Witnesses saw an armed group harassing Helene aid workers in a small Tennessee town, sheriff says

Signs are seen at a FEMA Disaster Recovery Center at A.C. Reynolds High School in Asheville, N.C., Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Makiya Seminera)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -

Witnesses reported seeing a group of armed people harassing hurricane relief workers in a remote Tennessee community last weekend, a sheriff said Wednesday as a man in North Carolina appeared in court for allegedly threatening aid workers in that state.

Although there is no indication that the incidents are related, they come with the Federal Emergency Management Agency facing rampant disinformation about its response to Hurricane Helene, which came ashore in Florida on Sept. 26 before heading north and leaving a trail of destruction across six states. Reports of threats to aid workers sparked a temporary shift in how FEMA was operating in western North Carolina.

In Tennessee, Carter County Sheriff Mike Farley said that witnesses reported Saturday that FEMA workers were being harassed by a small group of armed people in the remote community of Elk Mills, not far from the North Carolina border. No arrests were made, but Farley said that the people who showed up were looking to cause trouble.

“It was a little hairy situation, no guns were drawn, but they were armed,” Farley told The Associated Press.

Farley said his department was setting up a 24-hour command post in Elk Mills because of what happened. The region is still largely cut off from the rest of the state because Helene damaged and destroyed many bridges and roads.

“The community in that area has been great to work with, but this group is trying to create more hate toward the federal government,” Farley said.

Over the weekend, reports emerged that FEMA workers aiding the Helene efforts could be targeted by a militia, but authorities later said they believed that a man who was arrested and accused of making threats acted alone. FEMA has said operational changes were made to keep personnel safe “out of an abundance of caution,” but workers were back in the field Monday.

Helene’s arrival three weeks ago in the Southeast decimated remote towns throughout Appalachia and killed at least 246 people, with a little over half of the storm-related deaths in North Carolina. On Tuesday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said that a task force that has taken calls from concerned loved ones throughout the storm’s aftermath still has a working list of approximately 90 people who haven’t been accounted for.

William Parsons, the man accused of making the threats in North Carolina, said he believed social media reports that FEMA was refusing to help people, but that he realized that wasn't the case when he arrived in hard-hit Lake Lure, a small community about 25 miles (40 kilometres) southeast of Asheville.

During a phone interview with WGHP-TV, the 44-year-old Parsons read aloud a social media post he made that said “We the people” were looking for volunteers on Saturday to “overtake the FEMA site in Lake Lure and send the products up the mountains.”

Parsons, of Bostic, explained that he believed FEMA was withholding supplies and that his post was a call for action, not violence.

“So we were going to go up there and forcefully remove that fence,” he said, but he found a different situation than he expected in Lake Lure. He said he wound up volunteering that day in the relief effort, but law enforcement officers cast doubt on that claim Wednesday.

Capt. Jamie Keever, of the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, said in an email Wednesday that a soldier called 911 on Saturday after someone overheard Parsons making a comment that “he was going after FEMA and was not afraid of law enforcement or soldiers.”

Keever said Parsons was arrested at a Lake Lure grocery store that was a site for a FEMA bus and a donation site for relief efforts.

“It does not appear Parsons was involved in any relief efforts at the time and if so why was he armed,” Keever said. “I think based off of his statement he was prepared to take action with his firearms and take the donations.”

Parsons had an AR-style rifle and two handguns, according to his arrest warrant.

Sheriff’s officials said Parsons was charged with “going armed to the terror of the public,” a misdemeanor, and released after posting bond. The sheriff’s office said initial reports indicated that a “truckload of militia” was involved in making the threat, but further investigation determined that Parsons acted alone.

Parsons told WGHP-TV that he had a legally owned gun on his hip and his legally owned rifle and pistol in his vehicle.

A public defender was appointed for Parsons during a court appearance Wednesday, WYFF-TV reported. The public defender's office didn't immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

Brumfield reported from Baltimore.