By: Robert Rietz
“SO HOW BAD WAS IT?” asked a Michigan friend a few days ago, “Hurricane Helene, how bad was it?”
I told him we lived in downtown Asheville, which didn’t bear the brunt of the Sept. 28 storm, and our condo building escaped without any damage. “We were inconvenienced, not like people who lost everything, including over 100 who died in western North Carolina.” Power, running water, text, phone, and internet all failed throughout the city that dreadful day, which meant I couldn’t contact anyone to tell them we were safe. Back in Michigan, our adult children witnessed the devastation in and around Asheville on TV and social media, wondering if we were dead or alive.
On day two, Nancy and I stood in line for three hours before entering a grocery store, where the empty shelves reminded us of COVID. We took cold “submarine showers” using cans of soda, a washcloth, and soap, finishing with dry shampoo. Our lights flickered back to life that night, allowing us to savor our first hot meal since the storm. On the third day, a national grocery chain donated an entire semi tractor-trailer loaded with cases of six 1-gallon bottles of water to anyone who asked. We gave thanks for a significant upgrade from soda for our submarine showers. Text and phone service returned on the fourth day, providing contact with the outside world, and we heard sighs of relief from several states away.
Every day I hauled a 5-gallon bucket from the creek across the street and carried the 42 pounds 210 steps to our apartment. The precious water filled both our toilet tanks, and we each limited ourselves to one flush a day until running water, and the internet, were restored three weeks later. We jumped at the opportunity for a hot shower, ran the dishwasher, and washed a mountain of clothes for the first time in almost a month. A “boil water advisory” compelled us to use bottled water for cooking, drinking, and brushing our teeth. But like I told my friend, these were inconveniences. We were fortunate.
About 80 percent of Asheville’s beloved River Arts District—home to restaurants, shops, and an eclectic movie theater—was submerged under more than 20 feet of water. Over 300 artists lost their studios, supplies, and their stockpiled inventory of paintings, sculptures, and crafts. Residents of Biltmore Village, also south of downtown, reacted when floodwaters breached their first floor, forcing them upstairs. The water rose with them, and families fled to their attics. The water soon followed them, and they exited onto the roof through gabled windows, all in less than 30 horrifying minutes.
Workmen in fluorescent vests appeared like a swarm of bees, clearing wreckage and repairing infrastructure. Republican and Democratic politicians all praised the speed and magnitude of relief provided by an alphabet soup of federal, state, local and charitable agencies.
Pause to think how terrified you would have been. How much higher would the water rise? Where could you go? Imagine thinking, “Is this how my family will die?” Mercifully, the torrent stopped at the gutters. Their homes were a total loss, but they survived, rescued by the Cajun Navy in their bass boats.
Chinook helicopters began flying overhead almost every hour, landing at the closed Asheville Airport, where the National Guard offloaded food and water into trucks for delivery to distribution centers. One of Nancy’s childhood friends was airlifted by a cable into a military helicopter, as were other people living in remote, inaccessible locations.
Several towns nestled in idyllic valleys next to placid rivers were swamped by cataclysmic 27-foot walls of water rushing down the mountains. Half of downtown Chimney Rock just disappeared, and the mayor said rebuilding it would take at least a year. Not even debris remained in some towns, like Swannanoa, a bedroom community east of Asheville. Beacon Village, a middle-class development in Swannanoa, boasted 77 houses before the hurricane. Most of them were swept away, inundated with mud, or suffered irreversible water damage and mold, leaving 11 habitable homes. A Facebook video showed a house floating down the Swannanoa River, being sliced in two as it passed by a concrete piling, a remnant of a washed-away bridge.
Interstate expressways north, west, and east of Asheville collapsed—the only way to leave town was south. Seven weeks later, eastbound I-40 is open, and people have found, and shared, alternate northern and western routes out of the city traveling on two-lane county roads.
But amidst this devastation, people started helping people. Nancy found an NPR station that transformed itself into an aid clearinghouse, matching needs with assistance. The host put one man on the air, saying a huge tree fell across his driveway and he couldn’t get out. Another caller said he had a chainsaw, and the radio station’s back-room telephone volunteers matched them up. A homebound woman called the station needing insulin and a way to keep it chilled. They connected her with a man who picked up a fresh supply at her pharmacy and gave it to her in a new name-brand cooler full of ice. A “wilderness experience” company converted their mules from transporting tourists up and down mountains to packing supplies for stranded families. During the first three weeks, the station broadcast too many heart-warming stories to mention.
Some people in rural areas who had propane generators could draw water from their wells. Kelly, a counselor at a nearby food pantry, put two 95-gallon trash bins in her pickup truck and filled them with water. She and her husband drove into a subdivision and started knocking on doors, holding a pair of 5-gallon buckets. “Hello,” she’d say, “I’m Kelly and I’m here to flush your toilets.”
Workmen in fluorescent vests appeared like a swarm of bees, clearing wreckage and repairing infrastructure. Republican and Democratic politicians all praised the speed and magnitude of relief provided by an alphabet soup of federal, state, local and charitable agencies.
A line of women appeared at a rural staging area for out-of-state electrical linemen, who worked twelve-hour shifts without access to running water or clean clothing. Each woman stepped to the head of the line and took the dirty, smelly shirt, socks, overalls, and underwear a workman wore that day. The ladies returned the next day with laundered work clothes. A Facebook meme, “The best linemen are not in the NFL,” went viral.
Area churches provided ad hoc shelter and relief to anyone, regardless of religion. A James Beard Award-winning restaurant supplied 1,000 free meals a day, as did several other eateries. The World Central Kitchen, led by José Andrés, fed 23,000 displaced people in the first three days after they fashioned a base of operations. They remain here, providing free meals, almost two months later. A bigbox home improvement chain purchased and donated 3,000 Thanksgiving turkeys, complemented by an array of side dishes.
A nearby neighborhood held a massive grill party, cooking meat before it turned bad. Residents emptied their refrigerators and fed neighbors they had never met. This subdivision endured extensive destruction from trees falling on homes and cars, and downed power lines blocked many streets, but their community spirit triumphed. Clearing the mud and debris lasted over a week, and home repairs continue almost two months later. Ubiquitous piles of sawn tree trunks and cut branches still line their neighborhood streets, squeezing traffic to one lane. One city block close to our condo continues to draw its electricity from an insulated power line laying across Starnes Avenue, due to a lack of poles.
Normalcy is sporadically returning in select areas. The health department lifted the boil water advisory on November 20. Most restaurants in the central business district have reopened, though with reduced menus and reduced staff, but some are closed permanently. A glass-blowing shop in the River Arts District is open and holding classes. Another artist is selling decks of playing cards created from 54 of her ruined paintings as a fundraiser for affected artists. Retail stores on the higher side of Biltmore Village are open, as are some pubs. The Biltmore Estate is resuming its classic holiday decorations and tours. Traffic congestion has returned, but dark clouds hover over the tourist industry—one of Asheville’s largest employers. The Paris of the South was devastated, but the spirit of its people ensures it will survive. But too many residents are still suffering, three months after the wind and rain stopped. Social media continues to highlight the generosity, both monetarily and in hours of manual labor, of individuals across our great country. The greatest needs exist in rural areas such as Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, Marshall, Swannanoa, and several other ravaged areas. This holiday season, I hope you can open your heart and wallet to organizations assisting families who need help to survive the winter. Asheville Strong.