Tornado relief concert resonates for Raleigh band

The band was eating dinner at Mecca, at 13 E. Martin St., on that Saturday when the storm barreled through. 

"All of a sudden they were saying, 'It's coming,'" Mike Dillon recalled. "It was right outside. Everything shut down all at once, and everything was really chaotic."

Band member Chris Riddle said, "It was pretty scary to be in a basement with the power out and listen to the stuff going on all around us."

Riddle returned home to find his house and car destroyed by the storms, which claimed 138 homes in the city and damaged almost 700. Raleigh had more than $115 million in residential and commercial structural damage.

"We didn't really have anything to give ourselves, but we wanted to help, and when this opportunity presented itself, we thought it was the best way to give back in whatever way we could," Dillon said.

In the audience, residents of Raleigh's Stony Brook North mobile home park celebrated the progress their neighborhood has made in the weeks since the storms. Four children died in the park when a tree fell on the home where they were. 

Sarah Morales and her mother, Sylvia Mitchell, were able to move back into their home with the help of Centro International de Raleigh. The group, one of four beneficiaries of Friday's concert, set up an assistance center at Stony Brook and has distributed more than $750,000 in aid to the residents there since the storms.

Morales has since joined the group in helping others. "You just get this feeling like you can sleep at night, like you've done something good," Morales said.

Debbie Salisbury, another Centro volunteer, called the concert awesome. "I'm really pleased we have the outpouring of support of the city," she said.

Other bands performing Friday night were: