Nebraska students assisting with hurricane cleanup in North Carolina

The Union Adventist University’s Disaster Response Team from Nebraska deployed Saturday to assist in the cleanup following the destruction of Hurricane Helene.

The Disaster Response Team, or DiRT, got the invitation last Wednesday. The next day, members were already packing gear in preparation.

They are assigned to the small town of Newland, North Carolina, which sits 70 miles north of Ashville.

DiRT is comprised of faculty and student volunteers from within Union College's International Rescue and Relief degree program. Unsure what they were going to face, they brought gear for chainsaw crews, muck and gut crews, roof tarping and almost any other scenario they could think of.

“The Fire Department has a place for us to stay, so we're going to kind of just be sleeping on the ground. Everyone's bringing camping stuff,” said Part time university faculty and Incident Commander, Joseph Lee. “We are completely self-sustained, food, water, etcetera."

There are 35 students and faculty who traveled to North Carolina. Their roles and specialties are varied.

“Something I'm going to be doing is, as we talk to homeowners entering them into crisis cleanup, which is a national database,” said Unit Resource Leader and junior at Union Adventist University Daisy McDonagh. “That way, even if we can't help them, other people who then go after us can, and their information will already be entered into a system.”

As someone who is passionate about helping people, Daisy plans to go into emergency management once she is graduated from college. Currently though, she is focused on the task at hand. Once she arrives back on Oct. 13, in time for midterm exams.