‘I’ve never seen such devastation.’ Vita Plus truck driver describes trip to Asheville, N.C., following hurricane

By Cheyenne Thomas Mike Timmler of Loyal has been to many places following a natural disaster. As a truck driver, Timmler has taken loads of donated supplies to help people in need when a devastating event occurs. But in all his years of truck driving, he has never seen devastation like he did when he saw the damage in Asheville, N.C., following the landfall of Hurricane Helene when he and six other truck drivers delivered supplies from Wisconsin on Oct. 4-7.

The effort Timmler was a part of was spearheaded by Riffey Transport out of Reedsburg. Timmler said he is good friends with Wade Riffey, who works for the company. He was the one who told Timmler about the plan to send trucks filled with donated items down to Asheville, with the original plan to send two trucks. They received far more donations than expected, requiring six truck drivers to make the trip. Riffey asked if Timmler would be interested.

“Wade said they needed another truck and trailer,” he said. “So I called my boss at Vita Plus to ask what I should do, if I could take the truck down there. They took it up the line and got it all approved for taking the truck.”

With the permission from Vita Plus, Timmler was able to join the other truck drivers in Reedsburg on Oct. 4. His truck was loaded with bottles of water while the other trucks were loaded with other much-needed supplies for the victims of the hurricane. Once they were loaded up, they set out, leaving Reedsburg around 9 p.m. on Friday evening. They drove through the night to reach North Carolina, avoiding a great deal of traffic. One thing the drivers were unable to avoid, however, was the impact the hurricane had on Asheville and the surrounding area.

“Well, it was challenging,” said Timmler. “We couldn’t come in from the west stretch of I-40 because it wasn’t there anymore. It was covered in mud. We had to go through Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia on I-40 from the east to get in.”

When they finally reached their destination, Timmler said it was a terrible sight.

“When we got in to see it, it was a mess,” he said. “I’ve done stuff like this in the past, but I’ve never seen devastation like this. There was mud everywhere. There was mud covering the streets. There were cars with the windows smashed out. There were railcars that had been pushed off the rails. It was a mess.”

The truck drivers were directed to one of the drop-off points in the city run by the Samaritan’s Purse organization. Timmler said there are six such drop-off points in Asheville, and five of the trucks got sent to one, while one of the trucks was sent to a different location to deliver its supplies. When they got to the site, he said he expected it to be a simple drop-off. What he was surprised to see was how much of the community of Asheville had come out to volunteer in distributing supplies, showing how people can truly come together in the midst of tragedy.

“We dropped everything off at a charity organization that Wade had contact with,” he said. “I didn’t think that we would interact too much with the people down there.

I thought we would pull the trucks in and forklifts would come and get the supplies out. I didn’t expect to see so many people out there coming out to help. There were people that were from the community that was devastated by this hurricane that were out there helping. Those people had just lost their homes. It was astounding how they could lose so much and still try to help their neighbors get the food and supplies they needed. That was what impacted me the most. How they just rolled up their sleeves and got to work, even though they had lost so much.”

In addition to the bottled water that was sent down in Timmler’s truck, the other trucks in the convoy carried more donations to help. Sleeping bags, canned goods, dog food, diapers, toiletries, medicine, power generators and other much-needed supplies were delivered by the drivers that morning. Some of these donations, Timmler said, came from incredible acts of charity by kind-hearted individuals.

“There was one girl who raised $390 in a fundraiser she had at her school, which grades 8-12 had participated in,” he said. “She used all the money from that to buy bottled water for us to take down. My dispatcher, Keith, sent down six garbage bags full of stuffed animals so that one bag could be given to each driver so we could pass out stuffed animals to the kids while we were down there. The kids sure did have big smiles on their faces, that’s for sure.”

Timmler said efforts are ongoing for more supplies to be sent down to the victims of the hurricane, which will involve other truck drivers. As Vita Plus owned the truck and trailer used in the delivery of the items, Timmler gave a heartfelt thanks to his employers for allowing him to have the opportunity to help others out in their greatest time of need.

“Well, I would definitely do it again,” he said. “I would do it in a heartbeat. But I don’t own my own truck and trailer; the company owns it, and them even giving permission to go out on the road like that for a few days like I was, well, what I’m trying to say is that I drive for a very good company.”

Truckloads of supplies were sent from Reedsburg to Asheville, North Carolina, following the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene. Truck drivers from Vita Plus of Loyal and Riffey Transport of Reedsburg participated in the drive to deliver supplies, delivering six trucks filled with items.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS

Mike Timmler (above) takes a selfie with the Vita Plus truck and trailer he used to transport bottled water (below) to victims of Hurricane Helene.