Social media users mobilize to aid Hurricane Helene's victims: 'It's all hands on deck right now'

As the death toll from Hurricane Helene continues to rise across the Southeast and a million people are still without power, social media users have mobilized to raise awareness for the destruction caused by what is being called “Appalachia’s Katrina."

“I’ve never seen anything like this happen in 12 years of living here,” Mary Sartori, 24, who lives in Boone, N.C., told Yahoo News. The highest point in Watauga County, where Boone is located, has an elevation of over 5,000 feet above sea level. “Granted, we’re doing a lot better in this county compared to a lot of other areas, but it’s still pretty bad.”

Sartori is one of thousands of residents affected by Helene who have turned to social media to publicize the devastation Helene has caused to her community. “There is so much damage here,” Satori said in a TikTok video posted Sept. 28 that has since been viewed over 1 million times.

“It’s one thing to hear and maybe even see pictures, it’s another thing to see it in person,” Sartori told Yahoo News. “When I made that video, it was quite literally out of desperation.”

'I'll just support where I can'

Tens of thousands of people across several states in the Southeast do not have running water, and the death toll from the Category 4 hurricane topped 200 people on Thursday. Officials warn that the toll is expected to rise higher as search and rescue missions for missing residents continue.

Social media users both inside and outside the communities affected by Helene are leveraging follower counts and shares to help connect missing family and friends and offer support in any way they can.

“I [don’t] have the capacity to put together some kind of big fundraiser,” Matthew Bounds, 42, who lives in Mississippi, told Yahoo News. “You’ve got all these organizations who go in after natural disasters and they’ve got this down to a science. So I thought, I’ll just support where I can.”

After Helene hit, Bounds started buying bulk food, water, pet supplies and diapers to donate to organizations like World Central Kitchen and the Cajun Navy, and he went to the Red Cross to donate blood. He filmed everything for TikTok, hoping it would make other people who felt helpless watching the footage of the hurricane’s destruction realize they could help.

In part, Bounds was motivated to act based on his experience of living through Hurricane Katrina when it hit the Mississippi coast in 2005, killing over 200 of the state’s residents. Bounds couldn’t get to his apartment for a week after Katrina’s landfall. He walked to a Red Cross station to get food and cases of water every day of that week.

“It was all these groups that came down to help, [that’s] really how we lived,” he said.

As he continued posting about sending aid to Helene’s victims, Bounds noticed something incredible in the comments of his video. Residents in lesser-affected areas were commenting and welcoming victims without power or clean water nearby to direct message them and coordinate a way to come over for whatever they needed — like phone service to contact friends and family or a hot shower.

'All hands on deck'

Dayna Miller, 28, who lives in southwest Virginia, saw people on Facebook posting similar advertisements for victims to come and use their functioning homes and appliances. Miller, who has two empty freezers in her garage, posted her own TikTok video encouraging nearby breastfeeding mothers, who didn’t have power, to come over and use them.

“Losing even 5 ounces of breast milk can be very stressful for some moms, let alone an entire milk stash,” Miller told Yahoo News. “If I could help take a little bit of stress off a mother whose source of feeding her baby depends on having electricity, then I’m going to do what I can.”

The community-focused response has been growing online. A Google Docs "People Finder" is circulating with thousands of names of missing friends and family members, in hopes that someone who comes across it can verify they’re alive. Sartori said she’d seen multiple Facebook groups for different areas of Boone pop up, some dedicated to missing persons and others for coordinating needed donations.

“It’s all hands on deck right now,” Sartori said. “The situation is: If someone needs something, someone will see it and respond. The entire community is at work right now.”