In the three weeks since Hurricane Helene tore through Western North Carolina, it is not yet clear how many of the more than three million people in its path will be able to return home, in some cases to communities where their families have lived for generations.
As residents of mountain communities watch the devastation, shock has given way to anger and frustration for some. People are staying where they can, some even in tents, at a time when temperatures are dropping. Yet there is resilience in the face of the seemingly insurmountable.
Some Avery County residents interviewed by The News & Observer are still unsure of the full extent and cost of the damage to their homes.
Joyce and David Lyons had lived in their Avery County mobile home on the Elk River since 1992, watching it float downstream like a toy after narrowly escaping with their lives.
“It looked like a kid had picked it up,” David Lyons said as he sat outside the American Red Cross shelter on Shady Street in Newland.
They lost all belongings except David’s 60-pound oxygen tank, which Joyce retrieved during their escape, and the clothes they were carrying on their backs. Even Joyce’s engagement ring did not survive the storm.
With the road to their home destroyed, the couple had not returned since Helene. They stayed with a neighbor for two nights and then left on a raft manned by a high-speed water rescue team.
After that, they called the shelter home, then a motel in Banner Elk paid for by FEMA. It wasn’t easy being in an environment where you have so little control, especially after losing so much.
The shelter bathroom cleaning products aggravated David’s COPD, causing him to cough many nights.
A FEMA employee came up with the idea of purchasing an RV. But there’s no way to tell what they’ll be able to buy until FEMA can assess the damage to their trailer — wherever it ended up — and calculate how much assistance they’ll receive.
They hoped this would happen within days, Lyons said, although the assessments were briefly postponed earlier this month after workers were forced to withdraw from the field due to threats.
‘I don’t understand’
For Paul Laws, 52, there is no doubt about what he and his family want, but it is unclear whether they can get it.
Although their little blue house down the street, named after his father, still stands in Avery County, Helene made it unlivable. Laws, a former prison guard and law enforcement officer, shared the home with his wife, a pharmacist at a local hospital, and their 15-year-old daughter.
The powerful waters of the Elk River carried his teen’s brand new car, a gift for when she got her driver’s license, and his beloved pickup truck 500 yards into the gorge, crushing them among trees and rocks. Those same waters flowed through the home Laws built from scratch in 2016, taking furniture and prized possessions with them.
Initial assessments indicate that the home’s foundation, flooring, insulation, drywall, cabinets and cladding all need to be repaired or replaced, Laws said. The family also lost most of their furniture to the flood.
Disappointment that FEMA assistance won’t cover all home damage is adding to the anger and frustration, some in Avery County say.
“We’re barely getting $31,000,” said Paul Laws, who was told.
“FEMA is here to help; the guy we had was very nice, and it’s not the FEMA reps that are the problem. It’s the regulations that are the problem,” Laws said.
Laws said he can’t understand why North Carolina members of Congress aren’t rushing to increase funding for FEMA, which has provided $129 million in aid to North Carolina residents as of Monday.
He reached out to Rep. Virginia Foxx, who grew up in Avery County and lives in Banner Elk, more than a week ago, he said, but never heard back.
“I don’t understand it, and why our representatives and legislators haven’t said a word about more FEMA funding is beyond me,” he said.
‘This is where their whole life takes place’
Heather Bender, 42, hasn’t lost her home, but knows many in Avery County who have, including five of her coworkers at Wheels Contracting. Since the storm, she has distributed items at the Spear Country Store in Newland, and what she hears from community members is consistent.
“They’re staying,” Bender said. “This is where their whole lives take place. This is where generations of their family have been.”
In a county with a poverty rate of 14.8%, sometimes it’s not so much a choice as a reality, she noted.
“When they say evacuate or go somewhere else, these people don’t have that option,” Bender said. “They don’t have that luxury. They can’t look for a hotel somewhere else.”
And even if they could, many wouldn’t want to.
David and Joyce Lyons, for example, plan to remain in their community where they have lived for most of their 39-year relationship.
“I want to go back to Elk River,” David Lyons said. “I love it down there.”
In an effort to help people return to their homes, locals and many others from outside the storm’s path have been doing their part. In Avery County, a van full of volunteers from Michigan crisscrossed the county offering to help people clean up.
Laws has partnered with Wake Forest-based Living Stone Building Company, which is asking for donations to help his family repair their home for free.
That kind of generosity has been a balm as Laws and others in Avery County battle the uncertainty of the future.
“That is the person I would really like to thank. God bless them because they didn’t hesitate,” Paul Laws said.
Stevie Thomas, 42, lost the small house she shared with her boyfriend in Minneapolis. She works at the Baxter IV fluids plant in North Cove, which was damaged during the storm, leaving her and her colleagues out of work for several weeks.
The company has paid her and other employees, she said. But instead of spending her time looking for housing, she organizes the distribution of winter coats, portable heaters and other needed items at a makeshift distribution center that three local churches have set up in her town.
“This community is great,” Thomas said. “Everyone comes together and works together.”
“It’s our town,” she said, torn. “We grew up here.”
Mourning what was lost before Helene struck
Looking ahead, Paul Laws is frustrated by what happened before the most extreme local flooding of his life.
Flood insurance would have provided additional financial help, and Laws had it for several years before it became inaccessible to him, he said. He canceled after payments skyrocketed from $500 to $2,700 a year around 2019, he said.
“I did my best to insure it, I did, but we couldn’t afford it,” Laws said. “It has gone up so much.”
As of June, only 17 households in the Laws ZIP code had flood insurance, and only 155 households in Avery County were insured, FEMA data shows.
“Considering the worst hurricanes we’ve ever had were Hugo and the one in ’04, [where] the water was 40 yards from our house, it was nothing to worry about at that point,” Laws said. “Up until now it’s really been nothing to worry about.”
State floodplain maps showed his property in a spot with only a 1% annual chance of flooding.
“I don’t think anyone really knew how bad this would be,” Laws said.
News & Observer photojournalist Ethan Hyman contributed to this reporting.
