DUBLIN, Ga. — In Laurens County, people are busy rebuilding the towns after Helene took the lives of two people.
The aftermath of the tragedy also brought help, from people in the same town. You could see that clearly Sunday morning at Pine Forest Methodist Church. They had their power restored Saturday night, but were still without WiFi on Sunday. Senior Pastor Brett Maddocks decided to break tradition, and host church on the lawn. People brought lawn chairs, and shared donuts and coffee together before worship.
"And I'll just be honest with y'all. I don't have a lot. And I don't know what I'm doing. But I don't think any of us really know what we're doing," Maddocks said.
It's still a confusing time for many in the county, who don't have power back yet.
But Maddocks knew one thing—church must go on. He said he would spare the church a long sermon, and focused instead on one simple message:
"It's tied together. We can't hate our neighbor and love God at the same time. And if we love God, we will love our neighbor," Maddocks said.
He encouraged everyone to start helping their community, by going door-to-door and checking in on neighbors. And because there's so much damage in town, Maddocks said there are plenty of opportunities to be a good neighbor. He set up a table at Sunday's service where people could request help from other church members with any clean-up efforts.
He also invited Dublin First Methodist Church to join them at Sunday's service, while they were still getting their church running again. Together, the two churches helped answer the calls for help around town. Chad Price is a member of Dublin First Methodist Church and was clearing a tree at the house of a Dublin woman who's battling cancer.
"The ones that can, need to go help the ones that can't," Price said.
He said he's helped out with tree damage at seven other houses on Saturday, and also went to help in other counties that are worse off than Laurens County. He even brings his children along to help.
"Right now, we've got to come together as a community. We've got to—there's, there's so many people in need," Price said.
Power is slowly coming back to Laurens County, and you can view a map of outages here.
According to Dublin Mayor Joshua Kight, power should be restored to about 90% capacity throughout the city by Wednesday at 11:00 p.m.
Kight said Dublin has two water sources, but only one of them is working right now, so they are asking people to conserve water and only use it for essential needs. It is a stable, non-emergency situation and there is no need to boil water.
City Hall just got power back on Saturday, but they are still working to get internet restored. They will re-open on Wednesday.
Kight said the number one goal right now is "life safety issues" and once those are resolved, they will move on to other priorities. The city has been working with neighborhood-based charity and church organizations to provide resources around town, and will continue that partnership this week as power is still being restored.
All future updates regarding food distribution, power updates, school updates and closures can be found on the Dublin Laurens County Emergency Management Agency's Facebook page and website.
They are working with the Red Cross and other similar groups to plan distribution sites. They are still waiting on the Biden administration to approve a federal emergency declaration which would activate FEMA resources.
Kight said he's proud of how much Dublin's come together from this tragedy, and encourages everyone to keep looking out for each other.