The Truckload Carriers Association recently named truck driver Andrew Inlow, from Booneville, Mississippi, a TCA Highway Angel for helping feed hundreds in the Asheville, North Carolina area during the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Inlow works for Maverick Transportation out of North Little Rock, Arkansas.
TCA explains:
Andrew InlowOn Sept. 27 Inlow and several other truck drivers began helping a community with supplies, food, and water while all were stranded in Candler, North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Inlow and the other truckers were parked at the TA Truck Stop in Candler, outside Asheville. The entire region was severely affected by Hurricane Helene. With no cell phone reception, roads closed, no power and no stores open nearby, the truckers had to be creative to eat.
“We had a driver who was delivering hamburgers to restaurants in the area, so he actually opened up his unit and pulled out a box of hamburgers and started cooking for all the truck drivers,” Inlow said.
The next day, Inlow drove a group of the truckers into Asheville looking for food. When they arrived, they decided to buy another grill and start handing out food.
“The food’s gonna go bad anyway, so that kind of kicked everything into motion,” Inlow said.
Inlow ended up going door to door at a nearby Days Inn asking guests if they needed food. One of the guests, Dianna Sains, who was en route helping her son, daughter-in-law, and young grandchildren move across the country, overheard another driver talking about the potential food. She and her family were stranded at the Days Inn motel with no power.
“They had no food and no real water for almost three days,” Inman said. As a result, Sains came to the TA Truck Stop and connected with Inlow, who made sure her family was taken care of.
“She got all excited because these big scary truck drivers were trying to give away food.”
Inlow also bought chips, snacks and drinks from the TA for the others, spending about $1,000 of his own money. In all, he thinks he and the other truckers fed about 150 stranded people over the four and a half days they were in the Asheville area.
“I hardly ate,” Inlow said. “I actually had drivers that I had become friends with who forced me to eat because my mind was on everybody else.”
Without the help of Inlow and the truck drivers that also volunteered time and resources, this small community would have felt the impact more significantly in those initial hours and days.
“I always tried to stay on the positive side, because there’s no reason to be negative and cause anybody to be negative,” Inlow said. “I just did what anybody else should do.”
Since the TCA Highway Angel program’s inception in August 1997, nearly 1,400 professional truck drivers have been recognized as TCA Highway Angels for exemplary kindness, courtesy, and courage displayed while on the job. Thanks to the program’s presenting sponsor, EpicVue, and supporting sponsors, DriverFacts and Northland Insurance, TCA is able to showcase outstanding drivers like Inlow.
Andrew Inlow
