AccuWeather freelance correspondent and North Carolina resident Andy Coates was live on the AccuWeather Network to tell his story on covering 2024's Hurricane Helene.
00:00Joining us now is Andy Coates, an AccuWeather Freelance videographer and correspondent for the past decade.
00:09Andy has covered hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and severe weather with us.
00:14But Hurricane Helene presented challenges unlike any he faced before.
00:19He covered landfall in Florida, then learned his community in western North Carolina was devastated.
00:24From documenting the disaster to helping neighbors rebuild, Andy has spent the last year telling the story of recovery and living it himself.
00:33Andy, you were on the ground for Helene's landfall, then moved to Keaton Beach the morning after.
00:40What stands out to you about those first hours covering the storm?
00:46Allie and I were in Tallahassee for the storm, and I would have never imagined that night that it would cause the damage and be a part of my life for the next year.
00:54Of any storm I thought I would be interviewed with you guys talking to your anniversary with, it would not have been Helene that night in Tallahassee.
01:01All the media crews were there.
01:03It was heavy wind and a lot of rain, but not a lot of damage.
01:07We stayed up really late trying to get to, I mean, there was a tree that went down late at night and hit a car in an apartment building.
01:14And literally we were running out to anything like that even because there was so little damage in Tallahassee.
01:18And then at first daylight, we go to Keaton Beach and literally they're trying to navigate.
01:24We're having the one lane of the roads open and it's just covered in trees.
01:28So we're trying our best to get to Keaton Beach.
01:30And when you get there, the damage was pretty severe.
01:32I mean, it's a lot of people's second homes, but they're just most things were in the ocean.
01:37And we just started interviewing people there, but there's no cell phone service.
01:41There's no way.
01:42And I mean, we literally left right away in the morning.
01:44So there was no way to communicate with Accueta before we left.
01:47So I had no idea that of what was happening until we interviewed somebody there in Keaton Beach who told me, you know, just in the conversation of what had happened to him and what he's going through and what had happened to his home.
02:00He asked me where I'm from and I say Asheville.
02:02And it's always a nice, usual icebreaker and people usually say, oh, the Billboard state, I love that.
02:07And he looked at me and his whole face dropped and he's like, have you talked to anyone of home?
02:12And I'm like, I don't know what you mean.
02:14I text my wife last night, everything's fine.
02:16And she said, it's getting a little crazy here, but nothing, nothing out of control.
02:20So I had no way of communicating with anybody.
02:24I mean, we had to leave Keaton Beach to even have cell phone service to call you guys to figure out how bad Astra was.
02:30And then obviously, anytime I called, you know, my elderly parents or my wife, it just goes straight to voicemail.
02:36And I know that no power and no cell phone service.
02:39Documented disasters is your job, something you've done for years.
02:42But what was it like when your disaster was your own?
02:45We have about a minute left in the show.
02:48And I understand, but it's just it's just such a gut punch.
02:50It's just so sad.
02:51I mean, every day you see people who you see at the grocery every day and you know that everybody's been through something that they'll never forget and never fully recover from.
03:00And yet, what do you do?
03:02I mean, I tried to just go out and do whatever I could of volunteering and doing a lot of trees on houses and stuff.
03:09And so many bridges were out and so many people couldn't even get to their homes that I was just trying to do stories to just drone shots to just send in so that people could see what was happening here and get some help.
03:20But every day is a new challenge.
03:24And every day you see something that's like, oh, my gosh.
03:27And then you try to go away on a hike or something and you see where mudslides come down before and they've got the road open back up again.
03:33But every day, every day, it's something.
03:37Andy Coates, AccuWeather Freelance videographer and correspondent.
03:41Thanks for telling you your story.
03:43And we're so happy that everybody is finally beginning to recover.
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