In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the disaster relief scene in western North Carolina is “chaotic,” according to Massachusetts farrier Zach Grajales.
Entire communities have been devastated by flash flooding and landslides that destroyed major and rural roads, homes, businesses and farms. According to Duke Energy, as of Oct. 11, 32,500 customers are without power in the Carolinas, nearly 26,000 of them in the Asheville area. Some 18% of North Carolinians — 252,000 people — are either without running water or experiencing water pressure issues and live in areas with boil water advisories. Meanwhile, relief efforts are being complicated by road closures in and out of affected areas.
Seeing the devastation on the news and from first-hand accounts on TikTok and Facebook, Grajales says he couldn’t rest. Despite shoeing 14 hours away in Fairhaven, Mass., he had to help.
“I didn’t really sleep the first night, and then the next day I talked to a couple people, like, hey, if I could fill a trailer with supplies, would you loan it to me, or whatever the case may be? Somebody said to post it on Facebook, and it got shared close to 500 times. We ended up getting 29,000 pounds of supplies down there [to North Carolina],” he says.
While he originally anticipated one trailer full of donations, he ended up with a 28-foot stock trailer and a 30-foot flatbed trailer full of supplies thanks to the generosity of his local equine community and the magic of social media. The original call for donations on Facebook plus Grajales’ appearance on several local news stations prompted others with the desire to help to reach out, including local farriers, horse owners and farmers.
If you told me to pick rocks, you're gonna have a parking lot full of sand. Just tell me what to do ...
“I have an old customer who used to live here [in Massachusetts], and she moved down to Watauga County, which was also hit,” Grajales says. “So she was able to fill me in on where to take everything and make sure people knew I was coming and what I had. That was a huge help because there wasn’t a lot of information online about where to go or how to help.”
On Saturday, Oct. 5, Grajales was directed to the Western North Carolina Regional Livestock Center, which he says was functioning like a hub for donation and distribution by local organizations and the National Guard. The livestock center sent them to the Madison County Fairgrounds outside of Marshall, N.C., “another demolished town,” Grajales says, which hadn’t received many donations yet.
“They had me separating and organizing and helping people who were coming in looking for livestock feed. There were pallets of feed coming in as fast as they were going out,” he says. “So, on Sunday I was hauling bags of grain all day. I’d be happy not to throw any more grain for a little while.”
While livestock hay was abundant, one of the biggest needs Grajales found was for horse-quality hay. Most people were donating round bales, which is good for people with large quantities of horses, but there isn’t “a way to move them into the communities that no longer really exist,” he says.
Along with hay, Grajales accepted donations for horse first-aid supplies, thrush medicine and other equine essentials.
“My horse community came together pretty quick. We got a lot of Betadine, which is a versatile treatment, a lot of chlorhexidine for thrush and a lot of first-aid,” he says. “The people coming in [to the Madison County Fairgrounds] weren’t really thinking about it. They needed it, but their main concern was feed. As soon as we said, ‘You have horses, come look at everything we have that you might need’ then it was going as fast as we got it.”
Many local animal hospitals also donated to Grajales.
“Someone donated four boxes of UlcerGuard,” he says. “We had a whole contractor-sized trash bag full of syringes and cast starters and two boxes of IV fluids. The things that the horse community thought of when I mentioned that we were going to help people was mind-blowing.”
While in North Carolina, Grajales connected with horse owners, some of whom reached out looking for farrier care, worried that they wouldn’t be able to find any now that many roads around Asheville — including parts of Interstates 26 and 40 — are impassable.
Grajales’ time in North Carolina was limited, however, and he could only help so much. Now heading back to Massachusetts to regroup, he plans to send out another call for donations. The horse community stepped up once when he asked them to, and he knows they’ll step up a second time.
“This next trip, I’m going to reach out to more people to see if I can be of any more help other than sorting bags,” he says. “Not that I’m above sorting grain bags. I told a gentleman there, if you told me to pick rocks, you’re gonna have a parking lot full of sand. Just tell me what to do.”
This time around, Grajales plans to focus on horse-quality hay, fencing and barbed wire, but he says there are so many needs it’s hard to know where to focus. He also wants to wait to be told what supplies are most in demand so that he can put out a call for the right donations.
The things that the horse community thought of when I mentioned that we were going to help people was mind-blowing ...
As far as human supplies, in Grajales’ first trip down, he accepted everything from water to toiletries, baby wipes and hygiene products.
“It was pretty shocking. It’s 2024, and we have helicopters dropping essentials to people that, 2 weeks later, still can’t be contacted,” he says.
Grajales wasn’t sure what he was getting into when he first drove down, so he packed 4 days worth of food and supplies for himself. However, the people of western North Carolina — “having lost almost everything,” he says — were still willing to care for volunteers.
“They made sure I had a hot meal. They set me up where there was a shower and a bathroom. They were such appreciative people,” he says. “It seemed like their biggest fear was that when the next hurricane — Milton — hit Florida, that, you know, another big news story comes, and people are going to forget about them or think that they got help, that they’re good now.”
Check back here and Zach Grajales’ Facebook page for updates. In the meantime, you can find information about relief efforts from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, you can donate to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund here, find volunteer information here, explore livestock supplies donation and emergency resources from the N.C. Department of Agriculture here and find comprehensive resource information for affected communities from usa.gov/hurricane-helene.
