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Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Helene downed power lines and washed out roads all over North Carolina's mountains, the constant din of a gas-powered generator is getting to be too much for Bobby Renfro.

It's difficult to hear the nurses, neighbors and volunteers flowing through the community resource hub he has set up in a former church for his neighbors in Tipton Hill, a crossroads in the Pisgah National Forest north of Asheville. Much worse is the cost: he spent $1,200 to buy it and thousands more on fuel that volunteers drive in from Tennessee.

Turning off their only power source isn't an option. This generator runs a refrigerator holding insulin for neighbors with diabetes and powers the oxygen machines and nebulizers some of them need to breathe.

The retired railroad worker worries that outsiders don't understand how desperate they are, marooned without power on hilltops and down in "hollers."

"We have no resources for nothing," Renfro said. "It's going to be a long ordeal."

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