Two years after Hurricane Helene, Samaritan’s Purse celebrates completion of 1,000 crossings restored. This includes many bridges, culverts, and driveways damaged in the storm.
When Jerry and Rhonda Faulkner hear a generator kick into action, they’re immediately transported back to the weeks after Helene when the roar of generators echoed across western North Carolina.
Hurricane Helene floodwaters ripped through their community.
The night Helene hit, all the residents on their road were in their homes and didn’t expect Helene to be much of anything. They didn’t put their cars on the other side of the creek or evacuate their houses to weather the storm in safer areas on higher ground.
“A bit of rain, a little bit of wind, and it’ll be over just like most of the storms are when they come up this way,” resident Jerry Faulkner remembers thinking. “But it was definitely a different story with this one.”
When Jerry went down the next morning to check on the bridge that spanned the creek below their home and provided them the only way to leave their property, it wasn’t just underwater. It was gone.
“That’s when everyone realized, ‘Oh, my,’ we’d been devastated,” Jerry said.
It took them six days of working with everything they had before they were able to leave their little community. They found pieces of their old bridge a quarter of a mile downriver. The bridge’s metal I beams were completely bent in half.
Residents made a display of the damage and the journey toward restoring their bridge.
By the time they had cleared enough debris and logs from the river and made enough space to ford it with a skid-steer, they realized the road on the other side was impassable. Even trying to go through the woods with a four-wheeler was impossible.
“We didn’t even know what was going on out in the community. We just knew that we were stranded, but we had no idea how bad it was,” Rhonda Faulkner said.
During those long days, they were gripped by a fear they had never known.
“I personally wondered, did anybody even know about us? I felt so alone and isolated and we wondered if anyone was ever coming,” Rhonda said. “I’d see a plane fly over and I’d jump up and down and wave my arms, hoping that they’d tell somebody that we needed help.”
A realization settled on them. Finding a way out would depend solely on them.
The Beginnings of Recovery
They had to have a bridge. It was the only point of access to the homes of twelve families. But none of them were engineers with the skills to rebuild a bridge. Using three PVC culverts and pieces from their old bridge, they put together a makeshift crossing. But whenever they received more than an inch of rain, the sides of the bridge would wash out. It was built on shifting sand and it wasn’t going to last.
The community was grateful when work began on their bridge after so many months of fraught solutions.
“We all got together, had a meeting, and we had maybe $8,000 in our road fund, and we said, ‘Well, there’s just no way that’s gonna build a bridge,’” Jerry said. “We knew that we were in trouble, and we were all looking into getting loans and everything else.”
Then a friend of theirs mentioned that Samaritan’s Purse had helped them build a new bridge and suggested giving the team a call. Jerry decided it couldn’t hurt. That phone call began a process that would become one of the 1,000 crossings (bridges, driveways, and culverts) restored by Samaritan’s Purse since the September 2024 storm.
“When I gave Samaritan’s Purse a call, we’d already had people giving us estimates for bridges and everything, and it was just so outrageous. And you said, ‘We’ll see if we can help you,’” Jerry recalled. They had been quoted an insurmountable $87,000 to rebuild their bridge.
Everyone expected Samaritan’s Purse to say they couldn’t help, but Jerry patiently waited, continuing to look into other possibilities until he got his answer from the bridges, driveways, and culverts team at Samaritan’s Purse. Then he heard back from a Samaritan’s Purse representative.
“And she said, ‘Well, you’ve been approved.’ I said, ‘I’ve been approved?!’” Jerry couldn’t believe it. A year and a half after Helene had hit, they were finally going to have a new bridge.
A Permanent Solution and an Eternal Hope
Within two weeks, a Samaritan’s Purse team was at the creek and, in under a week, Jerry and his neighbors had a brand-new bridge.
The bridge was built to last for many years to come.
“It was unbelievable,” Jerry said. “I figured I’m gonna leave it in the Lord’s hands and whoever He brings here to start doing the bridge, I said, ‘That’s who’s gonna build it, and we will be happy, because we’re blessed either way.’”
Jerry and Rhonda said they were encouraged in their faith that they received such generous help from a Christian organization committed to sharing the hope of Jesus with everyone they encounter. It reminded Rhonda of the story of the disabled man at the Pool of Bethesda in John 5.
“He couldn’t walk and no one would carry him into the pool and so everyone else would always beat him into the pool. And he felt like he was unseen. And then Jesus came by, and Jesus saw him and Jesus saw his need. And Jesus healed him that day,” Rhonda said. “And I kind of feel like the man at the pool. We felt unseen for a long time, but then Jesus showed up, and He reminded us that we are seen through Samaritan’s Purse. And I feel like Samaritan’s Purse is Jesus’ hands and feet on earth, and that really bolstered my faith.”
Every person who drives over the brand-new bridge is greeted by two signs that say “Given in Jesus’ Name.”
“God took it all away, but look at everything He gave back,” Jerry said. “He gave us back better than what we had before. We just had to wait and just stay faithful. There’s no way that we could have ever built a bridge for that price, or done it in any other way. This is all in God’s hands. He’s an awesome God, and He took care of us through Samaritan’s Purse,” Jerry said.
As the two-year anniversary of Helene rolled around, Jerry and Rhonda and their neighbors gathered for a breakfast block party on the bridge to celebrate all that God had done. Two years ago, looking into the rushing, raging water that used to be a quiet creek, they couldn’t have imagined sitting on the bridge today as a community, reflecting on the goodness of God.
“It was just awesome to sit there and just look at what God gave us,” Jerry said. “It’ll always be known as the Samaritan’s Purse Bridge.”
