The David Knight Show - INTERVIEW Volunteerism in West North Carolina Mountains 

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Leigh Brown (GiveSendGo @weloveWNC) joins with an update on the people in Western NC after the devastation of hurricane HeleneHow it began, what it's like nowProperty ownership issues, insurance claimsWhat you need to think about in terms of preppingA network of volunteers vs the centralized bureaucracy that desires to control, not helpIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @[e-mail] App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Money should have intrinsic value AND transactional privacy: Go to DavidKnight.gold for great deals on physical gold/silverFor 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to TrendsJournal.com and enter the code KNIGHTBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor, free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. All right, welcome back. And joining us now is Leigh Brown. She put together a relief organization

that is still going on. And as she points out, this is not over yet. People's attention span is very short and they move on to the next story or the next hurricane or whatever. Right. But this is still going on and it's going to go on for a long time. And so we need to keep people's attention focused on this and fight against that. And there's also a concerted effort to keep this quiet. I want to begin by telling you where you can go. The official donation page is on Give, Send, Go.

And it is at WeLoveWNC for Western North Carolina. WeLoveWNC. That's on Give, Send, Go. We'll give that at the end of the broadcast as well. But thank you for joining us, Lee Brown. Thank you very much for coming on. Well, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be on your show.

Well, thank you. Let's talk about what is going on and the ongoing need here. But I think a lot of people are just curious as to what it looks like on the ground. But maybe we could start with how this all began and how you got involved in this. What was it like, what you saw being there on the spot? Well, just to be very clear, I'm located about an hour outside of the impact zone, but being a native North Carolinian and having a lot of friends and family in the affected area, it just it hit home for me. And so when the storm hit, and we're watching the flooding and the very early coverage, which there was a little coverage at the

beginning, I could see where this was headed. And I have helped with natural disasters in the past because North Carolina does happen to get hurricanes on a regular basis. And being in real estate, I think real estate agents often don't get the credit they're due for the way realtors just love to dig in and help their communities. Well, my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary on September 27th. And this is the third year that we've spent our anniversary doing relief efforts. So I don't know how we got lucky like that, but I knew it was coming. I said, told my husband, I said, well, let's load the real estate company moving truck up and we'll let our clients bring donations and we'll be prepared to help not knowing how bad it was going to be, but knowing

there was going to be a need. So I put the word out that we would let people come help us fill the truck up. And then as the news hit of the breadth of the disaster and the gravity of what was going on, it turned into an accidental grassroots effort that has been embraced across the, well, actually it's international at this point because my videos talking about it had gone viral. And it's hard to put into words what it looks like in western North Carolina because it's truly war zone kind of conditions in many areas where the roads have collapsed. I-40 between North Carolina and Tennessee collapsed with vehicles stranded on the highway. You have the city of Asheville, which is a decent-sized small city, 14 feet of water over the water treatment station, so no

water in the city, and towns gone, chimney rock is gone. That's one of the few situations you can actually find evidence of on the social networks. Swannanoa went underwater. Montreat, the home of Billy Graham, just virtually destroyed. And all I can describe it as is that the flood of biblical proportions, it's the highest amount of flooding we've ever seen in the state. It was four feet higher than the previous generational flood in 1916. So it was and was and it is because we're still right now on day 13, I

guess, we're still doing rescue efforts for people who were in their homes and then the driveways washed away and the roads washed away. And the only way you can access these people is with ATVs. And unfortunately, there's as many, well, there's probably at this point more that have perished than have survived in those survival situations just because of where the geography had it located. And it's staggering. It's just staggering. i've never seen anything like it uh quite frankly you know you you see wind damage i grew up in florida saw hurricanes all the time and to see homes demolished with tornadoes and hurricanes that's one thing but i've never seen the kind of force that we saw with this water just washing away you know not only homes but

highways and the foundations of where the highways were. I mean, it is just, it's like a nuclear bomb went off. It is truly amazing what has happened there. What about when you got there? What did you see? I mean, you drive up to, you didn't know how bad this was going to be. And what was the situation there? I guess at that point in time, people were doing rescue work.

Tell us a little bit about that. Well, I think the rescue work was actually slightly delayed because of the breadth of the disaster. I mean, you're talking a geographic area that's the size of other states. So there's a shock factor involved. And I have some friends that are mayors of small towns because I'm fairly politically active. And I talked to a friend of mine in one of the small city, large town status just to check in and see what was going on. And he told me his town had no water, that their water station had gone out. And, of course, my immediate reaction was, let me get you some water.

So I talked to a friend of mine who had a horse trailer and so we called Lowe's to see if we could get a hold of some pallets of water and this was on the first day so we chased down the water we get the water into her truck and head West well while we're heading West they're closing down access points and I-40 is the primary interstate going obviously from east to west and it was shut down so we had to go on 70 and then when we got on 70 there were only certain ways you could get into this town because of the road washouts but also because of the blockades that had been put up to restrict traffic because of the uncertainty of the roads and it was a and what would normally be a drive of a little over an hour took three and a half hours to drive like this to get to the town

just to give some water because there was no water i mean municipal system is out and i i don't know that any of us really understand how much we take for granted our clean and safe drinking water. I mean, unless you traveled in the third world, it's hard to understand how spoiled we are as Americans. And when that water supply is gone, people on a well would normally be all right, but their electricity's out. And if they have a generator, did they have fuel for for it because not everybody is thinking ahead all the time most folks don't have a stockpile of water so we got there with this pallet of water and the people came over and got it immediately just sheer gratitude and it was the beauty of it was nobody was grabbing more than they should have. There was a very big desire to make it go as far as it could.

And that was day one. And so looking at the road closures, it was very unsettling to think you could no longer travel freely because of all the blockades. If you could travel freely, the roads may not be accessible. And if the roads aren't accessible, how do you get to your neighbors with life-saving things like clean water? And then that was day one. And then by day three, there's the smell of decomposition. And that's nothing anybody ever wants to experience, but that's, if you remember the temperatures when this hit, it was still Indian summer, so still warm enough. And the human body is not made for lying around in the sun. And that's continuing to go on because we still have not gathered all of our neighbors who perished.

They have not all had a decent burial, of course, because we haven't located everybody. And so it's just hard. And so when you see it now, the news is already showing the parts of towns that are intact. Their messaging being it wasn't that bad but it is it's just devastation and the example i can give you of a town called rollins is a very tiny hamlet in the north carolina mountains had about 15 homes prior to the the great flood i guess there's four houses left and that's one of the lucky little hamlets the rest of the houses are gone because it primarily sat on the banks of a river and when you see what's left it's just things are gone it's hard to get your mind around it and for me as a north carolina

native who's gone to the mountains for years for vacations and for going out hiking and church retreats. I mean, every church I've ever gone to, the retreat places are up in the mountains. Your geography has changed forever. So you have the loss of life. We've lost humans. The geography is different. Towns are gone. And so there's a grief over what the state was prior to 2024 and what it is now because it won't ever be the same and that's it's just it really makes the bible come to life when you look at the way that things went in the Torah and what happened with these towns as they they warred with each other and they would wipe them out and salt the earth. And you can't help but feel that there's obviously a visual of the spiritual battle that we're in.

Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. And so at this point now, as you said, all the roads are closed and there weren't any roads in many cases. So they would block people off from that. In terms of logistics of trying to get stuff in that's got to be so incredibly challenging and we've had all kinds of reports that we've talked about over the last week about people trying to come in with helicopters and evacuate people out other people pulling rank on them and stopping that uh organizations like the one that was in bat cave and they've done a great job logistically of putting stuff in and getting things distributed.

How are you operating with this, and who are you partnering with in order to get these supplies in when there's not a clear path or a road to get there? Well, when my video went viral, I got calls from people with trucks and trailers literally all over the country who are patriots who are not afraid of figuring it out and we have had this ragtag group of people who never knew each other but responded to a call who have come in found their way through truckers who had the right permits and knew how to navigate road closures better than a regular person local people with an suv or a pickup truck or a four by four and that's my group has just kind of filled gaps wherever we've been called upon the organized groups have helped us to know where are the polaris guys needed where can we get an atv up we need toach to put food in to go up the side of the hill to get to a family so it's none of the the big groups i will give good credit to samaritan's purse franklin graham's organization

they were in boone as of day one with their organization they were set up and distributing and my goodness a super well-oiled machine very impressed with the work that they've done and the baptist churches the baptist Coalition got busy on day one as well. And they've been spreading out through the church network to some of the smaller areas. But other than that, we've operated with people we find on Facebook or people that have been referred to us as reputable and kind, thoughtful people who are looking out for their neighbors. And so it's just what happens when people decide to pitch in together. It's not a 501c3 and we're not any true organization.

And in fact, those of us that swung into action a few days ago are now trying to figure out, all right, we still have jobs to do because we're not relief workers and there are professionals available, but they're still overwhelmed. So how do we continue to help while we manage our own lives so that we can continue to support? But the way people have pitched in is it's the spirit of what America was founded on, and it's encouraging to see that it's still there. It is. on and it's encouraging to see that it's still there it is and you know just before he came on i finished off with alexis de toqueville who came to the u.s uh basically look at the prison system but he was just amazed at how people in america would come together to solve a common problem voluntarily as a community and it is wonderful from the perspective of where i am it's wonderful

to see that happening again to see that that's dead, that when people see that there's a need, they can organize themselves and people come together and offer their services. I've seen this in the past when there's been localized stuff. It's not many times when it's really big. Then you get FEMA or you get the military, other people come in and they essentially shut that down and take it over. Whether they do a good job or not, they don't allow people to participate. They shut that down. And so that whether they do a good job or not they don't allow people to participate they shut that down and so that's why i think is so important about this and and part of what you're doing i think you're kind of focused on trying to get supplies and as i look at the site that you set up you got an amazon wish list uh and in that wish list you push put in things that people you know that people need medical supplies uh general uh, wish list, and other things like that.

And I guess you're then handing that off to some of these other organizations that are there? No, we're taking it in ourselves. Because we have had three scenarios where my teams have been interrupted by FEMA, and FEMA has a plan to inventory everything that they can get their hands on. We choose not to let them inventory it because there's a need and I don't think they fully grasp how geographically challenging an area like this is because you're not talking a city, an urban center, a flat area. You're talking 15 houses here, 68 houses there. And the centralized information tends to be the volunteer fire department.

So we've reached out to many of the volunteer fire departments because they know who in their community needs insulin. Well, I probably don't have insulin, but I may have a contact who can help get the prescriptions and handle all the details on that. And so we're moving more quickly because we're not trying to follow the red tape of the government. And we understand that FEMA wants to have a central supply hub. But if you have a central supply hub in a huge geographical area, then how are you going to deploy that in a time frame that makes sense, especially with frost warnings now because now we've moved into winter so our job today we moved another well we moved 30 generators up today to give to 30 different homes so they could keep the heat on

we moved another dozen propane portable heaters into some other homes for elderly who don't want to leave, can't leave. And I just, I don't know that FEMA is interested in dropping generators at people's houses so that they can stay put. They would rather put you through a red tape nightmare to get a little bit of cash, but the little bit of cash they're offering doesn't even cover the cost of a generator that I got at wholesale price. And they're not going to deliver it. So if you're elderly and you apply for this little bit of money on FEMA online, so you have to have internet access. They want receipts. They want a doctor's note. If it's say a breathing machine, we also got tanks of oxygen delivered up today as well. They want a doctor's note for your oxygen. oxygen okay so FEMA is only going to give you money if you prove your power was out while you're on the internet and if you prove that you have a

doctor's note for what you need and if you have receipts and then you'll get this $750 well I have found that if the donations I've received are going to buy 30 generators I called my guy at Lowe's and Lowe's has been amazing by the way. They were so quick to help us with hunting down what we needed, giving us wholesale pricing, even though I'm not a builder. And Lowe's helped us hunt them down. We talked to a guy with a trailer and the guy with the trailer who's not working today, put the generators on and ran them up so that they could be distributed from a church to these 30 homes. fema's in charge what's that a month process and in that month process how many health issues occur because somebody's cold in their home in the mountains in the winter in north carolina

so um yeah we're we're circumventing but not because we're you know breaking any laws we're just doing it a better way. And this is how the communities were built, though. We took care of each other. Churches used to be the center. Churches knew who was hungry, and we fed them, and we knew who was sick, and we took care of them because the Bible says you take care of aliens, widows, and orphans. And so that's what we're looking at here is how do we take care of those

that are passed out, those that are alone, and those that are unable to care for themselves. That's right. And, you know, the bureaucracies have their own agenda. But the other part of it is the centralization that you're talking about. If you've got a decentralized thing that is happening, it can happen so much more effectively and quickly than the centralized bureaucracy. It took them a long time from what I've seen to even show up. it can happen so much more effectively and quickly than the centralized bureaucracy. It took them a long time from what I've seen to even show up. And then when they do, they're obstructionists because of their imposed procedures,

because of centralized planning and distribution and all the rest of the stuff. So that is what is so essential. And that is also, that's why we need to talk about this for everybody. It shows the power of community. It shows the power of volunteerism. And it shows just at the same time that the callousness and the ineffectiveness of a distant, centralized bureaucracy. And that's the key story, I think, here. And as you're pointing out, this is going to go on for quite some time. I mean, I've seen some of the organizations.

There was some midnight organization that has a history of going. And they spent two and a half years at an Indian reservation. FEMA wouldn't do anything to help them. But they're wiped out with a storm. And I don't know why it didn't fall into their bureaucratic checklist of something they would help with. But this group went there and they stayed there for like two and a half years. And they said, we're going to be here for several years because we're going to be here helping people rebuild. I guess at this point right now, the rescue operation is really more recovery of bodies.

But the people that are there, they need a constant resupply of things because they really can't help themselves. It's really reliant on outside help, would you say? Absolutely, because the infrastructure has just experienced catastrophic damage. The city of Asheville is not expected to have water back for another three weeks is the optimistic estimate. That's a city. Wow. Now, if you go to some of the outlying areas, there is some return of power, but there has

not been a return yet of water services because being mountainous you've also got some groundwater concerns now with the way that the flooding occurred so even if you're on a well the newest thing we're adding to our wish list are well water testing kits we are begging people to test the water before you use it because you don't know what has come into your water source now and part of what we received from our donations from around the country and and obviously i am just one of the many many voices that has been a voice to cry out for western north carolina but the water that has come in has just been astonishing we actually have had to hold some back in storage because there's nowhere else to put it.

And people have provided. Let me ask you this. While we're talking about water, this is a comment from somebody on here. Magooan Fan, thank you for that, says, make sure you have a gravity filter, a non-electric distiller to make sure it's as pure as possible. I imagine that would really be a priority rather than bringing in the water, in something that's going to be able to you know water filters that are gravity feed that don't have to have power i'm sure that's on your list as well right oh yes and we have folks that have sent us some very good explainer videos for how people can get those set up and what we're doing right now we're in triage phase right now and when you're in triage it's pallets of water and how do we manage it for this moment and as we get the systems in place and we figure out how to

get people through roads we we have these i guess you could call them hillbilly road repairs where you have a bunch of guys that show up and put a road back together during the night old school style as we get those things fixed then we can look at more of the the bigger picture because we have people that would like to take a shower and so and i don't like those gravity filters is something that's if you do it big enough and put it up a little bit you can actually clean with it and so there's we're just we're still in triage phase is the hardest thing to explain to folks that we won't think to be fixed. Our whole society is an immediate gratification society. We want it fixed. We want it better. And when we took up the generators,

we took up some dehumidifiers because if you think about this, a lot of the houses have water intrusion. As somebody in real estate, I want to save those houses. So we have to get dehumidifiers in, get the moisture out so they don't wind up with the mold problem when we invariably hit a little warm streak which is north carolina it's going to do warm cold warm cold warm cold for a while and we want to make sure these people's houses are still safe to live in so yes there's lots of things we can do and for those of y'all that are curious one of our best prepper communities and that that i've ever known is in one of the affected counties they're doing pretty all right now they've actually been able to take what they had prepared and they are helping their neighbors in fact one of my

dear friends in that community was frustrated with the distribution so she put a pop-up tent in her yard and put out some supplies that we brought to her house just in the back of a trailer. And the neighbors all came right out and were served. And that's a blessing to be prepared enough that you can serve. And I don't know that we talk about that enough with people who are organically just taking care of the future and thinking ahead. It's not just a selfish desire to take care of yourself but if you're taken care of you have the bandwidth to help other people so just a reminder that prepping is not selfish oh yeah oh yeah and it's not crazy either as we see they like to portray that as a

crazy thing it's like i'm sorry we've seen too many things happen in the last few years for people ever think that prepping is crazy it It's crazy not to prep. A question. This is from someone here. People, they said a lot of people, the government is already telling people they can't rebuild in certain places because it's not safe, says Zim Cellars. Is that something that you're seeing?

Of course, Lee, you're a retail, a realtor, and her website is LeeSells, and she spells her name L-E-I-G-H, LeeSells.com, and you'll find information about this relief effort. But, of course, you can also find that at GiveSendGo. And at GiveSendGo, you look for We Love WNC for Western North Carolina. We Love WNC. That'll Carolina. We love WNC. That'll give you that information. I'm sure probably linked back to the other thing as well.

But as a realtor, what are you hearing about that? Because that's been a concern of a lot of people. You know, we've got these situations with a couple of different mines, a very rare quartz mine, a big lithium mine. The people didn't really want to see that come in. Are they going to shove people out? Are we hearing any of that kind of stuff? Well, it's a valid concern when we see what happened in Maui. And that's a situation that I don't think will ever be adequately explained,

although a lot of us have our theories. North Carolina is fortunate, though. We have a very strong state constitution that is very much protective of private property rights. So when all of this stuff went down, the lithium vein that gets referenced runs from Asheville all the way down through Gaston County. And it's been there, obviously, since the Lord created it, but it became very valuable as we've moved more towards these electronic vehicles that are being forced on us. And that Gaston County is where we saw the first mining operations really kick in. And that's generally, you've got a lot of BlackRock stakeholders. So

there's a lot of, I would say, nefarious actors afoot. But this storm, unless the cloud seeding situation really is what happened. And even if it were, I don't know that the bad actors can get a hold of the land unless the property owners sell. Because our state constitution protects illegal takings by the government. If something were to happen, it would be that a phone call comes in to Bob from some little shyster investor who says, your land ain't worth nothing. I'll give you cash. Take it off your hands. So if our neighbors give in to bad sales pitches, then there could be some takings going on. But as of right now, and I talked to the speaker of the house in north carolina he's a very um he's a very savvy lawyer and he told me there's no legislation needed at this point

because the constitution is strong but he did ask the real estate community to please get the word out to people don't sell cheap don't don't give in to what you read on the internet because that's the risk. The risk is that the chatter on X and Instagram and Facebook scares people enough that they go ahead and sell. I will point out there's a lot of chatter about a town hall meeting that happened in Chimney Rock. That did not happen. That's an internet urban myth. And so it's important to be alert because our government is full of bad actors who do value money more than they value life because they serve the wrong God. And as we look at what they do on a general basis, it is possible to

believe it. But in North Carolina, what I don't think they counted on at Black Rock is the absolute stubbornness of mountain people who are not going anywhere and there was a lady that we spoke with on Sunday of last week and she had basically moved herself up under what was left of her lean-to house is pretty much gone and there's a flagpole in the yard. She said, I ain't going anywhere. And so we said, all right, we're going to get you a heated tent so you can stay put. But, you know, they might be thinking that the attitudes are more of the people they encounter in the Ashevilles, the urban areas that go to the breweries and our university kids, but mountain people are generational,

hardscrabble folks. They're used to pulling a living out of very unforgiving land. They have made home sites on mountainsides, and I think they're going to prove to be a tougher sell than anybody realizes. Good. Well, along those lines, what about insurance? Because we're seeing a lot of stuff about how insurance companies are trying to weasel out of the this kind of thing and um what you know as a realtor again what do you hear in terms of

people dealing with their insurance companies well now that is a concern because the property values have gone up so much since the covid era started in 2020. And for most people, if you owned a property and you had insurance on it, it's probably surely unlikely that you called the insurance company and said, hey, my property went up from $250,000 to $500,000. Please increase my coverage. Most people don't do that because they don't want to pay the increased premium. However, if you did not increase your coverage coverage then your insurance policy may be enforced and you may have paid on it dutifully but if the value of your house exceeds the policy that's not even the fault of the insurance company that is the challenge

of a rising market and when you're in a home that's in good shape or you're selling it you love the rising market when you're in a home that's in good shape or you're selling it, you love the rising market. When you're buying, you hate the rising market. When you're a homeowner who's enjoying your 3% interest rate that you got seven years ago, it doesn't bother you until something like this hits. And so what I would say is what we have been saying on the real estate side for some time is please check your policies and make sure that you have the appropriate amount of coverage because what you paid $250,000 for six years ago cannot be built for that now. Even if you had the money, labor's high, materials are high, and the biggest cost we have is permits and regulations trying to get something built. So we should all be paying attention to our policies.

Now, that being said, if you are watching this or listening to this and you're in an affected area, don't tell the insurance company that you experienced a flood. You got to tell them it was high water and rain because you're more likely to get covered if you don't use the word flood. And I'd also point this out. There's a lot of experts on the internet i love internet experts in the comments and they keep telling us that these people should have had flood insurance really really you put a house on a mountainside no they didn't have

flood insurance and and that's it's normal because again we're in an inflationary environment where people are trying to pay the bills they're not going to add on flood insurance for the side of the mountain where it's not necessary because you're not in a flood zone and you don't think it's ever going to happen. But I can't blame an insurance company for being nervous about a generational, not even generational. I think this is a century long era we've been dealing with here. They can't anticipate it and they're not made out of money either the only crowd that's made out of money is the government who keeps printing it and taking it out of our pockets where nobody can afford anything so that's that's a challenge too but the other thing people don't know about flood insurance is even if you had it even if you got your claim approved it it's a max payout of $250,000.

And the way the markets have changed, that's not even going to buy you a nice double wide when you consider all of the foundation things that have to be reset. We got to redo septic tanks. We're going to have to redo wells. We're going to have to redo water and sewer taps if it's on the infrastructure lines. It's just it's going to be interesting. And I don't know what the answer is. But as I said in the video a couple of days ago, I sure hope that the banks like J.P. Morgan and Bank of America, who make a lot of money off of homeowners, I hope they'll forgive these mortgages because I do worry about the people who no longer have a collateral.

They have no house left, but they still have a mortgage. And so that's right. What's going to happen there. Are they going to get foreclosed on no house or is the bank going to forgive it? I don't know the answer, but I just,

it's what everybody has to do is pray for the affected people because they're going to need strength and resilience to process all of these things while they find water and food while they do without a hot shower in their house and now they got to think about mortgages for houses that don't exist and it's um it's untenable for a lot of people so the and. And then how do they, how do they work? You know how they work? The roads are washed out. I mean, what happens to their income?

That's the other part of it. Well, the stores are gone. A lot of our employers have lost their businesses. I mean, I look at my real estate people and we don't get a lot of sympathy because we have a terrible perception of us has been created by the mainstream media and by Hollywood. But I think most of your viewers and listeners, when you've engaged with a realtor, they're very hardworking, thoughtful people. Well, what are they going to sell? There's no inventory for them to sell. They live on commission. And I've talked to several who are in a panic right now because they did have something under contract, but now the house is either gone

or damaged. Buyer can't buy, seller can't sell, house isn't going to receive a loan. So you've got a whole profession that's out of work unless they relocate. Well, if a real estate agent relocates to work for me an hour away, I'd be glad to have them, but they don't know anybody where I am in real estate's relationship based and it's competitive. And then you have to learn a new County and you learn a new market. So it's, it's challenge on top of challenge, but I'm hopeful that because North Carolina has had so many employers come in with Eli Lilly and Toyota and boom Sonic, that we'll see those new big employers rise up and make a concerted effort

to provide employment to people, even if it's a one-year contract, to give them a chance to get started again. It's so multifaceted. But I just thought about it. You know, how do you get to work? And is the place that you worked at even still there? I mean, that's the... We need cars because cars are gone

yeah i think the car's flooded too that's right yeah no car well you know i talked to a guy so he's a an asphalt uh trucker and of course i told you trucks and trailers have come in from around the country this wonderful gentleman has a new dump truck he works for an asphalt company out of tennessee and it's one of our largest asphalt companies in the southeast, they got a bid to come fix some roads, but the main facility was gone because of the floods. And so this company received a bid. He lost 59 pieces of equipment. And then you have to ask yourself, my gracious, how crazy is the volume and force of the water

that 59 pieces of asphalt lay in equipment could get destroyed? So I look at that and in a normal time, he'd be glad to have that kind of job. That's a huge job. It's a huge bid, but here he gets a bid, no equipment to serve it. And even if he could, his men can't get to and from work right now. Wow. Yeah.

It's going to be a real litigious situation that the difference between a rain and a flood you know as you point out don't use the word flood you know use don't use the word flood yeah rain and wind and everything but they're going to say that it's a flood that's where the fight is going to be i can see that being really litigious uh so it's it's such a bad situation and and again it was important to have you on so that people know this is an ongoing situation it's going to go on for a very very long time as we're talking about all these different aspects that are here but it's going to pass out of the the news uh cycle everybody's going to get interested in politics and all the rest of the

stuff and and uh there'll be another storm another hurricane somewhere just as we see a lot of a lot of the attention was redirected away from north carolina because of milton coming in this last week and so that type of thing is going to be there but the needs continue on there and again if people want to help it is we love w n c as in western north Carolina, WeLoveWNC at GiveSendGo. And I guess there's links there to your page there under LeeSells.com. You've got a page, and I guess you've got a link back to that from probably the easiest way for them to find it is going to GiveSendGo and look at WeLoveWNC. It is so wonderful to see people helping other people. And it's tragic that this has happened. But I think that is a silver lining that is there.

And it's an important lesson for everybody to see throughout the country. And anything else that you would like to say? I mean, we've got a little bit more time. What would you like to stress to people? Well, one thing I would just like to say is that it was disturbing to me as somebody who I read a lot, I follow a lot of the information trails, and I didn't realize how deep the overall distrust is of not just our government, but of our traditional organizations like the Red Cross. I watched the Red Cross drag their feet

coming to town because they said it was too dangerous to get here. But then I saw the leaked emails from the current administration that said they were going to delay their response because it was not safe. So I wonder if the Red Cross was following the government. But that would explain why nobody trusts them. And it's just, it's a shame that we fall into that as a society that we no longer trust our government. I certainly don't trust big pharma. I don't trust the school system, as you mentioned in your your piece before I came on. I don't trust most of these relief organizations. And I thought that my opening up, you know, chance for people to give me their donations that I could fill my truck up with some supplies. I did not anticipate that so many people said, hey lady,

I saw on the internet in a video, you seem more trustworthy than big organizations and FEMA. And so when they've sent me these gifts, they've thanked me. They know that I'm directing the dollars to actual neighbors. And all of them have said, just please keep going around FEMA because they understand that the speed is for the need. And it's encouraging and discouraging at the same time. But then I remember how much my grandmother, oh, she longed for the end times. And I remind myself it's a privilege to get to live in them.

And so all I can do is be a laborer in the harvest and I'm grateful for everybody that's laboring as well those that are doing the the helicopter lifts and the ATV search and rescues and cutting logs to get people out of driveways and you you really do see the best in people and hopefully we as a people will decide that we've had enough of the corrupt elites that diminish us and we will either put this back to rights like happened with the the people of israel so long ago or god's gonna he's gonna have his way so that's right i hope everybody in the sound of my voice chooses jesus and chooses to repent before you miss your chance i have to talk that

in there oh absolutely absolutely yeah and that's the key thing you miss your chance. I have to talk that in there. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's the key thing. You know, it used to be that it was all about the community, about helping neighbors. And as you pointed out, we knew who needed help. So, you know, once you institutionalize this stuff, what you're doing is you're institutionalizing inefficiencies and graft and corruption and that type of stuff.

And it is at the point now where everybody sees these established institutions and we, we don't trust them. That's why it is so important for individuals like you to step up and to do the right thing. And, and it is great to see that. And you've gotten a good deal of support there on give,

send, go. And so again, it is, we love W N C is how you can keep track of what is happening there. And, um, we've been talking to Lee Brown. Thank you so much for what you're doing for stepping up with that.

Uh, coming into that area truly is amazing. And I, and I know that it is very challenging, but it's also very blessing to be able to help other people. Uh, we don't ever want to be in a situation where we need the help, but it is wonderful to be able to offer the help. And so thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for stepping up. And we really do appreciate the example that is being set there

by all the people voluntarily stepping in and helping their neighbor. It's great to see that that has not died out in America. It hasn't been smothered by this massive bureaucracy of these corrupt institutions that we see, both public and private. It's great to see people just stepping up on the spur of the moment and doing this type of thing. Thank you so much for what you do. Appreciate it.

Well, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you to you and your listeners and viewers. Thank you. Thank you, Lee. We're going to take a quick break, folks, and we will be right back. Stay with us. ¶¶ © transcriptF-WATCH TV 2021 liberty it's your move and now the david knight show