The ETSU football team traveled through Helene's devastation; now the Bucs hope you'll help
To learn how to help people affected by Helene in east Tennessee, visit the American Red Cross.
As Tre Lamb came to grips with the possibility that he and his team might be stuck living in their buses for three days, he looked out the window and realized he needed to be thankful.
“There were literally families being rescued and walking out of the water 50 feet in front of us,” said Lamb, East Tennessee State’s 35-year-old head coach. “We were watching it happen. Little kids. People losing their homes. Flooded trailers. Flooded parking lots. And the water was just rising and rising. And it kind of put it in perspective.”
Lamb turned to his assistant coaches, who had transitioned from game-planning for Saturday’s game at The Citadel to helping manage a trip through a disaster that started at 10:30 a.m. Friday and would end … well, they didn’t know when it would end.
Still, Lamb told his staff, it could be a lot worse. “We could be fighting for our lives,” Lamb said. “We could have lost our home today. We’re going to get out of here, no matter how long it takes. We’re going to keep getting to higher ground, and we’re going to be OK.”
Not long after, ETSU’s buses moved again seeking that higher ground. An hour later, the parking lot where they sat when Lamb had that revelation was 10 feet underwater.
Sitting in his office Monday game-planning for Chattanooga, Lamb was still processing the weekend events. The Buccaneers didn’t get stranded for three days. They made it to Charleston, S.C., played the game (and won), thanks in part to the generous manager of an Ingles grocery store and a man some ETSU assistants met while hitchhiking.
Mostly, Lamb was grateful. Not that his team had a crazy trip and won a football game. But that everyone made it home safe and sound. He wants everyone to hear his team’s story not because of anything special the Bucs did. He wants everyone to understand the scope of the devastation in east Tennessee and western North Carolina following Hurricane Helene because ETSU coaches and players saw much of it firsthand. Members of their campus community continue to deal with the aftermath and probably will for months. Power is out. Water is out. Dozens of people in nearby counties are missing.
“This area is going to take a long time to recover,” Lamb said. “This is a couple years worth of damage.”
Lamb continues to kick himself for his decision to leave when it did and to take that specific route, but he was working with the information he had at the time. He didn’t know when they left that the Buccaneers would reach the point of no return for this particular trip after about 10 minutes of what normally would be about a five-hour drive. That came when the buses crossed a bridge that spanned the Nolichucky River. Not long after, the bridge collapsed. Turning around wouldn’t have been an option.
Interstate 26 is a straight shot from the Tri-Cities region to Charleston, but as they drove, that road was closed behind them and in front of them. The next logical option was to try to get to Interstate 40, which would allowed them to travel east and then south through Charlotte, but the storm had closed vast sections of that road. Entire lanes had crumbled in some stretches.
The team wound up stranded on Friday afternoon in Fletcher, N.C., just south of Asheville and just north of the South Carolina border. At this point, no one’s phones had service. The police officer who accompanies the team on road trips had a satellite phone, but even that wasn’t working. They had no way to reach the players’ families or the ETSU administration or the team’s operations director, who had gone to Charleston ahead of time to prepare for the Bucs’ arrival. They initially stopped in a shoe store parking lot, but floodwaters kept rising. They drove up a hill to a Burger King parking lot, but floodwaters kept rising.
The only contact with the outside world came through rescue personnel evacuating local residents from their homes and helping them get to higher ground. The news was grim. The earliest the interstates might open, according to the information first responders had at that time, was 5 p.m. Saturday afternoon. It might take until Tuesday, Lamb was told.
Lamb tried to maintain a calm outside appearance, but in his mind questions raged.
- How do we find food and water?
- How do we contact the players’ families?
The food and water was answered by one of the angels the Bucs met along the way. Several coaches walked to a nearby Ingles supermarket and found it locked and dark. They knocked on the door anyway. The manager came to the door. When the coaches explained who they were and what happened, the manager invited them in. The store had no power. He told them to take whatever they needed. So they grabbed carts and loaded them with pre-made sandwiches, bread and peanut butter. They took the food back to the bus, and dinner was served.
The safest, driest place to park for the night was near the local homeless shelter. Players got out of the buses and stretched. They played music and sang, trying to make the best of the situation. Around 9 p.m. assistant coaches Joe Scelfo and Tyler Dell needed to use the bathroom, and they’d heard there might be a nearby hotel with cell phone service on the top floor.
So they started walking.
Along the way, a man in an electric car stopped. He was from Michigan, and he was stranded in North Carolina as well. The coaches explained their situation, and he told them to climb in. He took them to the hotel. The rumors were true. Their phones did work there. They immediately got word to their families and to ETSU officials, who then passed all the information they had along to the players’ parents.
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That was a small victory, but the man in the electric car wasn’t done helping the Bucs. Around 1:30 a.m., everyone slept on the bus while the police officer stood guard. Someone knocked on the window of the defensive bus. Given their location, any knock was met with immediate suspicion. I need to talk to Coach Joe, the man said.
After some explanation, the defensive coaches brought the man to the offensive bus. They found Scelfo sleeping in the luggage hold underneath. They woke him up, and he confirmed the man was the same good Samaritan who had given he and Dell a ride to the hotel. Interstate 26 just reopened, the man said. He had driven back to tell them. If you leave now, he said, you can make it through.
Lamb sent the police officer ahead to ensure the route was passable. About a half-hour later, he got his answer. They’d have to swerve to avoid some downed trees and flooded spots, but they could make it.
The buses rolled.
Sure enough, I-26 was open. When the buses reached Columbia, S.C., everyone’s phones sprang back to life. Families were called and reassured. Lamb, meanwhile, called ahead to his operations director in Charleston with a middle-of-the-night request that every self-respecting Southerner would understand. Call the nearest Waffle House, he said, and order all the waffles and breakfast sandwiches you can.
When the buses arrived at the Bucs’ Charleston hotel after 4 a.m. Saturday, a Waffle House feast awaited. Less than two hours later, the athletic directors of ETSU and The Citadel had a call with the Southern Conference commissioner. The game was on, but it would be moved to 5 p.m. to give the Bucs a chance to sleep.
They got enough rest. It was sloppy, and ETSU threw three interceptions, but the Bucs won 34-17 thanks to 126 rushing yards from Bryson Irby and 117 from Khamran Laborn and two sacks from Nick Hunter.
The team got back to Johnson City about 6 p.m. Sunday with an incredible story and a newfound appreciation for having a safe, dry place to sleep. Lamb learned a lot about his team over the weekend. “When things like that happen, you can it’s easy to get annoyed with each other. It’s easy to fight and moan and complain,” Lamb said. “But our guys didn’t do that. They made the most of it.”
Now, Lamb wants his team to be a beacon for a region that needs some help and some hope. He’s telling his team’s story to bring attention to the people living through the devastation in the hope that they’ll get some needed help.
The Bucs play Chattanooga in a rivalry game Saturday. Lamb would love if his team could win that one and keep winning until it claims a Southern Conference title, but he knows that no matter what happens the rest of this season, this team’s bond will be unbreakable after this past weekend.
“We’ll be talking about this 40 years from now as a program, as a team, as friends and family,” Lamb said. “I’ll never forget it, and I don’t think our players will either.”