First off, a serious thank you to PNWguerrilla for traveling thousands of miles to physically distribute about $70,000 worth of new military winter gear. As we drove a few hours towards NC, our original point of contact bailed on us and we had to find a new location. My local guide knew of 1 last church we could check in with (Emmanuel Baptist) - Within 15 minutes of showing up at this church, the pastor embraced our mission with open arms and agreed to let us use the church as a distribution center. These people didn’t know who we were yet they allowed us to sleep in their church and even fed us 3 meals a day, true Southern hospitality and we ended up forming a close bond with those people pretty fast. After pulling a 24 hour stint we managed to organize the winter gear as best as possible to be prepared to hand it out to all those in need.

Also yes - We were all open carrying our sidearms and rifles. Not only did the church allow us to use their building as a distribution center, they also requested we act as a security detail as well. Looting and those with lesser interests was still a problem throughout the entire region in Western NC. The local Sheriff and Police Departments also came by and thanked us for acting as security for this now distribution center because it took a little bit off of their list on things they needed to both do and areas they needed to patrol as well

After 48 straight hours of distributing thousands of blankets, woobies, scarves, gloves, hats, ponchos, etc.. And maybe 3-4 hours of sleep in between..

We then received word from one of the locals that there was still an entire community that had been cut off just 19 minutes away. Given that it had almost been three full weeks after the storm, we were a bit skeptical but nonetheless decided to load up our trucks with as much winter gear as we had left to go and recon this community. Unfortunately, the Intel that we were given was true