VALDOSTA- Eliza McCall, Chief Programming Officer at the Second Harvest Office in Lowndes County had a harrowing experience when Hurricane Helene tore through Valdosta in the wee hours of Friday morning. Despite this, she is still pushing forward to help her community, putting others’ needs ahead of her own.
McCall, the sister of Lauren Radford of Thomasville, had prior knowledge of the storm due to her work with Second Harvest.
“Because I work at Second Harvest and we are a disaster relief agency, I’ve gained far more knowledge about disasters and how to prepare,” she said.
McCall said she made sure her home had necessary items such as medicine, non-perishable goods, and water. But, she also kept her “go bag” handy.
“I always keep a go bag in my car,” she said. “It has Tylenol, a toothbrush, a change of clothes, and PJs.”
With her go bags at the ready and a generator she and her husband purchased after Hurricane Idalia, McCall thought she was prepared.
She said she had invited her sister Erin and Erin’s son to stay with them, as they only live four houses down.
McCall had been watching the storm due to her job since it was a tropical cyclone and had attended all of the Emergency Operation Center meetings. However, when the track began ticking more toward Valdosta, she began to get nervous.
She said she collected pillows, blankets, bean bag chairs, and makeshift mattresses to put in her hallway.
“Our hallway met all the hallmarks of where to shelter, so I knew this is where I wanted us to be,” she said.
When the emergency wind warning went off, Erin and Eliza gathered their kids into the hallway and began watching Rob Nucatola on the weather. Eliza’s husband, Mac continued to watch the weather in their bedroom, but as the wind continued to gust, Eliza felt like it was time to get the go bags out of her son Sam’s room.
After retrieving the bags, she began to hear trees fall.
“Our home was built in the late 50s in Valdosta and one of the things we loved about it were the trees,” Eliza said. “We had pines and magnolias and we lost about 12 during Hurricane Idalia, but we started to hear more fall outside.”
Eliza called her husband to come into the hallway, and as he was walking out of the bedroom, disaster struck.
A huge tree fell on the home.
“The kids were screaming and so Erin and I threw ourselves on top of them and I began to yell for my husband,” Eliza said.
After calling out his name, she could faintly hear “Eliza,” but there was no other response.
Erin, being a nurse, told Eliza to stay put and watch the kids, as she went to see what happened.
When Erin entered the room, she found the tree had crumpled Sam’s room and pierced her bedroom, while taking out the roof structure. The tree had also knocked Mac in the back of his head and slid down his abdomen.
Erin grabbed Mac and helped him into the hallway, where both she and Eliza could tell something was not right.
“He had lost color in his face, and eventually lost consciousness,” Eliza said.
Erin began dialing 911 at approximately 12:35 a.m., as Eliza attempted to help Mac regain consciousness.
“I began slapping him,” she recalled. “I think I slapped him four times and he jerked. We originally thought he was having a seizure, but when he opened his left eye, his pupil was huge and we believed he had blown his pupil.”
After seeing his eyes and movements, Erin became concerned Mac may have internal bleeding. Things only progressed when Mac became sleepy, as the ceiling began to leak.
Eliza moved her kids further down the hallway and tried to make Mac as comfortable as possible, but he was dozing off. Eliza said as he tried to go to sleep he made a comment that they would need to call the insurance agency when everything was over.
“I began frantically asking him what else we would need to do to try and keep him awake,” she said.
After what seemed like hours, Eliza got a text from her neighbor that a firetruck was stuck about a block away.
The firetruck was on its way to get Mac when a tree fell behind it and another in front of it. Firefighters got out their chainsaws and began to try and cut their way through to get to Mac. But, in no time, they came up with a backup plan and sent ATVS to get Mac.
Just as the ATV firefighters arrived, Eliza’s neighbor guided the stuck crew through her yard and into Eliza’s home.
As the firefighters gathered around Mac, it was determined an ATV would need to take him to the hospital, which was down one generator due to the storm.
It took nearly 45 minutes to get Mac to the hospital by ATV, where he was later discharged with a clear CT of his belly and head.
After getting Mac out alive, Eliza said her priority became getting her children and puppy out because she didn’t know if the roof would cave in.
At 8 a.m., Eliza and Erin exited Eliza’s house for the first time. They saw the firetruck from earlier still trying to cut its way through the debris and saw the massive three trees that had struck her home. A total of 26 trees fell throughout Eliza’s yard that night.
But, her work was not done, she dropped her kids safely at a neighbor’s and waited for a warm embrace from her siblings and parents who were staying in Nanville.
After checking in with her family, Eliza and Mac assessed the damage over the weekend, learning the tree went completely through the floor and into their crawl space, displacing them for the next six months.
“A company is coming to store our stuff for the next six months,” she said. “We got our stuff as best we could, but other than the shoes on my son’s feet and the flip-flops I had kept, everything else was under debris.”
Eliza, Mac, and the children are now moving into her dad’s house that he grew up in.
“It hasn’t been lived in since my aunt passed away from COVID-19 two years ago,” she explained. “We are trying to settle into a new place and new routine, but we feel incredibly blessed, knowing so many people are displaced.”
Now that her family is secure, Eliza has returned to work, where she truly understands the motto she often tells people.
“I always say people are only one thing away from being hungry, whether that be a job loss, pandemic, or in this case a natural disaster,” she said.
Everything Eliza had is now gone, but she sees the hurricane as an equalizer for people who may never understand what it’s like to have to rely on a food pantry.
“Folks can now have empathy for people who struggle with food insecurity,” she said.
Eliza is working around the clock to help everywhere from Ware County to Seminole County to provide food and needed goods, as she still tries to figure out her own family’s needs.
“It’s difficult to pinpoint the things we need,” she said. “I’m sure there will be things in two months from now, but mostly we need grace because it’s a lot to process. Everyone is struggling with something.”
For families who are struggling, help is just around the corner, as Eliza is on a mission to serve the most needy as best she can.
She asks that those looking to contribute, donate $1 to Second Harvest. For every $1 donated, nine meals can be given out to families in situations similar to Eliza’s.