Next month, a dozen students in the college’s Disaster Management and Response Club, led by PSC Assistant Disaster Management Professor Chris Sheach, will travel 900 miles to Buncombe County in North Carolina to help victims of Hurricane Helene recover from the damage.

“This is where the stash is,” Sheach said on Friday, gesturing to the rows and rows of tools inside the college facilities building.

The college’s disaster management program started in 2019 and the club started in 2023. This will be the club’s first outing.

Students will help storm victims, gain real-world experience and do what they love — using big tools to clean up big messes.

Paul Smith’s College sophomore Casey Beltrani loads tools into a trailer at the college on Friday, as she prepares the PSC Disaster Management and Response Club’s trip to help hurricane victims in North Carolina in January. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

They’ve raised $3,600 to fund the trip, with the students themselves paying for a bit more than half of the cost out of their own pockets. They’re still looking for businesses to donate tools or money.

PSC’s Forest Manager John Foppert has family in the Asheville area. He previously attended Warren Wilson College in North Carolina before transferring to PSC, where he now works. When the hurricane struck in September, killing 241 people and creating billions of dollars of damage, he and Sheach started talking right away about relief efforts.

They decided to check in on Smitties, PSC alumni, and found 20 in the impacted area. These Smitties said they were all safe and relatively OK, but their communities need a lot of help.

Some Smitties are offering the students accommodations and connections, and some will volunteer with the cleanup.

The club is also partnering with Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa.

Paul Smith’s College sophomore Casey Beltrani keeps track of tools at the college on Friday, as she prepares the PSC Disaster Management and Response Club’s trip to help hurricane victims in North Carolina in January. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Beltrani is the resource officer for the trip. She’s in charge of all the tools. Though she’s now an arboriculture major instead of disaster management, she loves the disaster management program, especially the physical side.

“I wasn’t originally in the club,” Beltrani said. “But when I heard they were doing this, I was like, ‘I’ve got to get back into it.'”

Abigail Alex is graduating this month, but is making the trip with the club in January because she wants to stay involved. She’s a co-founder of the DMR club and is proud of its growth.

“This kind of feels like something that we’ve been working towards for a long time,” Alex said.

She has disaster response experience through the Paul Smiths-Gabriels Volunteer Fire Department, but has never worked at restoring a disaster site. She wants to better understand the systems and social dynamics that are needed to recover and rebuild after a natural disaster.

Alex said it’s likely the worst thing that’s happened in the victims’ lives, and that it’s a privilege to go down and help.

“How quickly you recover often depends on the availability if your own resources,” Sheach said. “There’s a lot of (Federal Emergency Management Agency) funding available, but it’s a bureaucratic process. It just takes time.”

The same goes for insurance. Delayed resources puts recovery on hold, and water damage gets worse over time, Sheach said. If it’s not handled right away, it gets worse with mold and rot. But insurance and federal funding doesn’t always cover this extra damage.

And victims usually have to empty their house before using relief money to repair it.

Sheach saw this two years ago when he brought students down to Florida during spring break for Hurricane Ian relief efforts. It was six months after the storm, but the homes hadn’t been touched since the hurricane.

DMR club students will be doing a lot of “mucking and gutting,” clearing out homes and small businesses of debris. They’ll go where community sends them. The county emergency manager, FEMA and the state have a list of areas with need.

Some students will work with the state Riverkeepers program to clear up storm debris and housing material from the waterways.

“Everything that blew around ends up in the rivers,” Sheach said.

They go around in canoes with hooks and nets and pull garbage into their boats.

It’s dirty, difficult work, but they love doing it.

“I think you can hear it in our voice,” Sheach said.

PSC Parks and Conservation Management Professor Dave Simmons will guide some students in trail restoration, heading out with chainsaw crews to clean up downed trees, washouts and debris.

Beltrani said the Buncombe County area is similar to the Adirondacks. It relies on tourism for its economy. While roads and trails are closed, small businesses lose revenue. Restoring the trails will help get their economy back on track.

Each student will be in charge of things like housing, food, tools and communications.

“All of those logistics and administrative roles are probably the biggest gap in disaster management,” Sheach said. “Because people don’t know, ‘Hey, I have those skills, but I didn’t know I could use it in disaster management.'”

Disaster management is a growing field, he said. There’s more recognition now than in the past that disasters are not just an individuals’ problem, but a more collective problem for the community, state and nation.

Also, the frequency, number and intensity of natural disasters are increasing. Helene was described as a once-in-500-year storm, but Sheach said the area could get another one of the same intensity next year.

“The climate has changed,” he said.

Sheach wants to do more of these outing in future years.

“The need is not going away. The learning opportunity is not going away,” Sheach said. “It’s something I think we definitely could be doing every year.”

To do this, he said they’re continuing to raise money. As tools break, they’ll need to be repaired or replaced.

To keep these trips financially sustainable, the students’ GoFundMe at tinyurl.com/5duv6fvx is still open to donations, and the college has a way for donors to donate and get a tax receipt at paulsmiths.edu/give by tagging Disaster Management and Response Club in the comments.

DMR club members will be in North Carolina from Jan. 13 to 19, returning to campus two days before classes start.