GATLINBURG, Tenn. — Firefighters had been waiting for a good amount of rainfall to help better contain wildfires in the Great Smokies as people who live in the town most affected waited to see if any of their stuff was worth saving.
As his engine started, Delbert Watson said ti was the sound he’d been waiting to hear.
“It gets me from point A to point B,” he said.
Watson’s truck is old, but it does not look like other vehicles on his block.
It was something small to make him smile again.
The motel where Watson lived was still standing, but he and his fiancee did not have much.
Watson was in the hospital when fires took over his neighborhood.
“Here’s my family going through hell and I couldn’t be here with them,” he recalled. “The good Lord says I’m not going to put no more on you than you can handle, but you know it seems like he thinks I can handle a lot.”
The father of one adult child said he struggles to make the rent and sometimes does not know where his next meal is coming from.
“It still brings tears to my eyes because I didn’t know what to do,” Watson explained.
Despite what he is going through, Delbert knew he was one of the lucky ones.
“There’s people out here that they ain’t got a pot to use the bathroom in or one to throw it out of and to me that’s sad,” he said.
He — like so many others in his tight-knit community — is doing whatever he can to help someone less fortunate.
“People has helped me with rides. So, now I’m going to turn around and help people with rides,” Watson told WREG.
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