During Helene, the stream that borders the north end of Katherine Oglietti’s home swelled high enough to remove a car-size chunk of asphalt from her street.
“This whole road looked like a raging river with rapids,” Oglietti said.
She took shelter with her two-year-old in a neighbor’s home while her partner looked after the house. Behind Oglietti, chickens clucked contentedly around their enclosure.
“Our chickens are good,” Oglietti said. “The chickens were in the coop. The water actually didn't hit them at all.”
Many of the fruit trees and vegetables she had been growing were washed away by Helene. In a small way, the chickens have relieved some of the stress when food access became scarce after the storm.
“It's kind of heartbreaking to know that you're going to be out of food, and there are people that are going to be out of food, and you have all this food rotting in a refrigerator,” Oglietti said.
Her home still doesn’t have power, so cold storage isn’t an option. She feeds the chickens the produce that risks going rotten, and, in return, the chickens provide her a daily supply of eggs.
Oglietti’s chickens are safe, but the same cannot be said for many animal companions in Avery County. Already, the human toll of Hurricane Helene in the Carolinas has been immense. But alongside lost homes, roads and businesses, the floods stranded many animals as well. Electric fences failed and outside animals became separated from their owners during the storm.
Bruce and Virginia Carpenter are running the emergency animal shelter in Newland, where they say many stranded pets have been spotted near town.
“We know that there are some on a river bank on Elk River,” Virginia Carpenter said. “They’re safe right now, just no one can get to them.”
Virginia Carpenter led one dog on a leash around the pop-up shelter, while Jeb, the Plott hound, barked from his spot by a nearby tree, his leash wrapped around the trunk. He appeared to be in time out.
“He’s in need of being fostered, but, as you can hear, he’s a very loud dog,” Carpenter said.
Community members have donated food, puppy pads, litter and treats. Four animals had been recovered by Tuesday afternoon. They’ve already fostered one beagle and reunited a pitbull with its owner.
Information and support resources for western North Carolina:
- Charlotte native Laurel Roser moderates a living document on Google Sheets with hurricane recovery resources for western North Carolina, including Avery County.
- Blue Ridge Public Radio published a list of organizations supporting hurricane relief efforts in western North Carolina.
- WFAE has compiled this list of resources.
- Organizations in the Triangle are organizing drives to get resources to affected towns in the western part of the state.
