One year later: Inland areas still working to recover from Hurricane Helene

TOOMBS COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - The ride through the woods of Toombs County looks a lot different now.

“You can see where the wind was blowing this way,” said Chris Ray.

Stumps where tall white oaks used to tower.

“I got to work Friday morning once I cut my way out of my driveway,” said Chris Ray, the maintenance supervisor for the property. “We’re almost a year later and we’re still cleaning up.”

Ray recalls the days and months following the grueling work of clearing acres and acres of rural Georgia.

“I told my girls, we are blessed, we don’t have a tree on our cars or a tree in the bed with us.”

A blessing that not everyone in the county could say.

“We couldn’t get out of our driveways, out of our yards,” said Jennifer Mills Stephens. “You could hardly help your neighbor because you couldn’t help yourself.”

Stephens runs Bread of Heaven Food Drive, an effort that ultimately ended up serving 181,667 meals throughout the months to follow.

“For seven weeks after that we had a food drive every week,” she said. “Whenever we found a need, we were made aware of Bread of Heaven was there.”

For seven weeks, Bread of Heaven went out into Toombs and neighboring counties that were hit especially hard in Georgia. With that, they found who they could, and helped how they could.

“God sent the food and sent the volunteers and we did what we could.”

Almost 365 days later, Stephens says there are fewer people in need of help than in the immediate aftermath of Helene… but still more than before the storm.

“We are still seeing some of those who are still struggling, they still are displaced,” she said. “Our numbers are up since before Helene hit and we are not seeing those numbers taper off.”

It was a storm they saw coming, with damage they didn’t.

One year later, what has come from the devastation hasn’t been strife or heartache—although in those following days there was plenty of it.

Counties like Bacon, Appling, Montgomery, and Toombs have learned that together, they can face any storm.