Alabama Baptist DR teams helping thousands in South Carolina, Georgia

Cookie Baker’s map is full of digital pins — chainsaw jobs that have been done, jobs that are ready to be done and job requests that still need to be assessed.

In total, as of Monday (Oct. 7), 643 people in the Clearwater, South Carolina area had requested help with tree removal in the wake of Hurricane Helene — and that’s not the end of the needs, said Baker, who is currently serving on site there as the white hat leader for Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief.

“It is busy, wide open — people are still coming in asking for help and calling in with job requests,” she said.

Five ABDR chainsaw teams are currently based in Clearwater helping in the surrounding Aiken County area, along with one mobile feeding unit from Alabama that’s preparing meals. A South Carolina Baptist chainsaw team also joined them yesterday.

‘Could take weeks to finish’

Residents in the area “have got a mess up here,” Baker said, noting that many are still waiting to get electricity back on. Typically chainsaw teams can do several jobs in a day, but many of these job requests are daylong projects, she said — they might find 10 to 20 trees down at one house.

“This could take weeks to finish,” Baker said.

An ABDR feeding team is also still preparing and serving thousands of meals in Alma, Georgia.

Between the chainsaw teams, two feeding teams and laundry and shower teams, ABDR has about 150 volunteers currently deployed.

Stretched thin in five states

Across the Southeast, disaster relief resources are stretched thin as volunteers work in the states affected by Hurricane Helene — Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. They will be stretched even thinner after Hurricane Milton makes landfall in Florida early Thursday (Oct. 10).

Mark Wakefield, state disaster relief strategist, said more volunteers will be needed in the coming weeks. He encouraged anyone interested in volunteering to attend one of two volunteer training sessions — Oct. 25-26 in Rainsville for chainsaw volunteers, and Oct. 26 in Prattville for feeding team volunteers.