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ETSU Football Endures 12-Hour Travel Delay Due to Hurricane Helene

The Buccaneers were stranded in the mountains of North Carolina because of flooded highways, but finally got to Charleston, S.C., thanks to a Good Samaritan.

Pat Forde

Flood waters from the Nolichucky River rage near Jackson Love Highway and Interstate 26 in Erwin, Tenn., on Friday.
Flood waters from the Nolichucky River rage near Jackson Love Highway and Interstate 26 in Erwin, Tenn., on Friday. / Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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Tre Lamb sounded remarkably chipper, given the circumstances.

“Welcome to the bus league, baby,” the first-year coach of the East Tennessee State Buccaneers chirped Saturday morning.

Life in the bus leagues of FCS has rarely been this adventurous. The buses transporting ETSU to Charleston, S.C., for its game against The Citadel were stranded by flooding from Hurricane Helene in the mountains of western North Carolina for more than 12 hours Friday and early Saturday morning. This was a tale of woe with a positive outcome, better than many in Appalachia have experienced as their communities are battered by the storm.

The ETSU odyssey includes an information blackout, a fortuitous bathroom trip, a Good Samaritan who offered a ride—and some important news—free sandwiches from a grocery store, time parked by a shelter for unhoused people and an early-morning Waffle House delivery. And after all that, the Buccaneers played a Southern Conference football game and beat The Citadel, 34–17.

This trip from hell—or through hell—began with the ETSU team loading up the buses on campus in Johnson City, Tenn., on Friday morning. After being told Thursday the highways were expected to be O.K., reports that morning turned dire—the Nolichucky River was reaching flood stage, which would cut off departure to the south. ETSU went into hurry-up mode to get on Interstate 26 and beat the flood out of town.

“We beat it by 10 minutes,” Lamb says in a text. “[The highway] closed behind us and washed out. So we had no way to get home. Turning around [was] not an option. So we are booking it through Asheville [N.C.]. Historic flooding.”

The scenes around them were sobering. Assistant athletic director Jay Sandos, who drove separately from the team in a van, said he saw U-Haul trailers floating down a river, sheds washing away, destruction everywhere. The team passed near the Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tenn., which made national news with 54 people stranded on its roof as water flooded the entire facility. Patients and workers had to be rescued via helicopter. 

After receiving a report that Interstate 40 was closed, the ETSU buses chose to stay on I-26 in hopes of squeezing through the worst areas before that, too, was shut down. They didn’t make it. Cell and internet service failed, so the ETSU caravan had no information on deteriorating conditions around them.

“There’s standing water on the road,” says Sandos, who is the radio voice of the Buccaneers. “And it’s rising.”

They exited I-26 in Fletcher, N.C., in hopes of taking a different highway to Spartanburg, S.C. But that route was closed down. Lamb says they parked in a lot off the interstate which began to flood, so they drove half a mile further to higher ground.

“We park the buses for six hours with no information and no way out in any direction,” Lamb says. “Essentially waiting for the water levels to go down. At one point, I thought we were going to be in real trouble if the water kept rising. It crested at 5 p.m.”

Local officials eventually told ETSU and other stranded motorists they could be there for a day or more. Nearby restaurants and other businesses were all closed. The coaching staff walked into an Ingles Market that was closed, but the manager offered the team 100 premade sandwiches for free, since they were going to spoil. 

The buses managed to go a couple of miles, near the Asheville Regional Airport, where they parked near the shelter for unhoused people. All hotels were full and out of power. After eating their sandwiches and letting the players stretch their legs, the staff got everyone back on the buses around 8 p.m. Friday and told them they were going to spend the night where they were. 

Nobody in the group knew how long they would be there. Playing the football game seemed like a remote possibility.

“Kind of nerve-racking,” Lamb says. “The officer that was with us has no contact to the outside world and neither does anyone within the travel party.”

About an hour later, two ETSU coaches, offensive coordinator Joe Scelfo and quarterbacks coach Tyler Dell, needed to use the bathroom. They walked to a gas station, where they encountered a guy who said a hotel not far away had wireless service. The stranger, who Lamb identified as a traveler from Michigan named Ryan Ratliff, gave the coaches a ride to the hotel so they could communicate with their families and spread the word the team was safe—stranded, but safe.

Lamb says everyone started dozing off on the buses around midnight. At 1:30 a.m., someone knocked on the door. It was Ratliff, who was looking for Scelfo and Dell to pass along some good news.

“Twenty-six is open,” Ratliff told them. “You boys got a game to win.”

They fired up the buses and got back on the road, “dodging trees and water,” Lamb says. ETSU rolled into Charleston at 4:30 a.m. 

“Had it not been for Joe and Dell and the car they hitchhiked in, we would still be sitting there waiting,” Lamb added.

With cell service restored, they were able to call in a massive Waffle House order to be delivered to the hotel upon their arrival. The players feasted, then went to sleep.

The fact the game is still being played Saturday was a point of contention. ETSU (2–2, 0–0 in the SoCon) asked for a postponement to Sunday, but The Citadel (2–2, 0–1) declined, citing schedule conflicts at the military school. This is Parents Weekend, and there are military functions on Sunday. Kickoff was moved back from 2 p.m. to 5.

ETSU plans to stay in Charleston on Saturday night, then find a route home Sunday. It won’t be easy. But at least the Buccaneers will get to play a game.

“I’ve been doing this for 23 years and I have some great travel stories,” Sandos says. “But this one is up there.”

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Pat Forde
PAT FORDE

Pat Forde is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated who covers college football and college basketball as well as the Olympics and horse racing. He cohosts the College Football Enquirer podcast and is a football analyst on the Big Ten Network. He previously worked for Yahoo Sports, ESPN and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. Forde has won 28 Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest awards, has been published three times in the Best American Sports Writing book series, and was nominated for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. A past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and member of the Football Writers Association of America, he lives in Louisville with his wife. They have three children, all of whom were collegiate swimmers.

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