Hasco provides support in Hurricane Helene relief efforts

By Karen Hanna 

Many of the houses around Hasco’s Fletcher, N.C., distribution facility, are gone. The trees, too. And the people — many still missing. 

But, amid the devastation wrought when Hurricane Helene barreled more than 300 miles inland between Sept. 26 and Sept. 28, the warehouse stands undamaged. It’s there that the company, in partnership with the Mission X missionary group and contacts throughout the plastics industry, is helping people rebound. 

“It makes you feel blessed that you are alive and that you were spared. So, then, you get a little bit of that survivor's guilt. And to best handle that, we fight back,” said Brenda Clark 
engineering manager for inside sales for Hasco. “We help our neighbors, and that's how we fight back.” 

The company has been storing goods for relief efforts, including chain saws from Stihl Inc., Virginia Beach, Va., and other supplies from Accede Mold & Tool Co. Inc, Rochester, N.Y., Slide Products Inc., Wheeling, Ill., Tolerance Tool LLC, St. Paul, Minn., and Vincent Tool, Chippewa Falls, Wis. The donations have included storage bins, portable heaters, blankets, plastic cutlery and even new mailboxes to replace those destroyed in the storm.  

Clark is anticipating even more help from M.R. Mold & Engineering Corp., Brea, Calif., and Orbis Corp., Oconomowoc, Wis.

The companies responded “without question” when they learned of the need following communications with Hasco and social media callouts posted by the American Mold Builders Association and other partners.  

"We decided, ‘Hey, we have warehouse space. We kept hearing there were so many supplies coming in and they were being left outside of churches. ... So, we were like, ‘No, we can open up our dock during business hours. Drop it off, we could save it, come in on weekends,’ where they could come in and pick it back up to distribute it,” Clark said. 

River at ‘biblical proportions’ 

"Feet of rain” — the National Weather Service puts it at nearly 19 inches in nearby Hendersonville, N.C, and nearly 31 inches for Busick, N.C., 70-some miles from Fletcher — began falling Sept. 25, a day before the hurricane’s landfall in Florida, Clark said. The weather turned “horrid” the following day, a Thursday, and Clark endured a harrowing ride from work, fearful the French Broad River would spill over onto the highway and carry her off. 

“Thursday evening, there was a lot of deaths, but luckily, all of our people are accounted for, all their family members, everybody was safe,” Clark said. 

She and her colleagues — about eight people have at least occasional reason to report to the Fletcher facility — would not go back to work again till the following Friday. Like thousands of people throughout the region, the facility still has no potable water, after the hurricane destroyed infrastructure, forced the closure of dozens of treatment facilities and whipped debris into waterways. 

At the storm’s worst, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the river near Fletcher crested around 30 feet; as of Nov. 8, it was at a depth of just 4 feet. 

More than 100 people died in North Carolina alone, and many remain missing.  

“There's some little knolls where the mudslide came down and it wiped out the whole bunch of families that were living in it,” Clark said. “These were families that were grandparents and aunts and uncles, one family ... and lost everybody, all their families, all their houses, everything. All that stuff came down into the river.” 

Since the storm, snow has fallen several times in the mountain towns surrounding Fletcher, Clark said, and people are still living in tents. 

“Just to see the destruction and know what was there and what's not there anymore, it's ... I can't even describe it. It's indescribable, it's inhumane, and it needs to get fixed,” Clark said. 

According to the American Red Cross, more than 7,800 homes were destroyed by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, which struck Florida around two weeks later. Currently, efforts are underway to supply tiny homes to people left with nothing, Clark said. 

The government has been working to provide support, getting vital medications and other supplies to people cut off by the storm. Meanwhile, Clark said, churches are providing meals every day to people who have no water to cook and, in many cases, no homes in which to shelter.  

Clark pushed back against criticism that the government hasn’t done enough. Nobody could imagine — or immediately fix — the destruction left behind by a river that reached “biblical proportions.” 

She predicted rebuilding will be a long-term project. 

Doing their part 

Working with a missionary group that’s partnered with fire departments in the area, Hasco has helped in the relief efforts, Clark said. 

At first, about one-quarter of Hasco’s 8,000-square-foot space was filled with items to donate.  

Clark and her colleagues, who normally spend their days working with customers in the U.S. and Canada and filling orders for mold plates and components, worked their connections to find donors.  

Hasco’s headquarters in Germany was supportive from the start, she said.  

“That's one thing that Hasco globally does. If we have an issue, we jump right in and help,” she said. 

GM René Eisenring is on call to open the warehouse when there’s a need. 

Clark said she’s grateful for the outpouring from the industry, as well as the opportunity she has had to help neighbors who didn’t fare as well as she.  

“We're doing something that people need to bounce back and get back and hopefully get out of the tents, get into a more, sturdier temporary housing until their houses can get built,” Clark said.