Volunteers bring solar power to Hurricane Helene disaster area

Article content

BAKERSVILLE, NC (AP) – Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Helene downed power lines and washed out roads across North Carolina’s mountains, the steady hum of a gas-powered generator is becoming too much for Bobby Renfro.

It’s hard to hear the nurses, neighbors and volunteers pouring into the community service center he set up in his neighbors’ former church on Tipton Hill, at a crossroads in the Pisgah National Forest north of Asheville. Worse is the cost: he spent $1,200 to buy it and thousands more on fuel that the volunteers drove in from Tennessee.

Article content

Shutting down their only source of energy is not an option. This generator uses a refrigerator that holds insulin for diabetic neighbors and powers the oxygen machines and nebulizers that some of them need to breathe.

A retired railway worker worries that outsiders don’t understand how desperate they are, exhausted from the hilltops and “bombing” up and down.

“We don’t have the resources for anything,” Renfro said. “It will be a long test.”

More than 43,000 of the 1.5 million customers who lost power in western North Carolina were still without power Friday, according to Poweroutage.us. Without it, they won’t be able to keep medicine cold or power medical equipment or pump well water. They cannot recharge their phones or apply for government disaster assistance.

Crews from across the country and even Canada are helping Duke Energy and local electric cooperatives with repairs, but it’s slow going in the dense mountain forests, where some roads and bridges are being washed away.

“Employees are not doing what they usually do, which is to try to fix it. They’re rebuilding from the ground up,” said Kristie Aldridge, vice president of communications for North Carolina Electric Cooperatives.

Article content

Article content

Residents who can get their hands on gas and diesel generators rely on them, but that is not easy. Fuel is expensive and can be a long drive. Generator fumes are polluting and can kill. Small home generators are designed to run for hours or days, not weeks and months.

Now, more help is coming. Renfro found a new power source this week, which will be clean, quiet and run smoothly. Volunteers with the nonprofit Footprint Project and a local solar installation company delivered a solar generator with six 245-watt solar panels, a 24-volt battery and an AC power inverter. The panels now sit on a grassy hill outside the community building.

Renfro hopes that his community can find comfort and security, “seeing and knowing that you have less electricity.”

The Footprint Project is scaling up its response to this crisis with sustainable mobile infrastructure. It has installed dozens of large solar microgrids, solar generators and wind turbines in 33 locations so far, as well as dozens of small portable batteries.

Article content

With donations from solar and installation companies and equipment purchased with donated funds, the non-profit organization is acquiring hundreds of additional small batteries and dozens of other large-scale systems and even solar power plants called “Dragon Wings.”

Will Heegaard and Jamie Swezey are the husband and wife team behind Project Footprint. Heegaard founded it in 2018 in New Orleans with the goal of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of emergency responses. The destruction of Helene is so catastrophic, however, that Swezey said the project is more about adding generators than replacing them.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Swezey said as he stared at a whiteboard with written lists of requests, volunteers and equipment. “It’s all on the floor with anything you can use to power anything you need to power.”

Down near the center of Mars Hill, the owner of the warehouse allowed Swezey and Heegaard to stop working and sleep inside. They wake up every morning checking emails and texts from all over the region. Applications for the machines range from individuals who need to power a home oxygen machine to makeshift clinics and community facilities that distribute services.

Article content

Local volunteers help. Hayden Wilson and Henry Kovacs, glassblowers from Asheville, arrived in a truck and trailer to deliver this week. Two installers from Asheville-based solar company Sundance Power Systems followed in the van.

It took them more than an hour on winding roads to reach Bakersville, where community center Julie Wiggins ran her way to support 30 nearby families. It took many days for his neighbors to reach him, cutting through the fallen trees. Some were so desperate, they stuck their insulin in the stream to keep it cold.

Panels and a battery from the Footprint Project now power his mini-fridge, water pump and the Starlink communication system he set up. “This is a game changer,” Wiggins said.

The volunteers then drove to Renfro in Tipton Hill before their final stop at a church in Bakersville that was running on two generators. Some places are very difficult to reach. Heegaard and Swezey even tried to figure out how many portable batteries a mule could carry up the mountain and arranged for some to be dropped by helicopters.

Article content

They know the numbers are high after Heegaard volunteered in Puerto Rico, where the death toll from Hurricane Maria has climbed to 3,000 as some mountain communities have been without power for 11 months. Duke Energy workers are also restoring infrastructure in Puerto Rico and using techniques they learned there, such as using helicopters to drop new power poles, said utility spokesman Bill Norton.

Customers who are difficult to help can be people whose homes and businesses are too damaged to be connected, which is why the Footprint Project will stay in this area as long as needed, said Swezey.

“We know that there are people who will need help long after the electricity is back,” he said.

_____

The Associated Press’ coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits is supported by a partnership between AP and The Conversation US, with a grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

Article content