Inside the former United Methodist Church in downtown Swannanoa, local business owners from across Western North Carolina shared their at-times tearful stories of loss, resilience and determination as a crowd including many prominent elected officials looked on.
The event, hosted last week by the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, took place nearly four months after Hurricane Helene ravaged much of the region. Swannanoa was among the hardest-hit communities, and the blocks surrounding the church remain scenes of devastation, with piles of debris and hollowed-out buildings dotting the landscape.
“We are grateful for the progress that’s been made. But we need more progress, and the visual healing to begin,” Meredith Ellison, one of the business owners, told the crowd.
Ellison is the co-founder and chief well-being officer of Quility, a life insurance company whose headquarters is a few doors down from the church.
“So many people have said, ‘I try to come into the office and it just really inflames my trauma. I go right back to the day of the storm.’ And it just keeps that cycle going,” she said.
The event featured speakers from the Asheville, Boone, McDowell County and Henderson County Chambers of Commerce, as well as panelists representing businesses in the arts, outdoor recreation, retail, hospitality and other industries.
Congress has appropriated billions of dollars in federal disaster aid for Western North Carolina in the wake of Helene. But it will be months until local governments actually see the money. In the meantime, many businesses are struggling to survive.
“We need to be building temporary structures down in the lower RAD,” River Arts District Association President Jeffrey Burroughs told the crowd. “Because spring is in six weeks, and if we don’t make something happen, we’re going to lose the River Arts District. And that’s the truth. And it’s so close, you all. We are holding on by bits of string.”
Burroughs said some potential visitors don’t know some businesses and artist spaces in the River Arts District have re-opened. The upper part of the district is open while the lower part continues to rebuild, but more needs to be done, Burroughs said.
They added that the artists themselves should be the ones to decide the future of the district, rather than outside developers or people who want to buy the land and likely change its character.
“Everybody has an idea for the future of the River Arts District,” Burroughs said. “Thank you, no.”
Roads, infrastructure and tourism
Several speakers worry potential tourists don’t realize many parts of Western North Carolina are ready to welcome them back.
“We do want the tourism to come back,” said Michelle Bollman, general manager of Stick Boy Bread Company in Boone. “We want the locals to be able to stay. We want them to not have to relocate. But we have to create not just the one successful business but the community of businesses. … We need it to be great for everyone.”
Bollman also noted that there have been many comparisons between what businesses are facing post-Helene and what they weathered during the coronavirus pandemic. Many local businesses took out large loans five years ago to survive financially. Business representatives said grant funding is critical in the Helene recovery as owners are hesitant to take on debt.
While the pandemic gave local business owners a “playbook” on how to identify priorities and respond quickly to a disaster, there are important distinctions, she said.
“COVID also brought people to Western North Carolina, because they weren’t flying anymore, and we’re accessible, and you can come; it’s a destination,” Bollman said. “The biggest distinction is that Helene is keeping people from Western North Carolina.”
Still, she and others noted that it’s difficult for businesses to rebuild when transportation remains a challenge in many areas.
“We need to get these spaces back to where they were. That starts with roads and infrastructure,” Bollman said.
Mast General Store President and CEO Lisa Cooper said 2024 will probably be the first year that her business takes a loss. The Asheville location is one of the company’s 11 stores throughout the region and used to be the highest-earning store. Not anymore, she said: In October, the Asheville store’s business was down 80%.
“We’re out there trying to help our friends and neighbors, but I know what they’re going through … We’re tired. We’re very tired. But we’re together. My people are back and they’re supporting each other,” Cooper said.
Other obstacles to rebuilding mentioned by speakers include “donation fatigue,” confusion over floodplain rules and other zoning restrictions, and the slow pace of debris removal. In many cases, business owners said they and others have been denied coverage by insurance companies – particularly claims for lost revenue resulting not from building damage but from ceased operations when the city of Asheville’s public water system was offline for more than seven weeks.
“We plan to rebuild here in Swannanoa,” Ellison said. “We hope to rebuild here in Swannanoa. But even after we rebuild, I can’t ask my employees to come into this office, for the way it looks in this town. It is hard.”
After the event, as participants streamed out into the late afternoon sun, a construction crew was hard at work on the property next door, the clangs of their tools reverberating as they repaired the structure’s roof.