A Storm Like No Other, Right In Our Own Backyard
By Ben Cox with Luther Harrison. Based on an interview with Luther on 10/22/24, 22 days after Hurricane Helene
From the 2024 Winter: Stories from the Storm
PUBLISHER’S NOTE:
On September 26, 2024, we were diligently working on our lineup of stories for our 17 year anniversary Thanksgiving edition of The Journey Magazine. On September 27, that plan was swept away!
I still can’t even fully explain what that means, but I can say this: The challenges we are facing as a business in the region and also as longtime residents of Boone have been like nothing we have ever seen locally since moving here in 1977.
So, we decided to pivot from telling the testimonies that we were going to do to tell “Stories From the Storm.” Therefore, it’s only fitting that I should be sitting at my computer on 12/7/2024 putting the finishing touches on our last story for this edition with Luther Harrison.
Luther is the Vice President of North American Ministries for Samaritan’s Purse right here in the heart of the High Country. The ministry he heads specializes in disaster relief and oh what a disaster we have had!!
I asked Luther many questions about his Christian testimony, how he came to work with Samaritan’s Purse and his perspective on what hit us.
What I discovered in the process, is that Luther likes being a behind the scenes, get stuff done kind of guy. He is actually very uncomfortable in the spotlight. That’s why I’m especially grateful for his willingness to share his story with us and I think you will be too.
HOW LUTHER HARRISON BECAME A FOLLOWER OF JESUS
“I was blessed to grow up in a Christian home, and my mother and father were charter members of Greenway Baptist Church.
“My mom and dad were there, and mom was always really that strong, driven person, so when the doors were open, we were there. I remember growing up there under the ministry of Pastors C.O. Vance, Jay Jones, Jerry Allen, Harold Bennett and David Luster. When I was 11 years of age, I went forward to ask Jesus Christ to be my Lord and Savior.
“I worked different kinds of jobs and became a volunteer fireman when I turned 18.
“The Boone fire department was right beside the police station and one day the chief suggested that I should really look into Law Enforcement and because I knew most of the guys that worked there, I got signed up in 1980 and then worked there till 1994. For five years I was in uniform, and then the last nine I was in investigations .
“Anyone who serves in a position like I did with the Boone police department gets to know lots of people in the community and many on a first name basis. I loved what I did and just figured it would be my career path for life. But then God started stirring things up in my heart and I slowly began to realize that He had a different plan for my life.
“I now realize that when the Lord begins to stir that sort of thing up in your heart, the feeling will keep getting stronger and stronger! I still remember the night when I sat down at the kitchen cabinet tabletop to write my resignation letter.
“I had not looked for a job. I felt like God was telling me he wanted me to just step out in faith and that he had something new for me. So my neighbors on the hill above me started shooting fireworks, not the cheap bottle rockets, but pretty ones. And I’m like, “Alright, Lord, I get it. Independence, here we go!”
“And people said, you know, the grass may not be greener on the other side, but I thought I’ve gotta be obedient and do this.
“As a police officer I tried to be a strong witness to people, even the ones who were challenging. I wanted them to know that even though they were guilty of breaking the law, that God offers forgiveness. So I think people did realize I had a witness of faith in Christ.
“I remember we were helping usher and work with the crowds at a Bailey Smith crusade at Farthing Auditorium in 1989. In one of the meetings, Bailey made a comment that just knocked me off my feet. It caused me to stop and seriously consider my salvation. He said, “if you’re 99.9% sure that you’re saved, you’re 100% lost.
“Then I started thinking, Did I really know what I was doing at 11? Was I just going through the motions of church? And that was the day I got things right with God!
“I loved what I did and just figured it would be my career path for life. But then God started stirring things up in my heart and I slowly began to realize that He had a different plan for my life. I now realize that when the Lord begins to stir that sort of thing up in your heart, the feeling will keep getting stronger and stronger! I still remember the night when I sat down at the kitchen cabinet tabletop to write my resignation letter.”
“At that time I realized that getting right with God is a life insurance policy that we don’t pay premiums on. God has already paid the price through Jesus’ death on the Cross and His resurrection sealed the deal! So, it’s a FREE policy!!!
“With the realization of that truth planted deeply in my heart, I said, “You can have it all Lord!”.
HOW LUTHER BECAME A SAMARITAN’S PURSE EMPLOYEE
“At the time, I did not realize that this encounter with the Holy Spirit would lay the foundation of the “leap of faith” I mentioned earlier. Did I know at the time that Samaritan’s Purse would be the place I landed when I took that leap of faith? No, I did not! But here’s a little more detail about how that happened.
When I resigned from the Police Department, one of the local attorneys who I was conversing with said, ‘Now what are you going to do?” I said, “I don’t know.” And he said, “You should go talk to the people at Samaritan’s Purse.”
“So I went out there, filled out an application and started as a temporary associate that eventually grew into a full time position. Now, 28 years later, Franklin Graham has entrusted me with the opportunity to work for both Samaritan’s Purse and also the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
“And, one of the biggest blessings about starting with Samaritan’s Purse at the Boone campus is that it sits on my grandparents’ old farm land. When I was a kid, that was a gravel road and I had lots of cousins who played ball on that land and fished in the creek.
“You look at it now, and what God has used that land for is amazing, I would have never imagined that when I was a youngster playing out there in the fields.
MOVING THE NORTH AMERICAN DISASTER RELIEF MINISTRIES TO WILKES COUNTY
“For years I worked in the Boone office, but we outgrew our space, so we moved down to North Wilkesboro back in 2009. Coca Cola Bottling had an old plant there and donated it to the ministry. So, our volunteers and staff renovated it for our North American Disaster Relief Ministries, and it was one of the best things that could have happened for us then because when a storm hits, it takes us 20 minutes to hit Interstate 77 and we can deploy to wherever we’re needed.
*And now we’ve even added other offices in Capell, Texas and another in Fullerton, California. So our disaster equipment, over 450 pieces, are now staged at different locations across the US, so we can respond to disasters much more quickly.
“In addition to this, Lowe’s had a 400,000 square foot office space that they tore down, so we have built our Wilkes warehouse there. This is where our field hospitals, our disaster relief plastic and other supplies are stored, and gives us a great place to stage our equipment.
“We continue to see how God helps us to expand our borders. I always tell people, it’s like the fishes and loaves, where God has taken a little and He’s expanded it and multiplied it immeasurably.
GOING OUT IN JESUS’ NAME EVERYWHERE WE GO!
“A big reason I think we’re experiencing these many blessings is because of Franklin Graham’s heart for the lost and people who are hurting, whether it’s a disaster, or war, or famine, disease, whatever the situation is. We are there as sort of a mobile church.
“Samaritan’s Purse is not a church, but we are an evangelical Christian relief organization. So when we respond to disasters and storms in life, the physical work that we do earns us the privilege to share why we do what we do.
“Therefore, when people allow us to, we share with them about the great gift of salvation through Jesus Christ and the debt that He paid on the cross for each one of us. We want everyone that we encounter to understand what makes us want to go out and find those people in the ditches of life after a storm has just flooded their home, or a hurricane just blew their house apart, or a tornado broke a tree across the roof. We go out in Jesus’ name everywhere we go!
“That’s why every orange t-shirt you see our volunteers wearing says, “Helping in Jesus’ name.” Our trucks have that same decal on them too. We don’t want anyone to be confused about who we work for and who we represent.”
DISASTER RELIEF IN OUR OWN BACKYARD
I know that you have been involved with disaster relief in catastrophic situations like we have just experienced here in the Northwest NC & Eastern Tennessee mountains. 22 days ago on September 27, 2024 our world was rocked.
Did you have any idea, as your team was tracking the storm forecasts, how horrific this storm would be?
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“Well, it spun up quickly down in the Gulf, and we watched the water temperatures, and it had the perfect ingredients to make it a strong storm. At that time, we were looking more toward Florida and Georgia as having the predominant damage.
“Then it showed the path of the storm coming north and instead of turning to the right and moving out to the Atlantic, the forecast had it coming up, then turning left instead into the Tennessee Valley. We had no idea the amount of rain that it was going to produce.
“Well, what happened to this storm? Remember, it had already been raining since Wednesday before the heavy rains and wind came in on Thursday night and into Friday September 27. The ground was already soft, and when it landed over top of these mountains, the creeks, the roads, everything, it couldn’t handle the amount of rain we received--it was unbelievable. Though I have seen horrific damage with other storms in my career here, I would never have anticipated this much damage, but then we started getting the reports! So, we knew we’ve got to really respond quickly to our neighbors.
“And, one of the biggest blessings about starting with Samaritan’s Purse at the Boone campus is that it sits on my grandparents’ old farm land. When I was a kid, that was a gravel road and I had lots of cousins who played ball on that land and fished in the creek. You look at it now, and what God has used that land for is amazing, I would have never imagined that when I was a youngster playing out there in the fields.”
“Many people in our area didn’t really know what Samaritan’s Purse does other than the Operation Christmas Child, the shoe box program. That is a great program, and Operation Christmas Child has given us a network of over 90,000 churches in the US. So, when these storms hit, that’s our first alert system.
“We call those churches, and they can give us a play by play of what they’re seeing as it’s happening in their local area. Many times, assessments from government agencies and emergency management take a little while. That’s why we depend on the church. We always want to support the church and be in alignment with the church.
“So, we set up here in Boone at Alliance Bible Fellowship. We set up down in Asheville at the Billy Graham Training Center, called The Cove. They are usually booked solid at this time of year for Bible training seminars and other Christ-centered events, but they canceled all those events because of the storm and invited us to use their facility as a base of operations for our volunteer clean-up workers to stay.
“From there we were able to send teams to the surrounding areas in Buncombe county. We also were able to assist Mitchell and Yancey counties as we set up in Burnsville at Higgins Methodist Church. So, God just opened those 3 doors.
“When you have over 7000 families calling and asking for help, it’s a little overwhelming. And as far as we know today this storm has already taken over 260 lives, and there’s about 90 people that are still unaccounted for. The grief that causes for friends, family members and the whole community is heavy and that’s why our chaplains from the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team come and walk in and walk beside these families and try to under gird them.
“The chaplains let them know that we live in a broken world where we see bad things happen to good people and bad people. But then, when you see first-hand these storms take people’s lives, it’s hard. For example, over south of Asheville one family witnessed 11 members of their family swept away in the mudslides and floodwater.
“Another Christian man and his wife and their small child, had gotten up on the roof, hoping someone would come by and rescue them, and the house collapsed underneath them, and they perished.
“In the first 3 weeks alone following the storm, over 20,000 volunteers came to put on our orange t-shirt and serve with Samaritan’s Purse to muck out a house, a basement, cut a tree, or tarp a roof. It’s a ministry of presence and a way that God gives us the name and address of a person who called and said, ‘I need help.’’
THE CHAPLAIN MINISTRY WAS BIRTHED IN NYC IN SEPT. OF 2001
At this pivotal moment in our interview, I was glad to hear Luther talk about how the Chaplaincy ministry began in 2001, because I was privileged to be a part of that ministry back in the day!
It was after the terrorist bombings in NYC where over 5000 people lost their lives when domestic airlines were hijacked by men who were trained by Osama Bin Laden to wage war on America.
At the time, I was working for the company that I now own, until I could get back into full time Christian ministry. Alan Blume, the pastor of Mount Vernon Baptist Church at the time, called me and suggested I should consider going up to NYC to be a part of a grief counseling team with Samaritan’s Purse. So I thought I would deploy there for a week and come back to Boone.
However, I was offered a temporary position by Kenny Isaacs to be the Prayer Coordinator at the Billy Graham Prayer Center. So I served there from September 2001 through December and it had a major impact on my life and ministry when I returned home to Boone again.
Here’s what Luther said about the significance of that time in regards to the Chaplain Ministry of the BGEA:
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“When Franklin Graham and other members of the Samaritan’s Purse team came to assess how they could help, Franklin was deeply moved. He went up there and described how everybody was just standing there with this look of deep grief on their faces. And they’re holding up a picture of someone, just trying to find out that this person survived. And that’s where the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team chaplaincy program started.
“Now we have recruited over 2,000 chaplains that are willing to go out with us and serve when disasters strike. Whether a natural disaster, or man-made civil unrest like in Paris, France, Munich, Germany, Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore, Maryland, these Chaplains are willing to go and minister to the hurting.. And of course they are now a vital part of how Samaritan’s Purse responds to disasters.
“So together with Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team, we meet the physical, spiritual and emotional needs to try to help these families understand that God is walking with them every step of the way! Plus, every family we help gets a copy of “The Billy Graham Training Center Bible.”
“This Bible was specially designed by Billy Graham to answer 50 of the toughest questions he had been asked in his many years of preaching Jesus to the nations. You’ll find questions in there like, “If your God loves me why did I lose my loved one?” or “Why was my house destroyed?” And the answers steer them to the chapters and verses in the Bible where God Himself answers those questions for us.”
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After explaining the partnership of SP and the BGEA to help with disasters all over the world, we now circled back to talk more specifically about what’s happening here closer to Watauga county.
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“As I mentioned before, due to the magnitude of this storm, we launched into a bigger program than we usually do in disaster relief. For example, because a lot of people could not get power to their oxygen machines that help keep them alive, we also deployed our medical teams to respond. So, we set up at Watauga Medical Center and in Avery County at Cannon Memorial Hospital to provide oxygen there or to refill oxygen tanks.
“We set up here in Boone at Alliance Bible Fellowship where Pastors Scott Andrews and Michael Talley have graciously invited us to set up our base to house our volunteers, staff, host orientation in the main sanctuary and fill the parking lot with trucks, tools, etc..
“We’ve had maximum capacity there every Saturday at Alliance Church as people sacrifice their weekend to come and help. Plus, we have daily training sessions too which we make sure to saturate with prayer.
“As a former volunteer fireman and police officer I have known first-hand how important first responders are but through what we’ve seen happening at ABF and other mountain churches we’re seeing the church as first responders too. Here in Boone our Walmart store got flooded out but now many church buildings are becoming like Walmart where donated goods and food and clothes and toiletries are being distributed by church members.”
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As I have attested in other articles in this magazine, the Walmart vibe was happening in churches throughout the region.
But to be able to tell stories from the storm in a more accurate way I have logged lots of times not only interviewing people but also doing volunteer work myself. Since ABF is my church home, I was able to volunteer there and also see firsthand Samaritan’s Purse’s work there.
And it was intriguing for me to see firsthand that the only way you could differentiate who was working for Samaritan’s Purse from who was working with Alliance Bible Fellowship was because Samaritan’s Purse had the orange shirts and Alliance had the yellow shirts.
But now I’d like to refocus our attention again to the broader scope of what you have had to do in this storm as opposed to other places where you’ve been in North America.
“Samaritan’s Purse is not a church, but we are an evangelical Christian relief organization. So when we respond to disasters and storms in life, the physical work that we do earns us the privilege to share why we do what we do.”
“In regard to Hurricane Helene, I have never seen the High Country pounded this hard.
“This storm had trillions of gallons of rain that fell out of the sky washing so many roads and driveways away. And the landslides were horrific.
“This hurricane has turned out to be the second deadliest hurricane ever in the United States that hit Florida, hit Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and then Tennessee. But this is our hometown, and a lot of these families and friends of ours that got hit from this storm, so of course we wanted to immediately help them.
“Due to the damage that this storm caused, this is the first time that I ever recall where we were allowed to provide potable water in two counties here in western North Carolina. Usually, the health department must be involved with that, but due to the severity and extent of the need, they were open to us assisting in this way.
“So, our water sanitation teams set up water stations where the water is pumped and filtered on location. They do this all over the world but were able to provide this service to our neighbors
“And as I mentioned earlier, there were so many roads and neighborhoods that were cut off and completely inaccessible.
Edward Graham is now Samaritan’s Purse’s Chief Operating Officer. Because of Edward’s military background he was able to get helicopter support like we have never utilized before, and we needed every bit of it.
“We started having more and more people offer their personal helicopters to help us with relief. There are a lot of people who have their own private helicopters for business. The NASCAR teams, I know, Coach Joe Gibbs and Rick Hendricks, they sent their helicopters.
“The military brought three Chinooks, and you’ve seen those flying around town, the two bladed helicopters, and then three Black Hawks were here that were leased to provide transportation. So, we have had 357 helicopter missions so far!! This was the largest non-Military Airlift in the United States.
“One retired four-star general came here out of the goodness of his heart, because he saw what we were doing. You can see him and find out more of his story on our website.
“To see God move like this reminds us that He always has a bigger plan. Sometimes we can make plans, but he determines our steps, and those helicopters were an amazing part of His plan to help us in the High County. It enables us to go to these cut off communities.
“Through these helicopter missions we’ve been able to provide over 3000 generators and other needed supplies too. They’ve been providing propane and the heaters that go with them. Plus, charcoal grills, blankets, food products, water, I mean, everything you could imagine. Cold weather clothing and sleeping bags are important too because a lot of the people who lost houses just got out with the clothing on their backs.
“And just to think, all of those helicopters launched right out of Boone International Airport, as we call it now. Because of the storm, it got a bigger claim to fame!”
As I try to find a place to conclude this article, it’s only fitting to focus on Samaritan Purse’s long term recovery plans to continue its work with the churches in this region.
The church is united with Samaritan’s Purse in our desire to keep revealing Jesus’ compassion for the suffering we’re going through.
I say that with the wider understanding I have gained from interacting with other organizations that are working on long term recovery plans. The impact of this storm is going to be felt for many years, and I am so grateful for all that you and your teams are doing to help us.
“Like the parable of the Good Samaritan found in Luke 10: 25-37, our organization is always thinking about how to keep helping those in need. In this case we’re putting a plan together because we still have over 4000 families that are needing help. And we’re going to try to figure out who is at risk of falling through the cracks. These are the people who had no insurance; it’s the elderly; the handicapped, the single moms, and people we can come alongside and help!
“Though we are a licensed general contractor here in North Carolina, we’re not trying to take money from the table for the builders that are out here. But we will work for the people who can’t afford to pay them. And though we certainly realize that recovering from this is going to take a while, we look forward to seeing what the next chapter of Hurricane Helene’s recovery will be.
“I’m very honored that we get to go out and see people that are coming from all walks of life to volunteer their time and their talent and their sweat equity to be the hands and feet of Christ. Now, I just tell people I’m a Christian travel agent. My job is to get you where you need to be to do the work, He’s called you to do.”
“To see God move like this reminds us that He always has a bigger plan. Sometimes we can make plans, but he determines our steps, and those helicopters were an amazing part of His plan...”