Helene

We're fine. Our region is not. This is what it's been like for us.

Wednesday (9/25/24)
On Wednesday, the forecasts were dire enough that we decided to close the church offices Thursday and Friday, but not dire enough for Jack to stay home from work on Thursday. We knew it would rain all day Thursday, and that Friday morning Helene winds would hit.

Thursday (9/26/24)
Jack texted before coming home: do we need any supplies? No, I said, and then added: I mean I guess if we were to lose power for a couple of days we don’t have a ton of food. But we’re probably ok. Rosie went to band practice. She got a ride home at 6, and said the roads weren’t too bad. Jack got a warning email from Asheville utilities, and filled up several pitchers of water.

Friday (9/27/24)
The power went off and came back on at some point during the night.

Around six, I woke up to a persistent bumping sound. The power was out again, but the robot vacuum had somehow been turned on (cats?) and gotten stuck in the hallway bathroom, where it was bumping agains the walls. I turned it off and went to look out the windows at the rain. Jack brought the camping stove up from the basement, and boiled water for a French press. Owen worked on a puzzle. Rosie slept. I knew from the weather report which hours the winds were supposed to hit 30 mph. I still wasn’t really worried; in Indiana in the winter, the the winds would often hit 22 or 25 mph. I only worried because the ground was so soft from so much rain the preceding day.

I stood by the glass doors at the back of the house and watched the wind move the trees. Every now and then I’d hear a crack, like a short bark of thunder, and know that somewhere nearby we’d lost a tree. All morning I walked back and forth from the front door to the back doors, watching, wondering at every crack if we should wake Rosie up and move to the basement. Jack filled the bathtubs up halfway.

Then Owen came into the living room. “Did you guys know there’s water in the basement?” We’d been down there earlier, and it had been fine. Now, there was standing water in most corners, creeping across. We carried flashlights downtairs, and used old beach towels and blankets to soak it up. I tried to kick it out.

I ate two turkey sandwiches. The deli meat was going to go bad.

By noon, the storm was mostly over. Rosie woke up. My phone only gets one bar of service at our house at the best of times, and without wifi I was struggling to connect to send messages or get any news. We decided to go for a walk, to see how the rest of the neighborhood had fared, and to see if we could get a better signal. On the street below ours, a downed tree entirely blocked the road. Jack and Owen returned to the house. Rosie and I kept walking. Two blocks down from our house, a tree had landed on a roof. At the entrance to our neighborhood, a downed tree blocked the road, taking the power lines with it. We walked another half mile to see if the other way out was clear: it was, but we saw a third road entirely blocked by a tree, the beginnings of mudslide, flooded yards.

We ran into a friend who had driven to our neighborhood to check on a grandparent; her neighborhood was worse, eight trees down on one road. We got cell service, and responded to eight or so text messages, and then it turned off entirely. Just an SOS signal.

Back at home, water service was gone, and the water we’d stored in the bathtubs had slowly drained away. We decided to drive over to Ingles to stock up on some stuff after all. On the main road, trees were down, covering whole lanes, and the traffic lights were out, but we made it to the store and felt surprised when it wasn’t open. We thought we’d try Whole Foods. It wasn’t open, either, and just beyond it, the road was entirely flooded. So we tried again going farther east, but a couple miles beyond our house, that road was entirely flooded, too.

I guess that was when I realized this wasn’t just a “losing power for a day or two” kind of storm. But I still didn’t really understand. I had no cell service or wifi. All I knew was a couple square miles.

Back at home, I cut scraps of fabric into 2.5 inch squares and listened to an audiobook I’d downloaded as long as there was daylight. We grilled chicken and some freezer taquitos on the gas grill. When it got dark, I looked to see if I had any episodes of anything downloaded to my iPad: three episodes of Wild Kratts, and a hallmark Christmas movie. We watched half the movie, disassociating until we couldn’t take it anymore, and went to bed.

Saturday
On Saturday we told the kids they could only eat food that was about to go bad, not anything shelf stable. We said they should only drink water if they were really thirsty, and if they opened a can of sparkling water, they had to make sure to drink it all. We powered our phones in the car while listening to the press conference at 10 am and again at 4pm. We went for another neighborhood walk, played Monopoly and Settlers and Uno and Clue and guitar, started a second puzzle, thought about covid times. At dinner I used the almost-sour milk to make polenta on the gas stove, mixing in some butter and goat cheese at the end, and Jack grilled zucchini and yellow squash. It was delicious. We ate on the back porch and used our hand crank radio, listening to the news until it became repetitive, and then looking for songs. We heard Sabrina Carpenter four times in an hour. I’ll be happy if I never hear “that me espresso” again.

On the news, all citizens were asked to stay home unless absolutely necessary, to leave the roads open for emergency vehicles. 911 had been receiving four times the normal call volume since Thursday, and they couldn’t keep up. Supplies were on the way, but all the highways into Asheville were inaccessible save one. They couldn’t give us an estimate for the return of power, cell service, or water. The first time they compared it to Katrina I rolled my eyes. Eventually I realized it wasn’t an exaggeration.

We built a fire and roasted marshmallows and prayed compline:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.

It was not yet seven o’clock. My phone had 17% battery. We were bored and in need of showers.

Sunday
Around 2:30 in the morning on Sunday, I was half awake in bed. Jack said, “check your phone. I had service for a minute.” Service was weak and irregular, but my text messages and voicemails started showing up. My sister had sent images from social media, and for the first time I saw Biltmore Village and the River Arts District and Chimney Rock and Lake Lure and Boone and I-40:

My phone died around 4 am, but I was done sleeping. I went to the car and charged it for 30 or 40 minutes, worried the whole time about draining the car’s battery.

I’d assumed that since local officials were asking people to stay home unless absolutely necessary, we wouldn’t be having church, but around 7 I got a message from Scott. He was going to go hold services for whoever showed up. He called me after church; about ten people had come. We had power in the building, but no wifi or water. Trees were down across our property, basically all of them except the historic elm tree, and there was some water in the building, but nothing catastrophic. “Last time anything like this happened in Asheville, it took two weeks for water service to be restored,” Scott said. “If you have a chance to get out of town” — there was one route open now, 26 into South Carolina — “you should feel free to take it.”

Jessica called. I called Katie.

I made my way over to Jessica’s house. She’s been traveling, and told me to take whatever I could find. Propane for the camping stove, battery packs for our cell phones, some cans of water. On the way to her house, I saw the first stores re-opening. Two grocery stores and two gas stations, operating cash-only. One lane of the road was filled with cars waiting in line for gas, all the way from the highway down Merrimon. People were lined up for blocks to get into the grocery stores.

Back at home, Owen and I helped Jack pull up the mildewing carpet throughout the basement, and we tried to decide what to do next.

Many of our parishioners were leaving town. Many of them were inaccessible — roads still cut off, no cell service, no power, no gas — and so my ability to help was minimal. I thought I might be more able to help if I did leave town, and got some supplies, and had power and cell service to make phone calls.

But I only had a half a tank of gas, and no sense of what the roads were like beyond a couple of miles. Wouldn’t it be bumper-to-bumper traffic on the one open road out of town packed with people trying to leave? Would I run out of gas before we found a working gas station?

Either choice — leaving or staying — felt risky, but we didn’t have enough drinkable water for our family for more than a couple days, and there was clear no estimate as to when emergency supplies would arrive. So the kids and I threw stuff in bags, leaving all the food and water with Jack — there was enough for one person for a week, probably — and started driving. GPS wouldn’t work, so I followed the directions I had: 26S to 85N.

The roads were actually fairly empty, except for a couple of wrecks. We filled up in Charlotte and ate hamburgers at Culvers and arrived grungy and unshowered and emotional to Durham.

We are fine. Our region is not. I have friends who have lost everything and people I haven’t been able to get in touch with.

Duke Energy says most all of Asheville should have power by Friday. But water service may not be restored for several more weeks. Schools have been closed indefinitely. I’ll be heading back to Asheville after stocking up at Costco. The church will be open for eucharist on Sunday and hopefully other times throughout the week for prayer. And beyond that, we’ll see. Rebuilding will not be the work of days, but of months and years.

Ways you can help:

• Pray.

• World Central Kitchen is providing meals right around the corner from Trinity.

• Samaritan’s Purse is based in Boone and is already on the ground.

• Water Mission is another local group providing generators and fresh water.

• Episcopal Relief and Development

• You can also donate to Trinity. We will be assisting members and other folks who have emergency needs. In the drop down menu choose Hurricane Helene Relief.

• And a long list of other options compiled by Blue Ridge Public Media.

Love,