"Water's Potency": Ways in which Helene Wreaked Havoc in Western North Carolina, Leaving Communities in Ruins
A gentle drizzle was falling, but the Ashbys "felt secure there," with pillars raising their secondary residence approximately 20 feet above the ground near the Tennessee border, as Jessica Meidinger, Kim Ashby's daughter, remembered.
For several days before Helene made landfall in Florida, the National Weather Service in North Carolina issued warnings of an unprecedented mix of heavy rain, dangerous flooding, and catastrophic landslides in the mountainous regions. A weather system that arrived prior to Helene had already saturated the ground and swelled the rivers.
More than 10 hours before the hurricane touched down hundreds of miles away, the Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, weather forecast office predicted: "This will be one of the most significant weather events to take place in the western parts of the region in modern history."
On the morning of September 27, the Ashbys were enjoying breakfast when their house was swept away by the flood-prone Elk River. A neighbor captured a photo of the house as it drifted away. Rod Ashby quickly grabbed his wife and their three dogs. Initially, they clung to an old mattress, then to a section of the wall that eventually broke apart, separating them in the swift, rubble-filled waters, according to Meidinger.
"That's the last time he saw my mom. The last time anyone has seen my mom," Meidinger stated regarding her stepfather. He survived, reporting that he reached for a tree branch to pull himself out of the water and then ran along the riverbank calling for his wife.
Over a week after Helene ravaged vast sections of western North Carolina, Kim Ashby remains one of several hundred individuals still unaccounted for. More than 100 fatalities have been reported in North Carolina. Helene was responsible for more than 200 deaths across six states, making it one of the deadliest hurricanes to strike the US mainland in the last 50 years.
"He wants to find Kim," said Lauren Meidinger, Rod Ashby's daughter-in-law.
“The scent of human loss”
Helene reached Florida's Big Bend as a Category 4 hurricane on September 26, creating a 500-mile trail of destruction with catastrophic flooding, damaging winds, and power outages.
A week after the storm, the pungent odor of mortality hangs over the crisp mountain air in the isolated, winding roads of devastated rural western North Carolina.
“You’re driving past cities, and the odor of decay and human loss is overwhelming,” said Jazmine Rodgers, a 32-year-old nonprofit consultant who has been volunteering to aid neighbors in the hard-hit city of Asheville.
Asheville is located in Buncombe County, which has documented at least 72 deaths, the highest toll in the state. The county medical examiner has had to halt updating the death toll, awaiting additional assistance from the state, according to Buncombe County spokesperson Lillian Govus. Hundreds of county residents are still missing or stranded in the aftermath of the hurricane, Govus said Saturday.
“I still vividly remember the odors during Hurricane Katrina,” Rodgers told CNN, her voice trembling. “The aroma of decay and the scent of human loss. That image will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
Asheville is situated at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, making the city a “catch basin” for rain cascading down 4,000 feet of elevation. With a population of 95,000 people, Asheville lies at the confluence of two major rivers, the French Broad and the Swannanoa, making it susceptible to flooding.
Large sections of western North Carolina, situated hundreds of miles from the coast, have been transformed beyond recognition. The emergency response has been challenged by hundreds of destroyed roads and collapsed bridges, as well as ongoing communication disruptions.
“My hometown practically no longer exists,” Rodgers said. “I grew up in western North Carolina outside of Lake Lure, spent every summer in Chimney Rock. It’s completely gone.”
“For a few days, I was in denial. I kept believing that a tornado had swept through the area,” Rodgers said. “I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that our river swelled so much that it flooded everything. It's simply the power of water.”
A community is annihilated
In Chimney Rock, a village around 20 miles southeast of Asheville, no structure or house was left untouched by the rampaging floodwaters. Chimney Rock, home to fewer than 200 people, is named for the towering granite outcropping that gazes over it.
“Everything you take for granted has been wiped out – literally,” Mayor Peter O’Leary told CNN affiliate WSOC-TV.
“Every single business, every single building has been damaged or destroyed,” O’Leary said.
Local residents were using pack mules to rescue people as well as deliver essentials like food, water, and supplies to areas still inaccessible by vehicle, according to Rodgers and others. Some of the stranded residents had written their names on tarps and shared images on social media, hoping that their loved ones would see them. Several communities remain inaccessible only by helicopter.
“Now Asheville is receiving significant attention, even though smaller communities outside of Asheville also require attention,” Rodgers said.
The exact number of missing individuals is still unclear. FEMA is collaborating with local and state officials to confirm the total, Administrator Deanne Criswell told CNN.
When speaking about the authentic scenery of western North Carolina, there's minor settlements, larger towns, but if you reside on a hill's side, you might just have one entryway and one exit, mentioned Rodgers. And if a bunch of large trees fall on your primary road, folks are confined.
We're talking about entire mountain sides completely vanishing. It's hard to quantify how many individuals are missing given there are small hollows (or valleys) across western North Carolina, tiny pockets of communities, tiny trailer parks. If you don't have kin in those regions, you likely haven't heard of them.
In the holiday destination town of Maggie Valley, North Carolina, around 35 miles west of Asheville, Joseph Franklin McElroy admitted his 6-year-old twins were embracing the catastrophe as a "grand expedition" yet were still oblivious that their favorite teacher – "like a second mom" – had drowned throughout the storm.
“I mean, they adore this teacher,” he told CNN. “Now we're faced with having to inform them that this great journey took the life of their beloved teacher.”
McElroy lamented the alleged lack of interaction between local authorities and residents.
“You know, when the internet goes out, we’re in the dark,” he said. “There’re lots of people still missing their loved ones, unaware whether they’ve been rescued. There is a sort of psychological trauma that's brewing here where individuals are uncertain and it's actual.”
‘We need to evacuate’
Kim Ashby, described as “the adhesive that holds everyone together” by her daughter Jessica Meidinger, is teaching in North Carolina schools for 20 years.
Kim and Rod Ashby have been constructing the house in Elk Park for two years and would often visit to add the final touches. The couple live in Sanford, about 45 miles southwest of Raleigh, but went to their second residence on Thursday to check on it before the storm.
Lauren Meidinger said her in-laws were having breakfast on the morning of September 27 when Rod noticed something was wrong. “He heard a crack. He went outside again and saw that the footer of the home was gone,” Lauren said.
He rushed back in. “Hey, we need to get dressed. We need to evacuate,” he told his wife.
Within seconds, the house was swept away into the river. Rod Ashby rescued Kim Ashby and the dogs, and they clung desperately to a section of wall until it broke apart.
He went up and down the bank shouting for his wife before finally crawling to a neighbor's house for help. Jessica and Lauren Meidinger managed to get him to their home on Tuesday night.
“He wants to return up there and keep searching,” Lauren Meidinger said.
“She’s a fighter. You know, Kim fought breast cancer and vanquished it, and she’s fought her entire life,” Meidinger said of her mother-in-law. “We know that if she emerged from that water, she’s still alive.”
Search teams using helicopters, drones and dogs have yet to locate her.
CNN’s David Williams, Isabel Rosales, Artemis Moshtaghian, Dakin Andone, Mary Gilbert, Angela Fritz, Holly Yan, Andy Rose, Chelsea Bailey, Joe Sutton, Taylor Romine, Dianne Gallagher and Rachel Ramirez contributed to this report.
After the storm, Rod Ashby expressed his determination to continue searching for his wife, Kim Ashby, as she was still missing.
Despite the devastation in smaller communities outside of Asheville, the focus and resources were primarily directed towards the larger city due to its visibility and accessibility.
