Two and a half weeks shy of one year since devastating flood waters from Hurricane Helene struck the area, AIDNET of Greene County has announced seven more cases were closed Tuesday.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS WITH WENDY PEAY
AIDNET Treasurer reported Tuesday “we are very excited. We closed seven cases today. We had 14 open still, so we’ve closed seven. And what makes that exciting is that’s families back in homes. So that is so exciting, those folks are already back in their homes. We have a few other things that will help with, but they’re actually living there. So we got those closed. We now have seven open out of all the ones that we’ve worked through. So we’ve had a total of 65 cases that we’ve worked through, we close seven today. Now we have seven still open that we’re still working on. We may have some other cases come in. In fact, we’ve got a couple of applications out now, but the thing that just makes it so exciting is every time that we close a case, we know it’s families back in homes and that’s progress.”
“When this began 11 months ago we knew from the county assessor’s office that we had 114 homes that were affected and 55 of them completely gone.”
“I worked through the tornadoes with AIDNET, and we worked through 115 cases, but it took us two years to do it. And here we are now, and we’re very close to finishing up 65 cases, and it’s not even a year yet.”
MOVING FORWARD WITH MY NEIGHBORS HOUSE
“AIDNET for a long time has been about the building and we are all volunteers. So that makes it a little challenging because we have some burnout going on as you go through it. So we’re doing the building and AIDNET has always very much focused on the building. We build the homes, we make sure that those homes work. So that includes the heat pump and the septic, the lighting and all of that kind of stuff. But what we don’t do, we don’t replace possessions. And we don’t replace vehicles, and we don’t clear out trees that have been blown over, and we just don’t do all of the other things that you think about lives that have really been destroyed. And so getting them back in their homes is something, but they also have to have other things when that happens. And so that’s one of the great things about My Neighbor’s House. That organization was started by volunteers here with AIDNET as a kind of a sister organization to AIDNET and their whole focus will be on unmet needs. So the AIDNET focus is on building. My Neighbor’s House will focus on unmet needs, and they will run with all of those other things that people need to make sure that they’re bac whole again. In addition to that, they won’t just stop at disaster work. They’ll be working through all kinds of things in our community. A lot of unmet needs, a lot of other things going on, and they’re going to be here for the long haul. And we’re excited about that.”
The exciting news came during the monthly meeting of the group at the Partnership building.
MT. BETHEL CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Church Elders Bill Massey and Doug Estes from Mt. Bethel Christian Church on Clear Springs Road in Limestone presented a $2,000 donation to the local AIDNET group. $1,300 was from their recent car show, while the other $700 came directly from the church.
NIGHT OF REMEMBERANCE
Following up on Mayor Morrisons comments Monday night at the Republican Party meeting, Louise Crum reminded the AIDNET Board of the Hurricane Helene Night of Remembrance, which will be Monday September 29th in front of the Greene County Courthouse. There will be emergency equipment from first responders and displays as well as singing, a tribute to Boone McCray with a moment of silence and remarks. At 6:33 that evening the sounds of sirens and a bagpipe will mark that moment, which two days earlier a year ago was the time when Kinser Bridge collapsed. The ceremony, which should last about an hour , will conclude with the ringing of downtown church bells.
MENTAL HEALTH
Frontier Health reports 131 people have reached out to their professionals for mental health assistance directly related to the disaster in the past year.
NEXT AIDNET MEETING
The next scheduled meeting of the AIDNET group is Tuesday, October 14 at 2:00 pm.
