Nora Roberts, Fans Aid Tenn. Flood Victims

Dyer County may not be getting as much attention as Nashville after recent floods that hit much of Middle and West Tennessee, but best-selling author Nora Roberts has taken notice.

Disaster Recovery Services of Dyer County will receive at least $10,000 from a fundraising effort by Roberts' faithful readers on her official fan website and a gift from Roberts herself.

Photos: "Flooding in Tennessee"
Photos: "Flooding at the Grand Ole Opry"

The Rev. Gary Meade, president of the nonprofit's executive council, said the total gift will be the single largest the group has received.

The money will help the at least 400 Dyer County families flooded when the Forked Deer River overflowed its banks on May 3.

Dyersburg's State Gazette reports fans on the website A Day Without French Fries chose to help the county northwest of Jackson, after first looking at Nashville, because one of them lives in Dyer.

Roberts' spokeswoman Laura Reeth said in an e-mail that fans raised $23,000 and the author donated another $500,000 a few years ago when they organized a similar fundraiser to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. That money went to Habitat for Humanity.

The website reads, "I offer you the same challenge I did with Katrina - as you take a sip of the soda pop to your left, and pick up that book placed to your right, as you get up to prepare a hot bath ... ask yourself what you can go without so that you can send money to help those in need."