WUOT Covers Hurricane Helene, Raises Funds For The Region In Partnership With East Tennessee Foundation
Caption: WUOT Reporter and All Things Considered host Jacqui Sieber (center) and WUOT Reporter Pierce Gentry (right) interview Carter County Public Information Officer Ivan Sanders (left) on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. The reporters traveled to Carter County to report on the city of Elizabethton and nearby towns, which saw some of the worst of the flooding wrought by Tropical Storm Helene. (Justin Hicks/Kentucky Public Radio)
Pierce Gentry never imagined he’d be covering one of the region’s largest natural disasters just weeks after becoming a part-time reporter at WUOT 91.9 FM. A Knoxville native and senior majoring in journalism and media at the College of Communication and Information, Gentry said covering the traumatic impact of Hurricane Helene on East Tennessee is something he hopes he doesn’t ever have to do again.
“It’s unimaginable, unless you see it,” he said. “It’s daunting to cover as a reporter, especially as we’re a small team here. For this whole portion of the state to be affected, it’s overwhelming, because where do you go? There are so many people who’ve been affected, who do you interview? In less than twenty-four hours, there erupted a million different stories to tell.”
Community Coverage
But Gentry and the rest of the WUOT news team did their best to make those editorial choices as they kept listeners up to date on the flooding and its aftermath in East Tennessee. They started on Friday, Sept. 27, in Sevier County where the initial expectation of the storm’s impact was minor flooding. It wasn’t long before the call came in that the city of Hartford in neighboring Cocke County was under water—an escalation that took the region and the journalists by surprise.
Gentry, along with fellow reporter and CCI master’s student, Jacqui Sieber, rushed to the city of Newport in Cocke County to learn more. That trip was the first of many throughout a grueling weekend of working on overtime to report from the many areas devastated by flash flooding.
While informing listeners about conditions was a priority, Sieber and Gentry both said that telling stories from the perspective of those impacted was also paramount.
“I try to remove myself from it to really highlight or exemplify what these people are going through. It’s hard, because you’re walking through and then you’re leaving, you’re not there all the time,” Sieber said. “I feel like as a reporter, I’ve grown to actually learn these communities better that I never really would have otherwise encountered. It was a different experience; I think it’s made me open my mind a bit more and humbled me.”
Sieber and Gentry both noted that the entire WUOT news team was integral to their coverage efforts, which also includes reporters Jon Knowles and Riley Thompson (‘22). The team has produced several stories and will continue to cover the ongoing aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Though Gentry doesn’t deny the value of elevating impacted communities’ stories, he also felt that it wasn’t enough. As someone with roots in the region, it was particularly heartbreaking for him to see the devastation and distress.
“It’s hard to be a reporter and visit those areas that have been affected and visit those people who have been affected and not be able to offer them anything tangible,” he said. “I’m not a first responder or FEMA or TEMA personnel. I don’t have any physical resources to help you recover, I’m just here to tell your story and get the word out.”
Community Response
Gentry’s feelings of powerlessness were alleviated when WUOT Director Jody Hamblett quickly arranged for the station to do a one-day, on-air fundraising drive for the local nonprofit East Tennessee Foundation. The effort ultimately raised over $43,000 from more than 300 supporters.
“It makes me proud to be a part of the station because we were able to provide that channel to the foundation. It also makes me proud to be an East Tennessean and Knoxvillian— that many people donated money because we asked them to,” Gentry said. “Throughout my reporting on this, that has been the one biggest takeaway: that East Tennessee is a special place because, even in the face of travesty and devastation, we all still come together and it’s a beautiful community.”
Hamblett said she arranged the fundraiser and chose East Tennessee Foundation because both WUOT and the nonprofit have deep roots in the region and share a common goal of specifically serving this area. She also appreciates the way the foundation works with communities and organizations to ensure money is spent effectively.
“As we were working through this coverage, I kept thinking to myself that there’s got to be more that we can do as a community organization, as WUOT. We know that our audience cares, and we know that they’re civically minded and engaged, and we wanted to provide an avenue for people to participate in whatever way they can, whether that be by giving $5 or $500,” she said.
Keith Barber, the foundation’s president and CEO, said the East Tennessee Foundation has almost forty years of operating history in the region and experience with disaster relief. In 2011, the foundation established the Neighbor to Neighbor Disaster Relief Fund as a response to extensive storm damage in the area. That fund, which the foundation refers to as the N2N fund, was revived after the 2016 Gatlinburg wildfires and again during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020.
Barber said the foundation and its N2N fund will help communities rebuild long after Hurricane Helene is out of the national eye. This disaster will have long-reaching effects, and the needs won’t dissipate just because the rest of the country’s response has, he said.
“We’re in a very unique position; where most folks had to disperse their funds or want to disperse their funds in a fastidious fashion, we can hold them a little bit and get a better understanding of what the community needs are—needs not just today, but two months from now, or even maybe two years from now,” he explained.
The East Tennessee Foundation doesn’t conduct programming but rather acts as a fiscal agent for organizations on the ground in affected communities. Any nonprofit, church, or government agency can apply for its grants, which allows those organizations to be nimble in their decision making and response to needs.
“When you talk to the people who are really on the ground, what they need the most is the flexibility that monetary resources provide and that’s one of the reasons why we did it. We’re very proud that WUOT is part of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a land-grant institution, and we’re providing this news coverage and fulfilling our mission and empowering East Tennessee,” Hamblett said, noting that, even when power and internet goes out, someone can turn on a battery-powered radio and get valuable news from the station.
And, just like the East Tennessee Foundation, Hamblett said the WUOT news team will be steadfast in the coming years with continued coverage of the storm’s enduring mark on the region.
“We’ve reported the tragedy and now is the time for hope and healing, so we hope to report on those small victories. We also expect there to be larger impacts, ecological and possibly cultural. There are so many impacts from disasters. I think the biggest takeaway I have had from the start is that we’re local public radio, we’re not leaving any time soon and we’re going to keep covering,” Gentry said.
Donations to support WUOT’s Neighbor to Neighbor Disaster Relief Fund can be made online at: www.etf.org/wuotn2n.