As Hurricane Helene approached the coast of Florida on Thursday night, residents in the N.C. mountain town of Black Mountain went to bed expecting strong winds, heavy rain and some flooding.
Some prepared with sandbags, stocked up on water bottles and filled up their bathtubs. Most in the town, 15 miles east of Asheville, knew a storm was headed their way. But they didn’t think it was going to be that severe.
Zuleyma Hernandez, who lives with her family along the Swannanoa River near the town’s high school, found out differently at 6 a.m. Friday. That’s when the fire department started banging on her door, telling her to evacuate. The sound was so muffled against the rain, she said later, that many of her neighbors didn’t hear. Once awake, she and her parents went around banging on the doors of nearby homes that had cars parked out front.
When they went to leave, they encountered fallen trees blocking the exits to the neighborhood. So they sought higher ground at Hernandez’s aunt’s house in the same neighborhood, farther from the river.
After the rain subsided Friday afternoon, residents of Black Mountain ventured out to survey the damage, and they found their town dramatically changed.
In some spots, only the roofs of many homes and local businesses were visible above the brown, murky flood water. In other areas, large oak, pine and maple trees were down, blocking roads, lying across power lines and crushing homes.
Parking lots looked like lakes. The tops of cars resembled islands. Chunks of major roads and bridges had been washed away. Whole trailer homes were carried down the streets with the water or on a mudslide.
When Hernandez’s parents went back down the hill to survey the damage to their home, they found it destroyed. They lost everything.
Information hard to come by
It is a scene that played out tragically over the last few days throughout Western North Carolina, where fast-rising flood waters swept away homes, washed out roads and devastated lives.
Black Mountain is one of many mountain towns still coming to terms with the extent of the damage and suffering, as knocked-out power and internet service have left many residents and the outside world in the dark.
Black Mountain is one of the places that received the most rain from the storm, an estimated 13+ inches over the course of two days. It’s also where I grew up. I went to that high school down the street from Hernandez’s house. My parents and two brothers still live there.
My mother recalls her grandmother telling her the story of the Great Flood of 1916, which dumped 15 to 22 inches of rain in 24 hours and killed more than 80 people.
I’ve spent the last two days trying to connect with friends and relatives in Black Mountain, to make sure they’re OK and to tell the town’s story. I got a taste of the communications troubles mountain residents have experienced since Friday — the difficulty of getting reliable information, with texts that don’t go through and spotty or nonexistent phone service. Some conversations with my contacts were brief or abruptly cut off, and sometimes my text messages wouldn’t deliver for a few hours.
With limited power and cell service across the area, word of mouth has been the main way for people to get information. For those with fleeting or unreliable connections, Facebook has become a lifeline, a source of valuable leads on finding open roads and supplies, and posting about missing loved ones or inquiries about certain parts of town. It has also contained rumors that are unverified.
What I’ve learned in talking with a half-dozen Black Mountain residents this weekend is this: That as horrific as the flooding was, the danger isn’t over. Hundreds of people who live on the side of the mountain were still trapped over the weekend, with no road to drive out and no way to call 911.
There are still plenty of challenges that are only beginning to be addressed.
Looking at the damage to the town, residents believe it will be weeks if not months until power and water return — and until they’re able to know how many lives the storm took. Authorities with Buncombe County, where Asheville and Black Mountain are located, said Sunday that there are 30 confirmed deaths in the county from the storm. There are more than 600 people unaccounted for, they said, though the number could drop as communications are restored.
Many in Black Mountain are seeking to leave, if they can find a route out of town that isn’t blocked.
They also worry about food. With no way to cook food or keep it refrigerated, they’re limited to their dwindling supply of room temperature, canned foods. Nearby stores are closed.
The parking lot of one of the area’s main grocery stores, Ingles, is a lake. Gas stations are closed. The roads to Asheville, which reportedly has a few businesses open and accepting cash, are blocked.
The closest hospital, Mission Hospital in Asheville, is 15 miles away, and the closest emergency shelter is 20 miles away.
Town in shock
On a typical September weekend, the streets of downtown Black Mountain bustle with tourists wandering through the mom-and-pop stores, maybe stopping for lunch at Ole’s Guacamoles or grabbing a coffee at the Dripolator.
Black Mountain, population 8,600, is known for its historic downtown, its shops and restaurants, arts and crafts festivals, and hiking and camping.
On Saturday, though, it wasn’t tourists jamming the downtown — it was people wandering around in search of food, water and cell service, or assessing the damage to their beloved town.
“It feels like we’re in a movie — like the ‘Twisters’ movie after a tornado,” said Alyssa Melton, 24, a part-time student. “People are walking around covered in mud without shoes. They’re in shock.”
Some people carried their shoes to keep them from getting muddy. Others didn’t have shoes. Melton says she assumes they were lucky enough to have gotten out with the clothes on their backs.
Melton and her boyfriend, Chris Boesen, spent Saturday driving around Black Mountain, taking photos of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and posting them to Facebook whenever they found cell service.
“People need to see this,” said Melton, who is my cousin.
Melton’s home had been spared by the storm. But she had a river in her backyard where there once was just grass.
“I have never been more scared in my life,” she said.
Without power and cell service, she had no idea if the rest of her family was safe. She eventually got a call out to her parents and found them and her brother safe a few miles away.
Help starts to arrive
By Sunday, some of the relief operations had begun to kick into gear. The town posted on Facebook on Sunday afternoon: “INFORMATiON WATER!!! The water has arrived at Ingles at 550 Hwy 9, Black Mountain. You MUST have your own containers!!! Please be patient and orderly.” It imposed a limit of one gallon per person. The town also set a 7 p.m. curfew.
My home church, Black Mountain Presbyterian Church in downtown, offered food and porta-potties on Sunday to the more than 800 people who made it to the parking lot.
Local nonprofits, like Asheville-based Christian ministry Hearts with Hands, and other organizations including Samaritan’s Purse and Operation Blessing have deployed groups to help distribute supplies.
Town officials said it will be months, if not years, before the area can experience some normalcy.
My family made it out fine, too. They left the Black Mountain area on Saturday and arrived in Charlotte, taking a circuitous route because of road closures.
When they got here, with reliable power and internet access, they sat down for the first time and looked through the hundreds of photos and videos circling on social media.
They had no idea the damage was as bad as it was just a mile up the road from their house. Bridges they crossed every day to get to school and work were gone. Businesses where they shopped and ate were feet-deep in flood water. The town my mother, my siblings and I all grew up in was unrecognizable.
With tears streaming down all of our faces, we realized they were some of the lucky ones.
Lindsey Banks is a staff reporter for The Charlotte Ledger. Reach her at lindsey@cltledger.com.
