(The Center Square) – In the weeks after Hurricane Helene, the Davis Country Store and Cafe in Old Fort, North Carolina, served an estimated 23,000 meals to the community, acting as a hub for recovery efforts in the small town of 600 that was devastated.
Now, just over a month after the storm caused extensive damage to homes, roads, and other infrastructure in the town, recovery efforts have shifted from immediate needs like food and water to temporary housing and cold weather gear as winter in the mountains approaches.
After the storm, Amy Davis and her family, who owns the country store, began cooking food on the porch, which eventually grew into a broader effort to feed the community.
“We just set up out here on the porch and we started cooking, and then people started coming from their homes asking if we could cook their food that was going bad, and then said please cook for the rest of the community what’s left,” she told The Center Square. “And that turned into three weeks.”
Davis received so many donations that her family founded a nonprofit, the Davis Relief Fund, to expand their relief efforts.
“We did breakfast, lunch and dinner with donated food and us buying food,” she said. “It took us two and a half weeks to get power and water, so everything was done out here … we had a series of propane tops and propane grills and we became also just a distribution center.”
The storm swelled Mill Creek, which runs through the town, causing 4 feet of water in the nearby Hillman Beer, a brewery that sits along the river’s bank. Now reopened, the brewery is not yet serving food due to damages to its kitchen.
“I’ve had to shut my store down since everything happened,” Davis said. “We just only recently in the last week reopened the cafe, and it’s been a really hard hit to our business. But we’re determined to recover and keep going.”
Despite having to close her business in the aftermath of the storm, Davis was still able to pay her employees.
“Thankfully, my husband has a job outside of this and works online and because of that we can cover things here for a while but the loss was great and still paid my employees, making sure that they were OK,” she said. “Utilities don’t stop even when they’re not running, you’ve got to pay for the month previous. So, you still get your bills and everything. So we’ve just been kind of playing it day by day and making things work.”
Now, over a month after the storm, Davis is still making 50 to 100 meals a day as needs for the community have shifted to rebuilding.
“Now we’re rebuilding. Once everybody got power and water back, the food need really dropped down because people were able to cook for themselves,” she told The Center Square. “Power and water meant that the grocery store could reopen and so you know everybody kind of went from needing food, needing meals, to all of a sudden needing to prepare for winter.”
The Davis Relief Fund is seeking to answer a need for temporary housing in the community by funding the building of “relief cabins,” similar to tiny homes, but manufactured in a shorter amount of time.
“I’ve got homeless people in the community that were made homeless because of Helene that are not going to go into a shelter because maybe they’ve got a farm or they need to stay on the property, take care of their animals,” Davis said. “FEMA was putting people in hotel rooms in Statesville and Charlotte, and that’s just too far for people who work here or live here on farms and all that kind of stuff. So, we had to keep them OK, had to keep their families OK. We’ve also got people living out of cars because their apartment building is gone, things like that.”
McDowell County, where Old Fort is located, closed its three shelters after a “successful mission,” according to a news release from Oct. 27.
“Our work doesn’t stop here. We will continue to support everyone who has lost their home or needs assistance as they work toward recovery,” McDowell County Emergency Services Director William Kehler said. “McDowell County stands united in our commitment to ensuring all families find solutions, whether temporary or permanent, as they rebuild their lives and homes.”
Over the weekend, Davis held an event at the country store handing out cold-weather gear like gloves, hats, heaters and propane tanks.
“We got cold weather gear and tools to over 250 families, households, individuals, and groups,” the business said in an update on its Facebook page.
