Hunting for hope: Hound hunters step up as FEMA falls short in Appalachia

A community of hound hunters across America banded together this week to donate thousands of dollars' worth of supplies to their fellow countrymen devastated by Hurricane Helene, and their efforts were so successful that a local Tennessee post office reportedly couldn't manage all the deliveries.

Last Friday, Hurricane Helene sent such torrential rainfall to parts of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee that within hours, residents were forced to flee to their rooftops in hopes of rescue.

T.L. Jones, the pastor of Appalachian Baptist Church in Greeneville, Tennessee, explained to Blaze News just how serious the situation quickly became.

"People [were] kicking out the top windows to get rescued by boats and lifted out by air in different places," he said. "And there's no way for the people in this area to have any concept of what was coming. ... And then once it happened, it just swept people away."

A friend, Boone McCrary, stopped by Pastor Jones' home shortly before venturing out in his boat to rescue someone trapped by the flooding. McCrary never returned.

"He capsized and drowned. They found him yesterday. They found his body," Jones said.

The pastor also shared harrowing stories of helicopters saving patients off the rooftop of a hospital, of a husband who drowned while attempting to escape the area with his wife after their home was ripped from its foundation, and a dam barely holding firm as millions of gallons of water cascade over its top.

'Where is the federal government? Where are they? We haven't waited on them, but we sure expected them to show up.'

Amid these dangerous conditions came a ray of hope: a group of people from all over America united in their love of hound hunting and their fellow man. Through the coordinated efforts of Pastor Jones and Chris Powell, the host of the "Houndsman XP" podcast, this group managed to send supplies en masse to Greeneville.

Screenshot of Houndsman XP website. Used with permission.

With the help of his daughter — "It needed a woman's touch on it," he joked — Powell developed an Amazon gift registry and then shared it on social media.

The response has been nothing short of amazing. As of Thursday afternoon, people had sent more than $8,000 worth of supplies to the ravaged area.

"There's everything on that site, from pre-made baby bottles to water to feminine hygiene products to cleaning supplies. canned food, snack food," Powell told Blaze News.

Photo of the Amazon registry receipts, shared with Blaze News

Powell and his fellow hound hunters were, in fact, so generous that the local Greeneville post office needed help delivering all the items donated off the Amazon registry, Pastor Jones said.

"It comes to a post office, and then we send vehicles to the post office and pick it up because they can't handle the number of stuff that's coming in," he explained to Blaze News.

Blaze News reached out to the U.S. Postal Service to confirm Jones' version of events but did not receive a response.

Powell also contacted Elite Nutrition, one of his show's sponsors, and the folks there donated two tons of pet food, he claimed.

Photo shared with Blaze News

Jones said that he also raised a total of $10,000 from the collection plate at his church as well as from another local church. He then started walking door-to-door, handing out $250 to residents. "Just so they could get some cash in their pockets," he said.

A network of churches and other organizations have reached out to Pastor Jones to send resources to the area as well. On the outside of one box of donated supplies was a particularly touching note: "To our fellow Tenneseans from the men of Uncle John's Handguns."

Photo shared with Blaze News

Though need in the area remains great, Powell, Jones, and others will soon divert the donations, which continue to arrive, to parts of North Carolina because the good people of Greeneville want to help take care of others.

Powell then shared a heartwarming story that aptly conveys the generous character, or what he described as the "fighting spirit," of the Appalachian people.

"One of the guys ... was literally delivering supplies and insulin and medicine up into the mountains with his horse and a pack mule. And he was talking to an older lady, an elderly lady there, that she couldn't even get out on a road. She didn't have electricity, and she didn't have water, but she had a spring," Powell said.

"And he rode up in there and he says, 'Can I leave you some food?' She says, 'I'm good. But I've got supper cooking. If you want to stay and eat with me, you're more than welcome to.'"

Powell, a retired conservation officer in Indiana who helped in the relief efforts following several natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005, told Blaze News that he knew the hound-hunting community would open their hearts and their wallets to those who are suffering.

"They're the people that serve on your power crew. They're the people that will build your house, and when they're in times of need, they will step up to the plate," he said with pride.

"[They're] just good, red-blooded, freedom-loving Americans that know the value of stepping up and helping their fellow man."

Meanwhile, FEMA, a federal agency with an annual budget of nearly $30 billion, has offered just $750 to taxpaying citizens who in some cases lost almost all of their possessions.

"Where is the federal government? Where are they? We haven't waited on them, but we sure expected them to show up, and we just want to know: Where are they? Where is FEMA?" Jones asked.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisted the federal agencies under his purview, including FEMA, are doing the best they can.

"We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds," Mayorkas said Wednesday.

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