Tre Lamb describes ETSU being stuck traveling during Hurricane Helene as 'a terrible feeling'

East Tennessee State coach Tre Lamb had no idea what he and his team were in for when they piled on the buses this weekend. The Buccaneers were on their way to Charleston, South Carolina to face The Citadel and knew they needed to stay weather aware.

Hurricane Helene was making its way through the region after making landfall in Florida causing flooding across North Carolina. Lamb thought he had planned well enough to keep his team out of harm’s way as they departed on Interstate-26.

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Unfortunately, he would soon discover that was not the case.

It didn’t take long after their departure for the Buccaneers to run into trouble as the interstate closed behind and in front of them. Other nearby interstates were also shut down, leaving them stranded in the middle of the highway.

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“It was a terrible feeling,” Lamb said on the Andy and Ari podcast. “You feel responsible because you’re the head coach and it’s your call. You sit there and kick yourself thinking you coulda done things different. But at the moment, we had to react on our feet. There were a lot of decisions that had to be made.”

ETSU found a nearby shoe store to take refuge out but would quickly realize it needed to move elsewhere as the water continued to rise. The team eventually moved to a Burger King parking lot on higher ground, where it would stay for several hours waiting for the storm to pass.

They watched as the parking lot they were just in continued to fill with water, reaching about 10 feet deep in Lamb’s estimation. The scene around them was complete chaos, resembling an apocalypse type of situation.

As he saw others fighting for their lives, Lamb understood that no matter how bad things seemed, they were some of the lucky ones.

“It put things in perspective, because there was literally families being rescued and walking out of the water 50 feet in front of us,” he said. “We were watching it happen. Little kids, people losing their homes, flooded trailers, flooded parking lots and the water was just rising and rising. I kept saying to the coaches, ‘It could be worse guys. We could be fighting for our lives. We coulda lost our home today. We’re gonna get out of here no matter how long it takes. We’re gonna get to higher ground and we’re gonna be OK.'”

There was no cell service in the area which further complicated things for the Buccaneers. They were unable to receive updates on the weather or when the interstate might be safe to start driving on again.

They instead had to rely on word of mouth from others in the area. Eventually, the team encounter a man traveling from Michigan was offered to drive some of the coaches into town to use a bathroom at a local hotel, where they were able to make a few phone calls.

They later went to Ingles, a local grocery store, around the time that it started to get dark. They discovered a manager inside who offered them all the food they wanted on the house, yet another person willing to lend a helping hand to people in need.

“We pretty much raided the Ingles with sandwiches and sandwich meat and peanut butter sandwiches,” Lamb said. “Then we drove to the homeless shelter because we knew it was on high ground. We were gonna park at the airport, but the airport was flooded with people because that was kind of a safe haven. …So really two good Samaritans in this whole deal. The guy at Ingles, we’re gonna send him a care package and invite him to a game.”

From there, the team drove to a homeless shelter where they set up for the evening and started to fall asleep. Around 1:30 in the morning, the defensive coaches were awoken to a loud knocking on the bus window.

They were startled at first with it being so late and in an unfamiliar area. However, they soon came to realize that it was the same man from Michigan whom the coaches had hitchhiked with earlier.

He had returned with good news: the highway was now open. The team sent a state trooper that had accompanied them on the trip to check out the situation, and once he confirmed that it was good to go, they immediately hit the road.

The Buccaneers arrived in Charleston around 2:30 a.m. and immediately called the director of football operations, whom they were unable to contact for the past 14 hours. Now able to relax a little bit, they ordered some Waffle House and tried to figure out what the next move was.

“I called her and said, ‘Order as many waffles as you can and as many breakfast sandwiches as they can make. Pick them up and have them ready for our guys,'” Lamb said. “There was a call in the morning at 6:30 with Citadel’s athletic director, the conference commissioner and the presidents to figure out what’s gonna happen with this game. I said, ‘I want to play it no matter what. We’ve been through hell and back. Our kids wanna play.’ That was the only option we had, because we weren’t making it back to Johnson City. The roads going north were a disaster. So once we got out of the flooding, I didn’t care if we stayed in Charleston for four days as long as we were safe and away from the damage and the flooding.”

After all that, ETSU got ready for kickoff the next day at 5 p.m. They understandably weren’t the sharpest after all they had been through, but still managed to pull out a 34-17 victory.

More important than the result of the game, however, Lamb believes they came closer as a team because of what they went through. Thankfully, everyone ended up all right.

“The biggest thing is, we grew together on that trip,” he said. “When things like that happen, it’s easy to get annoyed with each other. It’s easy to fight and moan and complain, but our guys didn’t do that. They made the most of it. They were still in good spirits. Laughing, joking.

“…Really proud of the ways our guys responded. We’ve got a resilient group and we really didn’t make any excuses and I’m proud of that.”

As for Lamb himself, the situation tested him as a leader. He admitted that he was scared at times, but who wouldn’t be when facing such a serious situation?

Ultimately, he too feels like he learned something from going through it.

“That was certainly the most difficult position I’ve been in in my five years as a head coach,” he said. “Anxiety levels were through the roof, but I was trying not to let anybody see it. I was never necessarily scared for our lives, but I had visions of us getting on top of the building or on top of buses and that was kind of my nightmare. I did not want to get to that point. .

“..I think our players handled it probably better than I did. They slept on the bus most of the time. But the frustrating part was just no contact with the outside world. We really were trying to get somewhere we could get cell service and we couldn’t find it. But anxiety was high. I don’t like those situations. I thought we reacted well as a coaching staff and our trainers did a great job, but it was certainly scary.”