More than a week after Hurricane Helene battered Western North Carolina and Northeast Tennessee, banks in the affected areas are grappling with how to help provide basic needs — everything from cash withdrawals to showers to information on how to apply for government aid.
Six hundred miles south, banks in Florida are preparing to do the same, as Hurricane Milton charts a path for a Wednesday landfall in the Sunshine State, parts of which are still reeling from Helene.
In the aftermath of Helene, banks in and around Asheville, North Carolina, are still in the thick of ensuring their employees are safe, providing aid to local towns and working on initiatives to alleviate the damage to their clients. More than 200 people are confirmed to be dead, and hundreds are still missing.
Rusty Edwards, the Asheville regional executive for the $12.1 billion-asset First Bank, said in a Monday interview that since last week, his bank has steadily gotten back into a routine that is "as normal as possible." That's despite the fact that some of the affected areas still don't have access to power or water.
"It's a normal workday. It's just doing things differently than you did prior to the hurricane," Edwards said.
At the start, the top priority was accounting for the company's employees. When two of First Bank's people lost their homes to the storm, the bank worked to find them new apartments within 90 minutes of hearing the news, he said. He joked that the bank could launch an "89-minute apartment rental project."
On Monday, the bank actually rolled out a program to offer deferrals of up to 90 days on payments and interest for retail and commercial customers, Edwards said.
Truist Financial, after making contact with its 13,000 employees who resided in the path of Helene, has gotten to work on providing assistance to its workforce and to affected communities.
"We're fortunate that we work for an organization that has resources. How can we then translate that into the needs our community has?" said Aaron Slate, the Asheville market president at Truist. "It's been nine days now with no water. So folks that are out there volunteering — they haven't had a shower in nine days."
On Monday, Truist set up mobile showers, laundry facilities and bathrooms next to a branch in Asheville for anyone in the community to use, and will keep them open daily.
Bob Washburn, president and CEO of LifeStore Bank, said that his clients are concerned about the hurricane's impact on tourism, which peaks during the fall in Western North Carolina. Although his bank, based about 100 miles northeast of Asheville, didn't get the brunt of the storm's force, LifeStore is designing programs to help business clients make payments amid dashed revenue expectations. The bank is also offering more time for customers to make their home mortgage payments.
But Washburn has an even bigger fear — the emotional and psychological impact of Helene.
"There are some people out there that have been working round the clock on these emergency teams and not really stopping," he said. "And when they stop, I think they're going to collapse. So, somehow we gotta get them to pace themselves."
At Bank of Tennessee, a $1.9 billion-asset bank that operates primarily in Northeast Tennessee and Western North Carolina, President and CEO Will Barrett said employees have been dealing with so much heartache that the company started offering virtual counseling.
"The stories that our tellers heard are just mind-boggling," Barrett said. "Over the course of a week, those stories can take a toll on your psyche."
Barrett shared one anecdote about a customer who, after losing their home in the flooding, walked into Bank of Tennessee's branch in Jonesboro, Tennessee, last Monday with mud-covered cash. The bank's employees used the branch's sink to help wash the dirty bills.
Peter Gwaltney, president and CEO of the North Carolina Bankers Association, said although the hurricane has been emotional for community members, he's been proud of how banks have responded.
"What struck me the most is the passion that the bankers have, the determination to reopen their offices so they can be there for their customers," he said. "The customers are wanting to talk to them about personal situations and tell their stories, and bankers are there to listen."
As local business owners start to clean up, Bank of Tennessee is distributing five-gallon buckets filled with cleaning supplies, trash bags, gloves and information about how to apply for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration.
"I think as a community bank we can help guide and be a resource through that process," Barrett said.
Round two
Florida's Gulf Coast, after being hit a little over a week ago by flooding caused by Helene, is now directly in the path of Milton, said Kathy Kraninger, president and CEO of the Florida Bankers Association. Bank employees who just cleaned up their homes are now bracing for the next storm, she noted.
"It's really the entire West Coast of Florida that is in jeopardy here," said Kraninger, a former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
On Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in more than 50 counties, and the state had started mandatory evacuations in certain areas ahead of the storm. Milton is expected to be a Category 3 hurricane by the time it touches the state Wednesday, threatening to wallop the area with a force similar to that of Helene.
The National Weather Service of Tampa Bay Area said on social media Monday afternoon that if Milton stays on its current track, "it will be the worst storm to impact the Tampa area in over 100 years."
Bank of Tampa, a $2.9 billion-asset bank headquartered in Tampa, announced Monday that it was planning to close its physical offices at 2 p.m. due to the coming storm, and to keep its offices closed through Thursday. "We will monitor the situation and will make a decision about reopening when it is safe to do so," the bank said in a social media post.
But bankers in Florida are continuing to do their jobs, Kraninger said. "After they check in on their employees, they check in on their customers," she said.
Synovus Financial, based in Columbus, Georgia, said in a prepared statement that its employees and communities are "facing another hurricane — Hurricane Milton — while still recovering from Hurricane Helene. Their safety and well-being remains our top priority."
Tallahassee, Florida-based Capital City Bank has gotten hurricane planning "down to a science," said Chief Operating Officer Beth Corum. The bank is putting sandbags at flood-prone branches, installing extra locks and preparing for elevated cash withdrawals.
But none of those precautions make the situation easier on employees, some of whom are just returning home after Helene. Others have only recently gotten their power restored.
"You get through the storm, you assess the damage, you start to rebuild, and then, just as things are moving along, you're faced with another potentially devastating storm," Corum said.
Allissa Kline, Polo Rocha and Kevin Wack contributed to this story.
