after power is restored,” she added.

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