8 Days of Hope, the volunteer-led ministry born from Hurricane Katrina, has dispatched its “Rapid Response” and "Mass Feeding" teams to Perry, Florida; Valdosta, Georgia; and Canton, North Carolina.
“As soon as Hurricane Helene passed, we set up our mass feeding arm in Perry, Florida, and distributed thousands and thousands of meals to families who had no power,” 8 Days founder Steve Tyboar tells AFN.
Tybor, who spoke to AFN as Hurricane Milton was forming in the Gulf, said the ministry was planning a fourth site after Milton passes through.
“Even though Hurricane Milton is fast approaching, we're not going to abandon North Carolina, Georgia, just to run to the next storm,” he advised.
Milton hit Florida as a Category 3 storm about 70 miles south of Tampa, the Associated Press reported.
In flood-hit North Carolina, where Helene’s downpours washed away mountainsides, Samaritan’s Purse is working around the clock from its own national headquarters, the Billy Graham Training Center. The center, located near hard-hit Asheville, is operating as a staging area for the international ministry.
Edward Graham, grandson of the late evangelist, told Fox News the scene looks like a “war zone” after Helene passed through.
“It's catastrophic,” Graham advised. “This will take years to rebuild, and some of it will never – it will never look the same.”
The first few days were spent performing search-and-rescue missions for flood-stranded North Carolinians, he said.
The work has now shifted to making supply runs thanks to two leased Blackhawk helicopters that are ferrying supplies such as water, food, generators, and Starlink communications equipment.