George Real Estate Group Radio Broadcast

Appalachian Navy: How One Man's Mission Became a Lifeline After Hurricane Helene

• George Real Estate Group

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When Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina nearly a year ago, Navy veteran and lifelong Henderson County resident Bud McCall saw a need and stepped up. What began as simple acts of delivering donated supplies from his church has evolved into the Appalachian Navy, a volunteer organization providing critical aid across the region.

"There's no end in sight right now," McCall shares, describing communities still struggling with basic access and necessities. While main roads have been repaired, countless smaller roads remain impassable, forcing residents to walk across rivers or use ATVs just to reach their vehicles. The geographic isolation compounds challenges – many affected areas have just one grocery store per county, requiring up to an hour's drive for essentials.

The Appalachian Navy has expanded its reach from Henderson County to communities throughout Western North Carolina, including Asheville, Burnsville, Newland, and areas near Boone. Their work includes delivering supplies, rebuilding bridges, and operating a critical propane exchange program for people living in temporary shelters. Through partnerships with Prince Propane Gas Company and organizations like the Appalachian Reclamation Coalition and Samaritan's Purse, they're tackling larger projects including home reconstruction.

McCall, drawing on 25 years of experience as a Boy Scout leader, coordinates with a small team of dedicated volunteers while balancing his full-time job at Kimberly Clark. His story exemplifies how individual initiative and community collaboration create powerful responses to disaster. The recovery continues to be, as he describes, "a marathon of recovery and restoration."

Want to support the Appalachian Navy's ongoing hurricane relief efforts? Find them on Facebook at Appalachian Navy WNC, on YouTube, or contribute through Bethel Wesleyan Church's relief fund. Your support helps ensure no community is forgotten as the long road to recovery continues.

Speaker 1:

The George Real Estate Group radio broadcast is celebrating 10 years on WHKP. The George Real Estate Group is celebrating 10 years on the radio live every Thursday morning at 10.05 on WHKP 107.7 FM and AM 1450 and streaming online at WHkpcom Each Friday morning at 845,. The George Real Estate Group presents the Hometown Hero Award to someone in our community who goes above and beyond to make our hometown a better place to live. Here's this week's Hometown Hero Show Time now for our George Real Estate Group Hometown Hero Show Time now for our George Real Estate Group Hometown Hero Series. Every Friday morning we get together, courtesy of the George Real Estate Group, and bring you some of our hometown heroes, folks who are making a difference in our community. And we always welcome Noah George to the microphones. Hello, noah.

Speaker 2:

Good morning and happy Friday.

Speaker 1:

How are you?

Speaker 2:

man. Well, so much to be thankful for, and it's always a privilege and honor to sponsor the Hometown Hero series.

Speaker 1:

Well, we do this every Friday morning, and the list is long of people that we get to talk with here. We've got a lot of people slated in the future to come talk with you. There's no shortage of people in our community that help us out, right?

Speaker 2:

There is not, and the list of Hometown Hero alumni keeps getting longer and longer. But it's amazing the stories we get to share each Friday morning and around the mics. It's powerful Again people helping people, neighbors helping neighbors and people serving our community it's what makes our community what it is.

Speaker 1:

It really is and it's what keeps the wheels turning, and in so many different ways. I mean we find, and you find, especially in the real estate business, that people love living in an area where giving is so much a part of our community.

Speaker 2:

That's right. Well, the generosity is contagious and we have people moving here from all over the world, actually, and people moving into western North Carolina. We've had the privilege of helping almost 1,600 families throughout the years with their real estate needs.

Speaker 1:

And again it's contagious.

Speaker 2:

People want to be here, they love living in the mountains and we certainly saw the resilience of the mountains coming up on a year since the hurricane and we're going to talk more about that this morning with our hometown here. But just a quick snapshot on the real estate market. We're averaging about 125 single-family homes a month selling. We're technically still in the seller's market. The interest rates have come down significantly, really Significantly. They're the lowest that they've been since October 2024.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I even heard this week you can get a 20-year mortgage at 5.25% Wow, fixed rate, I mean. So you can get in the fives right now, which is, I mean it's been over a year since we've been able to say that. So interest rates are coming down. It's making it more affordable for buyers, it's going to free up a lot of uh activity and and again it's a the market's the market, the interest rates of the interest rates. But it's a very healthy market that we live in. But before we get going, uh, 89 victoria park drive in hendersonville, we have an open house this saturday. Two to four want to share about that. 89 victoria park drive in hendersonville, 430 000, three bedrooms, two and a half bath, 2,100 square feet. It's a deal. Open houses this Saturday, two to four.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people still coming out to open houses, I guess.

Speaker 2:

Open houses are well attended. I mean we've not slowed down actually. I mean we've helped more people already this year than we did year to date last year, and we're just so grateful.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, noah, and please join me welcoming bud mccall with the appalachian navy. Bud, good morning, thank you good morning.

Speaker 1:

It's good to have you with us here this morning. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good, I'm good. You, uh, you have been working since the storm and, and as noah mentioned, uh, we're exactly one week away one week, week and a day from when Hurricane Helene did so much damage to our area, and you and your crew have been helping folks not only here in Henderson County but along a lot of other places. So tell us about the Appalachian Navy, will you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we got started basically through our church, you know, right after the storm a lot of donations and supplies started showing up at Bethel Wesleyan Church in Flat Rock and through social media I started finding needs and it fell on my heart to start helping people and we were able to take a lot of that stuff to people that needed it and I started branching out into Asheville area and then into Burnsville and I'm going all the way up towards Boone, now even McDowell County, polk County, rutherford. We're helping a few families in Greenville County, south Carolina actually, and we've been able to go to Kentucky.

Speaker 1:

Milwaukee did I see you were in Milwaukee recently. Oh, I was in.

Speaker 3:

Neenah, Wisconsin with my job.

Speaker 3:

Oh, okay, okay, yeah, but there's a lady that lives there that helps me, that helps us, yeah, so I'm with a bigger group called ARC, the Appalachian Reclamation Coalition, and the lady I met her name's Carmen up in Neenah, wisconsin. She is kind of the backbone of that group that helps people with paperwork. With Samaritan's Purse We've been able to help install bridges for people to access their property and they're helping. We're building some homes. There's one we're building now in Barnardsville, just north of Asheville. Yeah yeah, and so there's a lot of people involved in all this, so I'm just one little piece of it.

Speaker 2:

Were you doing this prior to the hurricane? Can you share how this evolved? I mean, it was just you stepped up in a time that was needed Well before that. You know, it was just you stepped up in a time.

Speaker 3:

That was needed. Well before that, you know I was a Boy Scout leader in the area for about 25 years. I'm an Eagle Scout and you know things changed with that and then when the storm happened, like I said, it just part of who I was. I just started seeing people hey, can someone help me? People I knew on social media. There was a young lady that I graduated high school from East Henderson that lives in Burnsville and she started posting stuff that what people needed and I reached out to her and that's kind of how I got started going that direction.

Speaker 1:

The storm really wreaked havoc all the way from here to all the way to Booneone.

Speaker 3:

You've been working in the newland area I think, yeah, I do a lot in newland um it's, it's so widespread, it's incredible.

Speaker 1:

Well, talk about bat cave. Uh, I know, uh I saw, I believe, on your social media page that, uh, you just recently got involved building a bridge, uh, replacing a bridge down there. Is that right?

Speaker 3:

No, we're not replacing one Through the video I posted where we replaced one. Up in the Newland area I was contacted about a community in Batcave, off of Highway 64 that needed some help with their bridge.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So I went down and got the process started for them, but we haven't done anything in particular yet with their bridge, yeah, so I went down and got the process started for them, but we're not. We haven't done anything in particular yet with those people.

Speaker 2:

What's the greatest need you still see going on right now?

Speaker 3:

It's. You know there's so many needs. You know I've done stuff with food security. You know a lot of those. You know we're fortunate here in Henderson County we got numerous options for you know daily of those you know here we're fortunate here in henderson county we got numerous options for you know daily needs, groceries and everything but those communities up there it's. You know there's one grocery store per county and it's up to an hour drive for some people just to get to an ingles or a walmart or anything. And food delivery.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and a lot of people. It's a lot harder for them to get out, or some people still don't have a vehicle, that lost their vehicle or and roads washed out I mean like it's still, I mean for it's hard to imagine.

Speaker 2:

I mean here we are, you said, in henderson ville, henderson county, and there's so many of areas that are just, you know, quote, unquote, back to normal and then there's so many areas that are still just ground zero in recovering.

Speaker 3:

Most of the main roads that I've seen have been repaired, but there's a lot of side roads and smaller back roads that are just completely trashed. It's so hard for people. There's people that are having to use ATVs just to get to their car, or they're having to walk across the river to get to their car that's parked across the road, on the main road, and it's just that's still a reality right now for so many yep wow, and you have volunteers working with you as well.

Speaker 3:

I have a small group, you know I, my church, has been very good at helping me, um, and just about everybody in the church is willing to do anything if I, if I ask them to to help, they're glad to do whatever they can, and I've got a few people that are kind of my officers yeah they really help me do stuff, you know, on a daily basis, and I've met people from all over the country that have helped me out with this.

Speaker 1:

It's been crazy me out with this. It's been crazy. One of the uh, I think did I read where, uh, you are especially able to help people with propane needs. Yeah, tell us about um so we started.

Speaker 3:

Uh, you know, one of the main groups that helped me was there's a youtube channel called deep river farm, um a gentleman named wayne allred his his uncle was our pastor when I was a kid and he started an organization called Operation Mountain Relief and that's where all these donations came from.

Speaker 3:

And you know when the needs last winter started showing up that people were in campers and needed help with propane. You know people started donating, going online and purchasing bottles for us and they started showing up. And then we started partnering with Prince Propane Gas Company in Landrum and we have an account down there where we take bottles, they fill them up and then we deliver them to all these different centers up in western North Carolina where people can go exchange a bottle for free and they actually did their own drive where people could they still can call Prince Propane and donate funds to our account and it goes to help people with their needs.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure you're ongoing. This is something that's probably not going to end for a long time.

Speaker 3:

There's no end in sight right now. I mean, it's every week.

Speaker 1:

People can contribute to your cause and help you to help others. I'm sure how do they do that?

Speaker 3:

They can go online to. If they you to help others, I'm sure how do they do that. They can go online too If they want to help financially. We've been running the funds through our relief fund at Bethel Wesleyan Church. There's websites BethelWesleyanorg. I'm on social media. I'm on Facebook. Appalachian Navy WNC. That's how I found you.

Speaker 2:

How did you come up with Appalachian Navy?

Speaker 3:

So well, I'm a Navy veteran and I was trying to.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you for your service.

Speaker 3:

I started my YouTube channel, which is not a big channel, but I was thinking of a name and I really like the name Cajun Navy. I saw those guys up here a lot and I thought that'd be neat, but I'm not.

Speaker 2:

Cajun, you're Appalachian.

Speaker 3:

I started thinking what fit for me and that just came to mind. That's amazing. And a friend of mine a young man in Burnsville named Cody he designed that logo for me.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. You're native for Henderson County.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm born and raised right down on Tracy Grove Road.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, so you're right in the neighborhood here. Well, bud, we sure appreciate what you do and continue to do for our community. Again, it's called Appalachian Navy. Yes, and if anyone needs to get in touch with you about their needs, I'm sure you're open to helping others. Oh, I certainly am. With my new people every day.

Speaker 3:

People reach out to me all the time.

Speaker 2:

Again, it's continuing to be a marathon of recovery and restoration for our community and it's happening day in and day out Because of people like you and giving back and showing up. It takes the community, it takes everybody coming together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, here we are a week away from when it happened. What was your situation at your house? We were forging.

Speaker 3:

We were just without power for a couple of weeks. As far as damage, there was no damage or anything at my property and nothing like so many others experienced.

Speaker 1:

Right, we were fortunate, and especially right in this area. You couldn't get anywhere.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you couldn't go less than a mile in any direction for a few days, or you were blocked by water or trees or power lines or something.

Speaker 1:

Well, our friend Brittany Rowland is the one who told us about you and the Appalachian Navy, and Brittany was here a couple of weeks ago. She's continuing to work for people and help people and there's many, many different organizations involved and we've been trying to kind of shine a light on all of you folks who are working. What's your day job? What happens during the?

Speaker 3:

My full-time job. I'm working maintenance at Kimberly Clark here in Hendersonville. Okay.

Speaker 1:

All right, been there 25 years. Wow, you're busy. Yes, you are.

Speaker 2:

Well, bud, thank, wow, you're busy.

Speaker 1:

Yes, you are Well, Bud. Thank you so much for all you do. We've got a certificate here for you that just expresses a little bit of our gratitude for what you do and again get us in touch with the Appalachian Navy how people can find you and contribute.

Speaker 3:

Okay, so you just go Facebook, go to Appalachian Navy WNC. Or YouTube is Appalachian Navy and my email address and everything is on there and you can contact me like that.

Speaker 1:

All right, bud McCall, appalachian Navy. Thank you so much, noah. You've got an open house this weekend. We've got about a minute left to check in with the real estate business and, of course, get us in touch with where you're located Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

You can find us online at realestatebygregcom. You can call us at 828-393-0134. You can follow us on social media as well. And again, we do have an open house tomorrow, a Saturday open house, two to four 89 Victoria Park Drive in Hendersonville. Incredible home 2,100 plus square feet, 3, 2 1⁄2, 2,004 home for $430.

Speaker 1:

Well, join us every week as we salute a George Real Estate Group Hometown Hero and if you have a nomination for our Hometown Hero series, you can send that to info at whkpcom. I get notifications all the time from folks who are telling us about heroism in our area and we thank you so much. We'll be back next week with another George Real Estate Group Hometown Hero. Thank you very much for joining us, bud and Noah. Have a great weekend everyone, and thanks for listening.

Speaker 2:

Maybe the house feels a little too big these days, the stairs a little steeper, the pace of life a little too fast. But what if your next move wasn't about letting go. It was about making space For peace, for freedom, for what matters most? At the George Real Estate Group, we understand that real estate isn't just about the house. It's about transitions, timing and trust. We've helped thousands of families in Western North Carolina make smart, thoughtful moves Closer to nature, closer to family, closer to home. So when you're ready to right-size, simplify or start fresh, we'll be here. The George Real Estate Group, local, trusted, proven. Call us today, 828-393-0134. Find us online at realestatebygregcom, because your next chapter deserves to feel just right.

Speaker 1:

The George Real Estate Group is located in Flat Rock, north Carolina, near Hendersonville in Henderson County. You can find them online at realestatebygregcom. The George Real Estate Group can be reached at 828-393-0134 or stop by their office at 2720 Greenville Highway, flat Rock, north Carolina. North Carolina. Tune in live each week on Thursdays at 10 0 5 AM on WHKP 107.7 FM and 1450 AM, or stream online at whkpcom or download these podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. The George real estate group brings you the WHKP hometown hero series every Friday morning at 8 45.