Horrors of Helene: The Aftermath [OVERVIEW]

North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains start slow. Small hills in the countryside ripple over each other and slowly turn into raw, jutting stone mountain faces gashed by meandering rivers that weave their way through awe-striking valleys. Tucked away amongst the miles of vast mountains, sits the city of Asheville and its outlying countryside towns.

Within the forests blanketing the mountains, small peaceful communities hide in the rickety pines and the slender firs. Life in the “sticks” is quiet, uneventful, yet that’s what residents have come to love about it. But Asheville’s outlying small towns have been anything but their normal selves for the last six months. At the gripping hands of Mother Nature, trees were shredded, homes and lives swept away in the vast rush of flooding, horror bearing the name “Helene.”

“The flood came from this direction, it came in the back door, knocked out the back door, the windows, and just loaded this up,” said Barnardsville resident Andre Naylor. “All of our furniture, our clothes, everything was jammed against the kitchen wall. So when we went in the back door, it was up to [our waist], and we went ‘what the hell are we gonna do?’”

Terror raged on through the night, ravaging the isolated villages. In the morning, mud and debris sat in mounds inside homes. Lifeblood highways were destroyed. Once a serene life alone quickly became an isolated nightmare, looking for any sign of life in a world that residents were now castrated from.

“When it happened, we didn’t know, we had no cellphones, no way to get out of our roads, no water, no power. The third day it dawned on me, cut the radio on,” said Swannanoa resident Adam, who asked to remove his last name as associated with a business. “I was like ‘oh my’ and just started crying because there were people dead all around me and we didn’t know.”

Now, seven months after tropical storm Helene, many remain without homes, yet those that stand have the smell of fresh wood walking in, doing little to mask the pain rooted in the ghost of a house now long gone. Eyes still fill with tears, uttering the words, “September 27^th.” But for the once contented country-folk, life has changed in the communities of Appalachia forever. The storm has tested all they hold dear, cementing that if no one else, they have the hands and the love of their neighbor to stay afloat in the aftermath. Free food handouts begin to pop up, residents flocked to churches for anywhere to sleep, neighbors help neighbors move the wreckage, and they stagger on forward one day at a time.  

Living at the whims of nature is a reality for all, yet for people in North Carolina, Helene shocked many who believed it to be a “safe haven” from climate change. At one point, it was merely a Category 2 when winds in the Gulf of Mexico accelerated it, racing to Category 4 before it made landfall. Gusts raged at up to 140 miles per hour. Few came prepared for the storm’s wrath, which devoured 107 souls.

Even for those who survived, scars remain.

After the Hurricane, a firestorm of national media swooped into the countryside, yet soon left the scene of the deadliest mainland hurricane since Katrina. As country and city-folk alike began to shovel the pools of mud settling in their homes, the nation picked sides, tearing apart a once unique blend of urban and rural. Seven student journalists from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee traveled to Asheville and its outlying towns to peel back the layers of national perception and record the rebuilding effort.

Six months later, the disaster continues.

Swannanoa

Like most highways in Appalachia, US Highway 70 runs through a series of small towns feeding the lifeline of businesses. The road twists along the side of mountains, creating the epicenter of Swannanoa. While the town isn’t even a town, but rather a “census-designated place,” it was still one of the hardest-hit areas by the storm.

The designation of “census-designated place” has big implications for the town, as it doesn’t have a city government to advocate or allocate relief funds. As such, their only government support has come from the county, which locals say has focused primarily on the city of Asheville.

“These are just simple country people, blue-collar,” said local resident Adam, who asked to have his last name removed. “We’re not like the retired Floridians that live in [Asheville] that have insurance that can cover everything, these people are starting over with nothing, with no help.”

But as residents in campers, tents and small houses hidden in the mountains once lived a remote life, survival has forced them out of the quiet and toward helping their neighbors with the most key parts of survival.

“People are still really struggling here,” said Terilee Condron, owner of Blunt Pretzels. “We are just trying really hard to continue feeding everybody every day, that one hot meal. A lot of folks are still dependent on that as their one hot meal they get.”

Condron’s store was once simply a pretzel shop off the highway, but shortly after the storm, it became Swannanoa’s epicenter for those in need of a hot meal.

“People came and were like ‘can you cook this?’ and neighbors and regulars of the shop brought their grills and their blackstones and just started cooking and that’s kind of how it all started,” Condron said.

Trucks from all over the nation poured in to donate food to Condron’s shop, who feeds 250-300 people per night. She added that in the small community, food scarcity was a big issue before the storm and Helene only compounded it.

“One thing I keep saying is, ‘people don’t line up in the snow and rain to get a meal if they don’t need it,’” Condron said.

While hundreds of volunteers flooded the area shortly after the storm, most of them have gone. Condron’s shop is one of the last serving free hot meals each evening. She grew up in the town and says it holds a special place in her heart.

“We work really hard not to let each other down, everybody helps everybody with everything. Just ‘I have this and I have this,’ and people start trading lumber for appliances and stuff like that,” she said.

Yet most residents shared concerns that they were eternally grateful for the food, but still hurting to rebuild their physical infrastructure. Local tire shop owner Anna Orellana mentioned worries with this issue, fighting for a business founded by her father, who immigrated from El Salvador. 

“We’re six months out and people still don’t have homes. There was already a bit of homelessness out, like downtown Asheville and everything, but that has definitely increased now. I mean, if we look back over that way, you can see the campers where some people are living in.”

Resident Eddy Campos echoed similar sentiments.

“What you need is financial help to be able to rebuild your house,” Campos said. “You won’t rebuild it with food…they bring you food and it’s good, and you get it. Well, we don’t need food or clothes; a house is what you need.”

Campos lost his house in the storm, barely escaping the floods with his three kids. He rode out the storm in his truck.

“We bought [the house] 12 years ago. We had just remodeled everything inside and made everything really nice, and we had a playground for the kids in that area. Everything is gone,” Campos said.

His family has since been living in a camper donated from out-of-state to storm survivors. Swannanoa residents have seen few signs of hope, as many of them were abandoned by insurance claims. As many locals cited, Swannanoa and Asheville are not in a floodplain, so flood insurance isn’t even an option. This left most rebuilding entirely from scratch.

The little hope that some echoed was with the new presidential administration. Helene occurred just under two months before the 2024 Presidential election, and like most things, simply became a political pawn. Yet, for residents of Swannanoa, they’ve been inspired by two visits from President Donald Trump to the community of just 6,000.

“[Trump] has been here multiple times, and that means a lot to a community that’s struggling,” said Swannanoa resident Adam. “For him to say, ‘listen, America ain’t perfect right now, but we’re working on it and we’re getting the funds we need here for you guys as we can.’ We weren’t even getting that in the beginning.”

While the struggles continue under the new administration, Trump’s visit has lit a fire in many locals. But nonetheless, most agree it’s been the community-building that’s really helped this small town stay above water.

“We had no help from no government, no Biden, no FEMA, nothing. We were the ones that cleared the trees, the landslides. It was all community,” said resident Steve Crowell when talking about the first months of recovery.

Locals ended most interviews with one message: ‘Remember us.’

“Just be mindful. Don’t forget about us, said Orellana. “It was a hard hit and there’s still a lot of us trying to navigate both the emotional damage and the physical damage, labor-wise. Just living is completely different now.”

Asheville

The stark slopes and expansive forests of Appalachia provide the world’s perfect muse. Amongst small towns tucked in the mountainsides, the city of Asheville rose, ever bounded by mountains, yet all the more imaginative. The city has become a hub for potters, painters and performers in the heart of the mountains. As boutique owner Lexi DiYeso put it, Asheville is “a quirky, eccentric, vibrant, beautiful town.”

The city sits fixed on the French Broad River. The water nourishes both industrial companies and art studios alike, but during the Hurricane, the 380-feet wide river swelled to 1,300 feet, destroying all around it. Square concrete foundations stand in place of once-thriving riverfront businesses.

“Towns in this area were built on the banks of this river and on the sides of these mountains,” said Asheville native Grayson Haver Currin. “It’s kind of like this psychic damage of like, here’s this thing that’s given us life…when it’s in balance, it’s one of the most beautiful places in the country by far, but when it’s not in balance, it kills you, kills your neighbors and it destroys your town.”

Eighty percent of the River Arts District was destroyed during Helene, but where creative problem solving has become necessary, the minds of artists have filled the gap. After the storm, artist Philip D’Angelo realized he could make little difference shoveling mud or doing construction work, so he turned his studio into a food shelter, bringing food to devastated citizens.

“Sam’s Clubs was open, and they had just gotten a shipment of things. We were able to buy some meat and bread, and when Greg came in, he just jumped in and we started making sandwiches,” D’Angelo said.

The cooking came easily for D’Angelo. He said his fondest memories were of Sundays with his family where his grandmother would cook from scratch all day. This love for food inspired the name of his studio kitchen, “Nonna Deangelo’s.” D’Angelo’s initiative inspired others to pitch in, donating or volunteering.

“We quickly went into cooking and making hot meals. As soon as a handful of our friends found out we were doing it, they jumped in and we always had enough hands,” D’Angelo said.

 His studio has attracted volunteers from all across the city, operating six days a week. At its peak, it served up to 250 people per night.

Boutique owner Lexi DiYeso did what she could to do the same.

“As soon as I could, I loaded up a car, stopped at Sam’s Club, got as much water, formula, and diapers as I could, and started passing it out of my car at stop signs,” DiYeso said.

While finding a hot meal was the first concern for most residents, the September Hurricane led into a winter where many went without a home. DiYeso’s boutique, Hazel Twenty, opted for what it knew best, making sure every resident was clothed for the upcoming winter.

DiYeso turned her store into a donation center for clothing, helping to create care packages for those in need. The space expanded quickly, eventually renting and filling out a space with 20 volunteers.

“My denim line, Mavi, donated 120 new pairs of jeans, and a lot of my other brands sent samples or new clothing,” DiYeso said.

But dedicating oneself wholly to their community isn’t all pretty. DiYeso struggled deeply with business, especially after her insurance claim was denied.

“My store stayed bone dry, but they denied my business interruption claim because the loss was ‘flood-related,’” she said. “That insurance money would have made a big difference.”

DiYeso wasn’t the only one. Artist Harper Leich was an educator, but made the leap last year to open her own public art studio in the River Arts District. Her oil paintings focus on nature, birds, and landscapes.

“Almost all of the artists, myself included, were unable to make art for like, a couple of months,” she said. “We were just so exhausted.”

Unfortunately, one needs to ensure survival before the artistic process can flourish, so Leich still longs for commissions to stay afloat.

“As a public studio, just getting more people introduced to my art, and making sales and doing commissions…that’s the goal now,” she said.

While many have begun the rebuilding process, the locus of life in the mountains remains scarred.

“The Sticks”

While cities like Asheville are well known around the country, and places like Swannanoa gain local prominence, the mountain still keeps its’ secrets. Jutting expanses bury small villages amidst the draping fog and rolling mountains. The solitary life of towns like Marshall or Chimney Rock is tranquil and homely.

Most tucked-away small towns are only accessible by one road, a highway that traverses mountainsides and winds through peaks and valleys. This keeps life peaceful for towns with few visitors, but leaves them exposed to the collapse of their main artery. As storms raged, asphalt was uprooted, leaving citizens trapped in the rocky ranges. Helicopters had to pull citizens out, but many died either by water or by mudslide.

Chimney Rock has been one of the last towns to be rescued by large recovery efforts. 7 months after the storm, it’s the site of vast construction projects, paving over the little that remained. Mayor Peter O’Leary has served the city for 25 years and has helped oversee the recovery effort. Even now, seeing the construction moving, he says the rebuild is a long-term project.

“The highway is going to take at least three years to rebuild,” he said. “Who knows, five, 10, 15 years before we’re anywhere back to something resembling normal.”

The city remains under lockdown, with outsiders unable to enter without the permission of the mayor. Secluded behind the barriers are vast construction crews and uprooted houses still unaided.

With the barriers, the city’s tourism industry has been pummeled, with one-third of the businesses destroyed. O’Leary said most of them are not coming back.

“If we can get open this summer… most of us might be able to make it,” he said. “But if we don’t, it’s going to be very difficult.”

But like in Swannanoa, it’s been small-town organizations coming together rather than government support.

“We’ve had over 2,000 volunteers organized by Spokes of Hope,” he shared. “All that rebuilding—dug out mud, torn down interiors, rebuilt walls—that’s all volunteer work.”

Spokes of Hope helped organize swaths of Amish carpenters from Pennsylvania coming to the city, working in tandem with massive bulldozers clearing the way. Connie Humenik, who has volunteered with the organization since October, said they have around 300 to 400 volunteers per week.

“We are spear-led—the Lord leads us with whatever we do,” Humenik said when describing Spokes of Hope. “When people come together in a mighty way, you can get a lot of stuff done.”

Locals emphasized the help from the Amish communities.

“[The Amish] are a tremendous help,” said Kevin Maxwell, a volunteer. “If you’ve ever been around them, you know they’re extremely hard workers and they show up, they’re ready to work.”

The teamwork across religious sects has moved the wheels on the reconstruction effort, but for every person rebuilding, it’s been a ragtag effort to put the pieces back together. Andre Naylor’s house in Barnardsville, 20 minutes north of Asheville, finally put the pieces back together on his family’s new place. Naylor’s life in the countryside was filled with artwork and gardening until the storm hit. Yet even as his life gains back a sense of normality amongst the new-wood smell of his home, his unflinching eyes teared up when recounting the day his house filled with mud, sweeping away all he once knew.

Naylor has begun to finish up the rebuilding process, but more than half a year after the storm, he said he’s just now beginning to reflect on the destruction in his neighborhood.

“It was incredible how the community came together, especially young people. You know, it probably saved people’s lives,” Naylor said.

His house’s electricity was fully wired by a volunteer electrician from out of state who stayed for two weeks. The rebuild wasn’t quite the same for his neighbors.

“We kept looking over there like, what is going on? Why aren’t they working on their property?” Naylor said. “One of the reasons why they weren’t working on their property is, they have jobs. I’m retired. I’m here seven days a week, and they’re there for the weekend…So we sent volunteers from here over there to help them, and now there’s some of the organizations that were helping us are now picking them up to help them also.”

Even with all of this time on his hands, rebuilding was a rough process. He received $25,000 for property damages, which barely scraped the surface of an estimated $500,000 in damages.

Weather

Tucked behind walls of mountains and almost 300 miles from the Atlantic, Asheville and its outlying towns had long been considered a safe haven from climate change. This made the threat all the more jarring for mountain folk.

“I heard there were reports. At first, the river was going to go twenty feet,” said Colton Dion, an Asheville artist. “We heard this about two days before the storm. People didn’t think it would be that crazy.”

While the edges of previous storms have hit Asheville before this, it wasn’t since 1916 that the city had seen something so destructive. Before Helene, the Great Flood of 1916 was nicknamed “the flood to end all floods.” It crested at 21 feet, devastating the city in a catastrophe that cost today’s equivalent of $480 million. Helene shattered this record, with the French Broad River peaking at 24.67 ft.

Most residents were ill-prepared to face this monolith, a large part to play in the 107 dead, the deadliest tropical storm since Katrina. But for weather researcher and UW-Madison professor Angel Francisco Adames-Corraliza, he said most weather researchers knew the storm was coming and called it a “high rarity event.”

While Helene took the typical life cycle of a tropical storm, Adames-Corraliza says researchers have concluded that climate change played a role in the devastation of the storm.

“Assuming that everything else was going to be the same, just the fact that we have a warmer atmosphere now than what we did decades ago implies heavier rain,” he said.

Adames-Corraliza explained that storms are at the mercy of the first law of thermodynamics, which explains, among other things, that more heat allows for more absorption of water vapor. This capacity for water vapor absorption expands 7% for each degree Celsius the atmosphere heats. This leads to heavier rains and potentially stronger storms.

But combined with this, Adames-Corraliza explained why the storm was especially bad in North Carolina, because of what is referred to as orographic enhancement, where the terrain where a storm hits can change the outcome on the ground. He explained that when wind and water hit a long chain of mountains, like Appalachia, it shoots upward into the sky, condenses quickly, and then rains back down. This effect was best seen by the 30.78 inches of rain seen in Busick, one hour northeast of Asheville.

“Your capacity to have extreme rainfall is much higher over mountainous terrain than there is over flat terrain,” Adames-Corraliza explained.

He added that the communication of the threat was difficult, especially since flooding in the mountains can be so rapid and unexpected. It reached only category 4, yet slowed 300 miles inland, finally hanging over Asheville and causing mass destruction.

“If you had just taken into consideration the category of the hurricane, by the time it hit Asheville, you would think it wouldn’t be that threatening anymore, but in fact, it was actually incredibly dangerous because of the level of flooding that it caused,” he said.

Unfortunately for many, there was a large swath of misinformation that surrounded Helene, especially during the recovery effort. As the mist coated the mountainside, unscientific theories spread. Multiple residents mentioned the idea that the storm was controlled and intentional.

“So they can control the weather, obviously, and the path of a hurricane. So when it came up it it lost intensity completely, got redirected and then built intensity,” said resident Steve Crowell. “It was man-made, and then Black Mountain released the dam on purpose because of the lithium.”

The fog of misinformation skewed the recovery effort, especially after the current President Donald Trump, at the time a candidate for the election, circulated the idea that FEMA was widely and intentionally withholding aid from Republican disaster victims after only one report of this issue.

Nonetheless, many people on the ground mentioned concerns about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Residents in Swannanoa said they received a mere $750 for the rebuild, barely scratching the surface of those facing price tags upward of $100,000.

“FEMA is just a big, cumbersome agency. We wish they could act faster,” said Chimney Rock Mayor Peter O’Leary. “I’d love to see them assign one person to a town for the long term—someone who knows the community and sticks around.”

Moving Forward

In the wake of the initial disaster, volunteers from all over the country flocked to the countryside to support victims. With shovels on the ground, cleaning up oceans of mud, the recovery effort was grueling. Now months after, debris and trash have been cleaned up, and pillars erected to build around. Life in the city of Asheville has slowly begun to creep back to normal, but homes in the backwoods still cling on for dear life.

Volunteer organizations have begun to pull out of the area even as people still search for hot meals each evening, a lifeline many were without even before the storm.

“I think this is just true of a natural disaster, but it exacerbates the things that are messed up already – and it makes it harder for everybody who is already having a hard time,” said Libby Rodenbough, a local musician.

Places that supported the impoverished even before the storm have been called upon to provide even more support. Hickory Nut Gorge Outreach in Lake Lure helps provide food to all who need it, but also things that SNAP benefits don’t cover. The Outreach has been open since 2004, but has stepped up since the storm.

“I came in one day, and the whole front of the building was lined with big black trash bags of clothes,” said Outreach President Karen King. “We had so much stuff that we had a guy who lent us a 28-foot trailer so we could store all the stuff in there.”

The Outreach serves a rural population with little access to larger support systems available in the city, especially after the main pass to Asheville was washed away in the storm. They focus on about 100 families per month, which has kept survivors afloat.

As larger relief efforts have slowed, religion has been a big supporter for local residents. Chris Glick, a board member with the organization that helps arrange this support, says volunteer work has been the most vital part.

“It’s all volunteer work. None of the board members get paid, nobody gets paid,” Glick said.  “Everybody does a couple of hours a week. That’s what makes the ship go forward.”

He has organized buses of 35-75 people per week since the beginning of the year. Glick says it’s his faith that has inspired him to do this.

“Helping other people is part of helping bring people closer to god, part of expanding the Kingdom,” Glick said. “If we can all take a little bit of time in the day just to talk to somebody or help somebody, hopefully we can reflect some of God’s light to other people so they can see.”

As larger organizations have begun to look elsewhere, it’s ragtag teams of volunteers that have supported outlying communities through their rebuild. Nonetheless, residents on the ground still long for support.

“Giving those people cash to manage their lives is really important… because how are they supposed to manage?” said Asheville artist Harper Leich. “Some of them are still paying a mortgage on a home that was destroyed, and now have to pay rent somewhere else.”

But even in these small communities suffering, hope is held out. As scars begin to fade on the ground, repurposed by new and flourishing buildings, residents remain excited for a new day.

“We’re going to rebuild something better,” said Chimney Rock Mayor Peter O’Leary. “We’re putting in water and sewer all the way to the county line. We’re redesigning bridges to be attractions, not just infrastructure. This is going to be a renaissance—it’s just going to take time.”

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This story is part of a semester-long investigative reporting project into the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. It was created by an advanced reporting class in the Journalism, Advertising, and Media Studies program at UW-Milwaukee. Other stories from the project are available here.

This work was made possible through the support of MPC Endowment Ltd., the philanthropic affiliate of the Milwaukee Press Club.