RADIOOctober 04, 2024

What Glenn saw while helping hurricane victims in Asheville SHOCKED him

After hearing claims coming out of the Hurricane Helene disaster zone of houses flipped upside down, neighbors helping neighbors, and zero help from the federal government, Glenn had to see it for himself. Glenn recounts the shocking things he saw while in Asheville, North Carolina: Many of the stories are TRUE! The destruction was unbelievable and people are still trapped in the mountains. But instead of relying on authorities, these communities proved that the American Spirit is still alive and well.

The government isn't coming to save these people, Glenn says. Instead, it's generous donations from people like YOU that are making a real difference for the Americans of Appalachia. 100% of the funds go directly to the people in need when you donate at https://MercuryOne.org

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Hello, Stu with, how are you?

STU: Good, Glenn. How are you?

GLENN: Really good. Really good.

STU: Big trip. I saw some of the pictures that were posted.

GLENN: Yeah, I haven't yet. I haven't.

I saw stuff in North Carolina I've never seen before. I saw houses that had been washed down the river. And were upside down, on the train tracks.

I saw train tracks. Where, you know, those things are built pretty strong.

You know, they build a real strong foundation. The foundation completely zero reported away from underneath the train tracks. And just, the train tracks just kind of suspended over nothing.

I mean, everything in this place is going to have to be redone. Everything. I -- I just saw things I didn't expect to see.

The power of the water coming down these creeks, and then rivers.

Literally, like the power of the Mississippi.

I saw a house, I think we have a picture of this.

I saw a house with a bunch of mobile homes.

All stacked up, next to this house, that seemed to be somewhat still on its foundation.

Okay?

And all these mobile homes, stacked and then right behind that house, was another house, that was right on the back of that house. And I said, wow. Look at that. All those kind of washed up next to the house. And he said, no. Those are actually from about five blocks, down the streets.

And the house -- that house stayed kind of on its foundation enough. To where it just -- all these mobile homes were kind of slamming against it. And stopped. Because the house was in the way.

He said, what's really interesting. The house right behind it.

That house, we don't know where that came from. We think that was two towns up river.

Towns!

STU: Towns?

GLENN: Two towns up river.

The water was above -- oh, it's crazy, Stu.

It is nuts. I saw a house upside-down.

I saw semi-trucks, that were like, just tossed by the water, upside down, had rolled, were in the streets.

Had been rolled by the river several -- semi-trucks. Rolled by the river.

And 100 feet away. Maybe 200 feet away.

From the road, upside down.

It was -- it -- this was crazy.

Bridges, just completely washed out. And they -- the water in some places was like 6 feet above the bridge.

I don't know how long it's going to take -- I mean. It will take years to put these towns back together. And, you know, I've never been to the smoky mountains before.

I went -- and it was really strange. Because the only time, I've been in Asheville, is when I went to go visit Billy Graham, like ten years ago. Eleven years ago.

And it's just this beautiful town. Beautiful town.

And he lives right outside of town, up on one of these mountains.

And I remember thinking how beautiful it was, when I was there. But I didn't really -- you know, I wasn't thinking about the mountains or anything else.

And except going up to his house, I wasn't in the mountains. And especially because we were doing Life Flight yesterday. I was on the helicopter a lot, and I was above these mountains.

Two things come to mind. First of all, in my Miami, because I'm from the west coast. And, you know, we have the cascades and the Rocky Mountains I've always joked with my family. Oh, the Smoky Mountain bumps. Oh, that's really. You know, it's not like -- it's not like a mountain range to me, jokingly.

But it actually is. It was the first time I was there. It is stunning. I would live in this area.

Not just for the beauty. But the people are amazing.

This is -- I witnessed yesterday, 9/12. I've talked about 9/12 forever.

That that's the people we need to be.

When -- when nobody cared about who you voted for.

Nobody cared what party you were -- nobody cared about anything.

You would just stop people on the street and go, are you okay?

You didn't know them.

But you could look at them. And see the suffering in their eyes. Because you were suffering as well.

And you would just stop it.

Are you okay, brother?

Can you I do anything for you? That was the most amazing days I have ever lived. That's what this is in North Carolina.

And I bet you it's the same in Tennessee and Georgia.

They know nobody is coming. They know nobody is coming. The -- the mountain range in Asheville, it -- we had to fly over the mountain range. We had airlifted this. She must have been 80-year-old. 85-year-old woman. She had broken her hip and her knee. And she didn't have any insurance.

And she was up north. This was like a month ago.

And she was up north, and she came down to be with her family, in North Carolina, and was supposed to go back up.

But they had her on antibiotics, as they did the surgery. But because they didn't have insurance, they just pushed her out as past fast as they possibly could.

Give her any antibiotics.

Well, now, she was riddled with -- she needed antibiotics.

Her -- her leg was absolutely on fire. It was really infected.

And she was in trouble.

And we flew her. It was 20 the leap minutes, from her place, to the airport.

Or, to the hospital.

And I'm flying with the -- I'm flying with the pilot. And I said, how far do you think -- how long would it take if you had to drive this?

He said, from there, which was just over a couple of mountain peaks. He's like, maybe two hours?

He said, and now, maybe five?

Because how do you get out of here?

Because all of the bridges, and some of the -- I mean, just landslides, coming down.

It's incredible, and then kind of like a tornado.

I've seen ground zero in Oklahoma of a tornado.

There's nothing like that. There's nothing like the damage that I saw here. It -- it -- because it didn't grind everything to a pulp like a tornado does. It just moved everything.

And I just don't know how -- I mean, it's going to take years, to restore this.

But because of the location of it. It's almost impossible. You have to have helicopters to help people.

And the government is doing everything they can, to shut down -- I mean, yesterday, I was calling at the Cajun Air Force.

Because -- or not Cajun Air Force. The hillbilly Air Force.

You know, they had the Cajun Navy.

This is the Hillbilly Air Force.

The guy at the Asheville Harley-Davidson place. I met him yesterday.

That place was wiped out.

And, but it still was standing.

The bikes are all -- he just lost everything. But they shoveled the mud out of that place.

And he said, I've got a field here. You can use that as a landing place.

There were helicopters coming in and going out. And the government tried to shut them down.

And said, you know, this is -- nobody from the FAA is involved here. You're going to have to shut this down. And Adam Smith, who is retired Special Forces who was running it, was like, really? Yeah, you know what you are going to do. You're going to leave. Because I have a helicopter landing and one taking off in a few minutes. They were just pissed.

You know, you're not here. If you had all of the assets here. If you had called one of the, oh, I don't know.

Many forts, bases, and Special Forces, that are sitting on bases in North Carolina, maybe we would shut this down. But you're not sending anything to help people.

So get off our land.

That was a common theme, yesterday.

When we picked up this guy, it was. You know, I just don't think of me as -- you know, as somebody.

I think of me as me. Not the Glenn Beck, radio guy.

And we show up with the helicopter. We land in this field, and we go to pick up this lady. And we're right at the front stairs.

And the son of this -- this -- or grandson, I think of this woman. He turned to me, and he's like, you -- you look familiar.

And I said, hi, I'm Glenn.

And he said, oh, hi, Glenn.

And then he looked at me again. Glenn Beck?

And I said, yeah.

And he's like, that's unexpected. And he's like, you know, you've got to see my -- my cousins. Tom!

Jethro. You know, come up here. No. Don't walk. You run up here. And then he said, don't look directly at them. They're bad runners.

And the whole family. The whole neighborhood didn't call 911.

The son called somebody in the military that he knew. That was retired, and said, hey. Do you know anybody with a helicopter?

Because the -- the -- while they have two helipads at the airport, in the -- you know, city over the mountains. They don't have -- the helicopters, they're out of commission. So nobody can be flown in. So we're doing the LifeLock. And it's -- it's incredible.

What this audience has done is incredible. But he didn't call. And then he called a friend.

And he said, you know what, I think I know. And he called another friend that was formerly in the military.

And then called another friend that was in the military.

And he said, yeah.

They have helicopters right here.

Mercury One is flying the helicopters right now.

I know Adam Smith who is who running this.

So they didn't call 911. It's not that community. And as we were leaving, I said to one of the cousins. I said, hey, you tell everybody you know, that you haven't been forgotten.

That there are millions of Americans that care about you and love you guys. And want to help, and are helping. And he said, that's very kind of you.

Now, will you tell everyone you know, something from me?

And I said, sure. And I expected thank you or something. And he looked at me and he said, you tell everybody you know, that even if they don't care, we'll take care of our own damn self if nobody shows up.

And I was like, I gave him a hug. I'm like, I love you. It is America. And all I could think of yesterday was, this is God's army.

This is exactly what Billy Graham told me would happen.

That people -- I talked to people. And they were like, I don't know. I just felt this calling to come here and help. And now I'm doing this and this and this.

And the people have taken care of it. Now, I mean, they need a lot of help. But wait until I tell you about FEMA. I found a FEMA truck.

And we were driving from seeing some, you know, bad areas. And I said, wait. Wait. Turn the car around. I think I saw a FEMA truck. And everybody is like, no.

Wait. I saw a FEMA truck. It's behind that building.

All right. I turned around. And there, lo and behold, is one FEMA truck with a giant satellite on the top of it. It was a communications truck. So we pull up.

And a lot of them are sitting under a tree at a card table, with folding chairs. All in their FEMA vests.

And I looked at Congressman Cory Mills. And I said, oh, brother, I don't think I can go talk to those people alone.

And he said, come on. I'll go.

So we went. We have it on tape. And Cory said afterwards, he's like, pretty early on, you just shut up. And he said, I could tell, you just wanted to walk away.

I was like, oh, I was doing he went I can to not just go ape on those people.

So I was listening to my mother.

If you don't have anything nice to say. Don't say anything at all.

Shocking train video: Passengers wait while woman bleeds out

Surveillance footage of the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, NC, reveals that the other passengers on the train took a long time to help her. Glenn, Stu, and Jason debate whether they were right or wrong to do so.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm -- I'm torn on how I feel about the people on the train.

Because my first instinct is, they did nothing! They did nothing! Then my -- well, sit down and, you know -- you know, you're going to be judged. So be careful on judging others.

What would I have done? What would I want my wife to do in that situation?

STU: Yeah. Are those two different questions, by the way.

GLENN: Yeah, they are.

STU: I think they go far apart from each other. What would I want myself to do. I mean, it's tough to put yourself in a situation. It's very easy to watch a video on the internet and talk about your heroism. Everybody can do that very easily on Twitter. And everybody is.

You know, when you're in a vehicle that doesn't have an exit with a guy who just murdered somebody in front of you, and has a dripping blood off of a knife that's standing 10 feet away from you, 15 feet away from you.

There's probably a different standard there, that we should all kind of consider. And maybe give a little grace to what I saw at least was a woman, sitting across the -- the -- the aisle.

I think there is a difference there. But when you talk about that question. Those two questions are definitive.

You know, I know what I would want myself to do. I would hope I would act in a way that didn't completely embarrass myself afterward.

But I also think, when I'm thinking of my wife. My advice to my wife would not be to jump into the middle of that situation at all costs. She might do that anyway. She actually is a heck of a lot stronger than I am.

But she might do it anyway.

GLENN: How pathetic, but how true.

STU: Yes. But that would not be my advice to her.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

STU: Now, maybe once the guy has certainly -- is out of the area. And you don't think the moment you step into that situation. He will turn around and kill you too. Then, of course, obviously. Anything you can do to step in.

Not that there was much anyone on the train could do.

I mean, I don't think there was an outcome change, no matter what anyone on that train did.

Unfortunately.

But would I want her to step in?

Of course. If she felt she was safe, yes.

Think about, you said, your wife. Think about your daughter. Your daughter is on that train, just watching someone else getting murdered like that. Would you advise your daughter to jump into a situation like that?

That girl sitting across the aisle was somebody's daughter. I don't know, man.

JASON: I would. You know, as a dad, would I advise.

Hmm. No.

As a human being, would I hope that my daughter or my wife or that I would get up and at least comfort that woman while she's dying on the floor of a train?

Yeah.

I would hope that my daughter, my son, that I would -- and, you know, I have more confidence in my son or daughter or my wife doing something courageous more than I would.

But, you know, I think I have a more realistic picture of myself than anybody else.

And I'm not sure that -- I'm not sure what I would do in that situation. I know what I would hope I would do. But I also know what I fear I would do. But I would have hoped that I would have gotten up and at least tried to help her. You know, help her up off the floor. At least be there with her, as she's seeing her life, you know, spill out in under a minute.

And that's it other thing we have to keep in mind. This all happened so rapidly.

A minute is -- will seem like a very long period of time in that situation. But it's a very short period of time in real life.

STU: Yeah. You watch the video, Glenn. You know, I don't need the video to -- to change my -- my position on this.

But at his seem like there was a -- someone who did get there, eventually, to help, right? I saw someone seemingly trying to put pressure on her neck.

GLENN: Yeah. And tried to give her CPR.

STU: You know, no hope at that point. How long of a time period would you say that was?

Do you know off the top of your head?

GLENN: I don't know. I don't know. I know that we watched the video that I saw. I haven't seen past 30 seconds after she --

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: -- is down. And, you know, for 30 seconds nothing is happening. You know, that is -- that is not a very long period of time.

STU: Right.

GLENN: In reality.

STU: And especially, I saw the pace he was walking. He certainly can't be -- you know, he may have left the actual train car by 30 seconds to a minute. But he wasn't that far away. Like he was still in visual.

He could still turn around and look and see what's going on at that point. So certainly still a threat is my point. He has not, like, left the area. This is not that type of situation.

You know, I -- look, as you point out, I think if I could be super duper sexist for a moment here, sort of my dividing line might just be men and women.

You know, I don't know if it's that a -- you're not supposed to say that, I suppose these days. But, like, there is a difference there. If I'm a man, you know, I would be -- I would want my son to jump in on that, I suppose. I don't know if he could do anything about it. But you would expect at least a grown man to be able to go in there and do something about it. A woman, you know, I don't know.

Maybe I'm -- I hope --

GLENN: Here's the thing I -- here's the thing that I -- that causes me to say, no. You should have jumped in.

And that is, you know, you've already killed one person on the train. So you've proven that you're a killer. And anybody who would have screamed and got up and was with her, she's dying. She's dying. Get him. Get him.

Then the whole train is responsible for stopping that guy. You know. And if you don't stop him, after he's killed one person, if you're not all as members of that train, if you're not stopping him, you know, the person at the side of that girl would be the least likely to be killed. It would be the ones that are standing you up and trying to stop him from getting back to your daughter or your wife or you.

JASON: There was a -- speaking of men and women and their roles in this. There was a video circling social media yesterday. In Sweden. There was a group of officials up on a stage. And one of the main. I think it was health official woman collapses on stage. Completely passes out.

All the men kind of look away. Or I don't know if they're looking away. Or pretending that they didn't know what was going on. There was another woman standing directly behind the woman passed out.

Immediately springs into action. Jumps on top. Grabs her pant leg. Grabs her shoulder. Spins her over and starts providing care.

What did she have that the other guys did not? Or women?

She was a sheepdog. There is a -- this is my issue. And I completely agree with Stu. I completely agree with you. There's some people that do not respond this way. My issue is the proportion of sheepdogs versus people that don't really know how to act. That is diminishing in western society. And American society.

We see it all the time in these critical actions. I mean, circumstances.

There are men and women, and it's actually a meme. That fantasize about hoards of people coming to attack their home and family. And they sit there and say, I've got it. You guys go. I'm staying behind, while I smoke my cigarette and wait for the hoards to come, because I will sacrifice myself. There are men and women that fantasize of block my highway. Go ahead. Block my highway. I'm going to do something about it. They fantasize about someone holding up -- not a liquor store. A convenience store or something. Because they will step in and do something. My issue now is that proportion of sheepdogs in society is disappearing. Just on statistical fact, there should be one within that train car, and there were none.

STU: Yeah. I mean --

JASON: They did not respond.

STU: We see what happens when they do, with Daniel Penny. Our society tries to vilify them and crush their existence. Now, there weren't that many people on that train. Right?

At least on that car. At least it's limited. I only saw three or four people there, there may have been more. I agree with you, though. Like, you see what happens when we actually do have a really recent example of someone doing exactly what Jason wants and what I would want a guy to do. Especially a marine to step up and stop this from happening. And the man was dragged by our legal system to a position where he nearly had to spend the rest of his life in prison.

I mean, I -- it's insanity. Thankfully, they came to their senses on that one.

GLENN: Well, the difference between that one and this one though is that the guy was threatening. This one, he killed somebody.

STU: Yeah. Right. Well, but -- I think -- but it's the opposite way. The debate with Penny, was should he have recognize that had this person might have just been crazy and not done anything?

Maybe. He hadn't actually acted yet. He was just saying things.

GLENN: Yeah. Well --

STU: He didn't wind up stabbing someone. This is a situation where these people have already seen what this man will do to you, even when you don't do anything to try to stop him. So if this woman, who is, again, looks to be an average American woman.

Across the aisle. Steps in and tries to do something. This guy could easily turn around and just make another pile of dead bodies next to the one that already exists.

And, you know, whether that is an optimal solution for our society, I don't know that that's helpful.

In that situation.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Max Lucado on Overcoming Grief in Dark Times | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 266

Disclaimer: This episode was filmed prior to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. But Glenn believes Max's message is needed now more than ever.
The political world is divided, constantly at war with itself. In many ways, our own lives are not much different. Why do we constantly focus on the negative? Why are we in pain? Where is God amid our anxiety and fear? Why can’t we ever seem to change? Pastor Max Lucado has found the solution: Stop thinking like that! It may seem easier said than done, but Max joins Glenn Beck to unpack the three tools he describes in his new book, “Tame Your Thoughts,” that make it easy for us to reset the way we think back to God’s factory settings. In this much-needed conversation, Max and Glenn tackle everything from feeling doubt as a parent to facing unfair hardships to ... UFOs?! Plus, Max shares what he recently got tattooed on his arm.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Are Demonic Forces to Blame for Charlie Kirk, Minnesota & Charlotte Killings?

This week has seen some of the most heinous actions in recent memory. Glenn has been discussing the growth of evil in our society, and with the assassination of civil rights leader Charlie Kirk, the recent transgender shooter who took the lives of two children at a Catholic school, and the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, how can we make sense of all this evil? On today's Friday Exclusive, Glenn speaks with BlazeTV host of "Strange Encounters" Rick Burgess to discuss the demon-possessed transgender shooter and the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk. Rick breaks down the reality of demon possession and how individuals wind up possessed. Rick and Glenn also discuss the dangers of the grotesque things we see online and in movies, TV shows, and video games on a daily basis. Rick warns that when we allow our minds to be altered by substances like drugs or alcohol, it opens a door for the enemy to take control. A supernatural war is waging in our society, and it’s a Christian’s job to fight this war. Glenn and Rick remind Christians of what their first citizenship is.