Nearly three weeks after severe flooding devastated parts of Tennessee and North Carolina, people are still pouring into the impacted areas and offering help.
Brian Minton owns a farm in Dandridge and has been to Asheville for several days over the last two weeks. He‘s shared what he’s seen on social media, and immediately received messages from people across the country offering their help.
Minton has trained mules on his farm and felt it would be a big help to bring them along on his trip to North Carolina. He then heard from several others who have specialized in training mules who wanted to join in and help.
“I told them I said, ‘Guys you can’t imagine what it‘s like, your life is going to change when you see this,’” said Minton.
There will be more than 25 miles and more than 25 people making the trip to Asheville first thing Thursday morning. People from Delaware, Kentucky, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee help make up the group looking to help.
Each of the farmers going has significant experience with mules and training them to help in a situation where they need to access a hard-to-reach area in the aftermath of a disaster.
“They’re very tough, and they’re very strong, and these are some very nice mules. And they can carry in 250 to 300 pounds of gear for everybody per mule easily,” said Arkansas farmer Max Bishop.
Bishop said the mules will help when they‘re in areas with washed-out roads because they’ll take the mules through the woods and steep terrain as they go to help others in need and work alongside first responders with recovery efforts.
It’s a group of cowboys from across the country who all heard about the devastation from the storm and wanted to put their area of expertise to good use.
“I’m blessed to have them I’m thankful for them being here and dang glad they’re on my team. Because we’re going to go up there and make a difference,” said Minton.
The group will leave Thursday morning and plan to stay in North Carolina for about a week. They‘ve also collected donations from across the country which they’ll be bringing to impacted communities.
(story courtesy of WVLT)
