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On a quiet Wednesday morning on Oct. 2, Greenville-based chef Conner Hinderks was en route to Asheville hauling supplies and food following Hurricane Helene.

“As soon as you get on to [Interstate] 26, you stop sharing traffic with most people,” Hinderks said. “It’s just a bunch of trucks and trailers and everybody’s bringing stuff up, which is really nice.”

Hinderks spent most of his career as a chef in New Orleans. His altruism comes from first-hand experience with the havoc hurricanes can cause in a community.

“Having lived in New Orleans and having lived through Hurricane Ida, which was really, really disruptive down there and just seeing the community come together and really helped protect even its most vulnerable people, and just everybody,” Hinderks said. “It really just kind of stuck with me.”

Hinderks and his partner Christina moved to the Upstate in April, searching for a place to put down roots that was near family and close to the mountains. They fell in love with Greenville and started Asian-inspired eatery Little Secret in the kitchen of Eighth State Brewing in August. The brewery closed in late September.

Then Helene hit. Since he already owned a truck and knew where to find food and supplies at discount rates, Hinderks saw an opportunity to help.

He began by bringing supplies to Asheville’s James Beard Award-winning restaurant, Chai Pani. He posted his plans on social media Sept. 30, stating the intent to carry supplies from Chai Pani in Decatur, Georgia, to its sister restaurant in Asheville. Christina’s family is from Decatur, so it was a serendipitous place to begin.

While in Asheville, he and Christina were told Firestorm Books needed additional supplies. They assessed what the bookstore and coffee shop could use, returned to Greenville to hit Costco and Restaurant Depot, then hauled the second truckload north on Oct. 2.

Between drives, Hinderks volunteered at free cookouts, like the one at Comal 864 on Oct. 1. Many Upstate eateries have banded together to help the Greenville community following the hurricane.

He is totaling about 100 miles per day, collecting supplies in Greenville and shuttling them to North Carolina. The key, Hinderks said, is just starting to help.

“You get enough people that do that and then suddenly you have an entire mutual aid organization growing out of nowhere, and people are getting the resources they need,” he said.

When Greenville-based company Happy Helicopters started a GoFundMe to fly supplies into Western NC, owner Isaiah Burch never expected it to turn into this.

“What I’m seeing is people coming with their cars loaded down that still don’t have power at their home... They’re still without,” Burch said. “I’ve lived all over the country with my flying career and I’ve never lived in a community that is this giving.”

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Pilots from across the Southeast are landing at Greenville Downtown Airport to fly supplies into communities devastated by Helene. We met a trio of pilots from the Atlanta area who said they are bringing water, diapers, formula, and feminine products to Hands of Hope — a pregnancy resource center in Rutherford County, NC that is in desperate need of supplies.

Swamp Rabbit Moving + Walmart have donated trucks to help transport supplies to communities and other airports accessible by road. We’ve also seen individuals with trucks and trailers to support the effort by hauling supplies to the mountains.

As of the time we’re typing this, ~$180,000+ has been raised to keep this effort going.

You can stop by Runway Park at GMU with:

“There’s no wrong answer of stuff to bring as long as it’s sealed, new, non-perishable, or water, you can’t go wrong,” Burch said. “Anything you can bring is going to good use.” You can also volunteer your time to unload cars, sort items, and load them for transport.

GREENVILLE — It started with a few Instagram posts.

Isaiah Burch, who runs the Happy Helicopters tour company in Greenville, announced Sept. 28 he planned to fly a load of supplies into western North Carolina after the region was devastated by the remnants of Hurricane Helene.

That day, donations started trickling in. On Sept. 29 and 30, they began to flow more steadily, and the group of pilots pitching in grew.

By Oct. 1, the parking lot of the Runway Cafe at the Downtown Greenville Airport was flooded with supplies and volunteers, a long line of loaded-down cars stretching down the road waiting to donate. Walmart and Swamp Rabbit Grocery sent large trucks to haul resources north. The traffic director at New Spring Church stepped in to help create an orderly flow. Often, after drivers dropped off their goods, they'd pull out of line and park, whole families getting out to help in the coordination effort.

A small fleet of personal planes and helicopters were flying in and out of the airport, all laden with diapers, canned food, cases of water, tools and gas on their trips north, said Tracy Roberts, a local realtor who helped grow and organize the grassroots effort.

"Everyone has helped out so amazingly," she said.

And the activity showed no signs of slowing down. Given the response, Roberts said they will continue to accept donations and volunteers at the airport until at least Oct. 11.

Burch was going almost nonstop Oct. 1, loading his Red Robin helicopter, flying it into the hardest hit towns, dropping off resources, flying back, repeat.

His helicopter can get to areas cut off from the outside world, but how much he can carry is limited, while the need is seemingly endless. Western North Carolina was devastated by Helene, with most of the region still without power, dozens dead as the death toll continues to rise and entire towns cut off from the outside world by washed-out roads.

"It's people in desperation," Burch said. "When I go up, they swarm the helicopter. There's a lot of emotions."

The pilots pitching in were both local and from out of town.

Jake Guarino and Jacob Faulkner arrived from Florida on Oct. 1 with a plane full of supplies and set to flying more north.

Matt Kappel, a Greenville defense attorney who keeps his plane at the downtown airport, was also among the small fleet of pilots running supplies over the mountains into North Carolina. Kappel said it's been amazing to watch the effort grow into the sprawling operation that had taken over the airport parking lot.

He has been making trips for two days to Rutherfordton, which is about 30 miles north of Spartanburg, 100 miles west of there to Macon County. Each time he carries hundreds of pounds of food and water.

"Anything to help," Kappel said.

Spencer Bost

A tiny town in North Carolina that’s just been devastated by hurricane Helene could end up severely disrupting the global supply chain for microchips and solar panels.

Nestled in the Appalachian mountains, the community of Spruce Pine, population 2,194, is known for its hiking, local artists and as America’s sole source of high-purity quartz. Helene dumped more than 2 feet of rain on the town, destroying roads, shops and cutting power and water.

But its reach will likely be felt far beyond the small community.

Semiconductors are the brains of every computer-chip-enabled device, and solar panels are a key part of the global push to combat climate change. To make both semiconductors and solar panels, companies need crucibles and other equipment that both can withstand extraordinarily high heat and be kept absolutely clean. One material fits the bill: quartz. Pure quartz.

Quartz that comes, overwhelmingly, from Spruce Pine.

“As far as we know, there’s only a few places in the world that have ultra-high-quality quartz,” according to Ed Conway, author of Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization. Russian and Brazil also supply high-quality quartz, he says, but “Spruce Pine has far and away the [largest amount] and highest quality.”

Conway says without super-pure quartz for the crucibles, which can often be used only a single time, it would be impossible to produce most semiconductors.

“Purity really does matter,” he says. “You're talking about a process to create the silicon wafers that later become silicon chips, where one single atom being in the wrong place” could derail production.

Companies have been pursuing artificial substitutes, but so far, those alternatives can't satisfy the world’s demand for this pure quartz.

According to an annual report from TECHCET, a market research firm, quartz equipment is a $2.12 billion industry and growing.

Spruce Pine received 24.12 inches of rain from Helene, according to the National Weather Service. The massive inundation caused the North Toe River to flood, devastating the downtown area, according to Spencer Bost, the executive director of Downtown Spruce Pine, the local business development association.

“It’s flooded up to the awnings, about 10 feet,” he says of the downtown’s lower street. “Lower street was destroyed.”

The town’s grocery store was also heavily damaged in the flooding. Power, water and cellular service are all down, Bost says. Fallen trees and washed-out roads have left the community isolated from the outside.

“We were there for about three days before we got enough chainsaws together to cut a path out of our neighborhood,” Bost says. He and his fiancée spent nine hours working their way to Greenville, N.C., where they’ve temporarily sought shelter.

The conditions at the mines that produce the quartz remain unclear. “We are in a phase of assessing the situation, and it is far too early to comment on the impact to high-purity quartz production,” Mary Kristin Haugen of the Quartz Corporation told NPR in a statement.

A second major supplier, Sibelco, based in Antwerp, The Netherlands, did not immediately respond to NPR’s email.

Images verified by NPR show that even if the mines are intact, getting quartz out of the region may be a challenge. The main CSX rail line in and out of Spruce Pine runs along the North Toe River and has been heavily damaged. The rail line was the primary shipping point for quartz from the mines.

Conway says he believes chipmakers have stocks of ultra-pure quartz that would prevent a short-term supply chain disruption from hobbling production, but he adds that if Spruce Pine remains cut off from the rest of the world for long, it could have a big impact.

Previous disruptions to superconductor supply chains, from earthquakes to fires, have sent ripple effects across the many industries that rely on chips for their products and operations. A 2008 fire at a quartz refinery in Spruce Pine impacted the market.

Likewise, solar expert Johannes Bernreuter, head of Bernreuter Research says that if a disruption went on for “more than a few weeks,” it would “pose a serious problem for the production” of silicon ingots needed in the photovoltaic, or PV, industry.

China is the major producer of solar panels, and it relies heavily on imports of high-quality quartz from Spruce Pine, he says.

Lita Shon-Roy, the president and CEO of market research firm TECHCET, has been tracking the supply chain for semiconductors for two decades. She says it’s amazing that the industry hasn’t been more concerned about the vulnerability created from relying on this one region of North Carolina for a crucial material.

“Every time I’ve asked in the last two decades, the question always comes back, ‘Well, where else are we supposed to get it?’ “ she says.

The United States and China are in a global competition to secure access to raw materials for semiconductors and green technology. Frantic searches are underway for new deposits and new methods, across a range of minerals.

But when it comes to pure quartz?

“I haven’t heard of any viable sources yet to replace what’s in North Carolina,” Shon-Roy says.

NPR's Michael Copley contributed to this report.

GREENVILLE, S.C. (WSPA) – People are headed to the Downtown Greenville Airport to fill their planes, helicopters and 18-wheelers with supplies for those affected by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina.

“I don’t think that anyone can understand the gravity or fathom how bad it is,” said volunteer, Tracy Roberts. “What you can imagine, times that by 100,000? That’s truly what’s happening.”

Hundreds of people showed up to the airport on Wednesday to help. Isaiah Burch with Happy Helicopter Tours said Helene’s impact had been “really overwhelming”, but he’s glad to see other’s helping each other in this time of need.

“Just the peoples outpouring of love to bring things here when they don’t have enough, it’s just unbelievable,” Burch said. “We’ve had people deliver things to us without enough of their own.”

Burch said he didn’t have the words to explain the disaster he’d witness. He explained, “It’s just a monumental effort with the size of devastation.”

Roberts explained what it was like to drive through Western Carolina while delivering supplies.

“It’s bad,” she said. “We’re driving on roads that are supposed to be two sides; half the side of the road is gone. You’re hoping that your car doesn’t slide off as your trying to take these supplies.”

Katie Cook, one of the volunteers, described beginning Wednesday morning with people eager to help as “amazing.”

“It’s amazing,” Cook said. “The road was full of cars and we were just overwhelmed with how helpful and willing people have been. Volunteering their time, efforts, resources, and just coming together for the community.”

She said she hopes the experience will show her children that times like this are when community members need each other the most.

“We’re trying to show our kids that community is supposed to come together, help each other and try to be the hands and feet when there are people in much worse cases than we are,” Cook said.

The job isn’t done yet. Burch said people in the effected areas need a lot more help.

“Everything you could imagine, primarily water and food,” Burch said. “People brought generators, survival equipment, clean drinking water. The outpouring has really been phenomenal.”

The Downtown Greenville Airport said that as long as volunteers keep showing up, they will continue to leave the tarmac open. They said anyone who wants to volunteer can just show up.

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