News

LIGHTNING PHOTOS: H2O to go

A Cason Builders Supply truck pulls out for Columbia, S.C.

By Bill Moss, Published: October 12, 2015

Two tractor-trailer loads carrying 90,000 bottles of fresh water pulled out of Cason Builders Supply in East Flat Rock at 10 a.m. Monday en route to Columbia, S.C., to quench the thirst of flood victims.

Local residents filled the two trailers last Thursday and Friday in a huge outpouring of support for the storm victims in Columbia, where floodwarters overwhelmed treatment plants and made tapwater undrinkable.

"They said they wouldn't be able to lift the boil-water order until next week," Cason owner Chip Gould said as he helped oversee the loading of the last seven pallets a city public works truck hauled to the contractor yard.

Gould was one of a handful of likeminded people who got the idea early Thursday to launch a relief effort for the South Carolina neighbors.

"He called Rocky (Hyder) before I called and said, 'Let's get the water,'" said City Councilman Jeff Miller, who helped create the relief effort.

While Gould was calling Hyder, Miller was talking to City Manager John Connet and County Manager Steve Wyatt. In less than an hour, the officials planned and anounced the event.

Miller said social media drove a big response. Email blasts went out to HonorAir's email list. The Flat Rock Playhouse used its email list to get the word out. Miller sent the message to his large politics and government contacts list.

"We were swinging for the fence with one full truck and we wound up with that," he said of the two full loads. "Of course that's Hendersonville."

In a symbolic show of teamwork between the city and county, a sheriff's cruiser and city police car escorted the tractor-trailers to the county line, where a Polk County sheriff's escort picked them up and led them to the state line.