Editor’s note: Today we continue our coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina with a dispatch from our columnist and friend, Sheri Barker. Sheri wrote this piece in longhand and sent images of her notebook pages to us in the fleeting moments when she had cellular service. Many thanks to Stacy Psaros, The Wild Hunt‘s technical director, for transcribing Sheri’s draft. Please also consider reading Enrique Alberto Gómez’s “Lessons of the Canebreak” and Liz Watkins’s reporting from North Carolina from the past week.
Content warning: This piece includes a description of the potential death of a child.
Wednesday, October 2nd
At 2:00 this morning I woke feeling restless and disturbed. It took a few moments for my brain to register that the source of my discomfort was the absence of noise.
For the first time since last Thursday evening, the world around my home in Swannanoa, North Carolina, was quiet. There was no rain falling, no wind blowing, no voices calling for help, no searchers or rescuers shouting. No sirens, chainsaws, or generators. No helicopters flying overhead.
My family was sleeping the deep sleep of trauma exhaustion, so soundly gone that neither my husband nor his father were snoring. Even Hank, the ever-alert homestead dog, remained silent when I opened the front door and slipped out into the night.
Early in the evening, the sky was heavily blanketed with clouds. My husband, who is a light chasing photographer, forlornly noted that by the time we have another clear night the power would be restored and light pollution would dim the stars again.
Sorry, but not sorry, honey. You were wrong.
Waters rise in Swannanoa, North Carolina, to meet a house’s second-story porch; in the distance the red roof of a gas station is almost totally submerged [Bill Rhodes]
Thursday, October 3rd
Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida on the night of September 26th, while I slept. Somewhere along the way, her size, strength, and title were downgraded, but the now-tropical storm maintained enough force to cut a path of death and brutal destruction across the southeastern United States.
Many communities, like the one where I live in Western North Carolina, have been devastated. My own community of Swannanoa experienced so much destruction and loss that I don’t know how any person or agency could accurately predict a timeframe for recovery. I do know that we are strong, resourceful, determined people. Recovery will happen no matter how long it takes. So mote it be.
I first woke around 5 am that morning, which is not unusual for me. The storm’s energy had intensified and like any good, curious, slightly feral Witch, I wanted to meet it in person. The glass wind chimes hanging on the front porch were jangling madly, making a discordant sound that was the first indication of how bad things were.
Into the night and the storm I went, as I have gone many times. But never before have I stepped into space and the elements on this plane and encountered such strangeness and so much unknown energy. If this writing were a piece of fiction, I might fantasize something like Jim Butcher’s Alera Furies to embody the emotional state of the elemental energies I encountered on my front porch, 300 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean, 3/10 of a mile away and 60 feet uphill from the banks of the Swannanoa River. In fiction, I could describe them as dark, angry, furious, vengeful, or – oh, where is my thesaurus when I need it? Not here. It is out there on the dead internet. Anyway, I could do that. I could. But this is not fiction or fantasy. The ever-present unnatural smell of tainted, dirty mud, my aching muscles, and the level of hyper vigilance I am living with hold me firmly in this reality.
While the physical state of the elements that night was clearly violent, the energetic state of the elementals may or may not have been.
I have a respectful and congenial relationship with my elemental energies. I work with them frequently. I speak to them daily, usually on a casual basis, while offerings are made in a more formal manner. When I reached out to Air and Water from the shelter of the porch I expected a response, or perhaps an invitation to join them. What I received instead was dead air. Not even a busy signal. They simply were not available.
Maybe they were trying to help us. Maybe they were in the midst of the storm. Maybe they were protecting themselves. Unless they tell me directly (and I will not ask) I will never know. I am okay with that. I can say that not being able to connect with them made it clear that being outdoors was neither safe nor wise. There are some warnings a Witch does not ignore.
I went back inside, back to bed, and fell into a fitful, nightmare filled sleep. When I woke a few hours later, it did not take long to find out how much my world had changed.
The rainfall had slowed. My brain took that in before I even opened my eyes. I could hear the muted calls and shouting of people in the distance. I still hear that sound in my dreams, but at the time I thought trees had fallen during the storm and folks were working to clear them. It wasn’t until I went outside that I began to see what happened. As of this writing at 11:30pm on Thursday, October 3rd, I have learned only a tiny portion of the big story and all the smaller stories contained within. It seems those truths will be forever unfolding.
There is a narrow creek that runs behind the houses on the opposite side of the street from mine. From the top of my driveway I could see that it had spilled over its banks and was well up into the neighbors’ yards. The water was moving fast and carrying debris with it. I was shocked by what I was seeing and my senses kind of split at that point. My vision stayed focused on the overflowing creek while my hearing began to comprehend that those distant, muted calls were cries for help.
I walked down the driveway and looked to the south toward the end of the road. What I should have seen was 2/10 of a mile of paved road ending at the T-intersection with Old US 70, then storage units and woods across the road.
What I saw instead was the muddy brown water of the Swannanoa River, gone wilder than she has in a very long time.
That morning I watched as the waters rose higher and higher while one group of neighbors worked to get a rope and life jackets across 100 feet of water. A family of five was trapped on their second story porch. We were all afraid the house would wash away with them. There was no help coming. By the time they escaped, the river had swallowed their refuge.
Another group, including my husband, rescued our neighbor Lewis. He was among the first rescuers attempting to save the trapped family. An experienced canoer, Lewis tried to take his canoe across with a rope for the family. The river upended his canoe and tossed him into the water. For a few horrifying moments I thought we were going to watch him die. He managed to swim to the ground lines of a power pole and hold on until they were able to get a rope to him. After he was pulled from the water, he went home, cleaned the gasoline tainted water off his body, changed his clothed, and went back to keep helping.
Lewis holding onto the ground lines to avoid being swept away during the floods of Hurricane Helene in Swannanoa, North Carolina [Bill Rhodes]
The neighborhood cornerstone gas station was almost completely submerged. All that was visible was its red roof.
I watched as water and debris floated by. Tires. Roofs. The utility trailer from a church one street over. They provide a community lunch once a week, or did before the storm. Now they provide one every day, plus pantry items and household goods.
There was no power. There was no internet or phone service. But I didn’t need either to know that the encampments of houseless people who lived along the river had been wiped out. The trailer parks and houses along Old 70 beyond my own road were also wiped out. What I did not know and still do not know is whether any of the people living in those places survived. I believe any feral or wild animals would have died. There was nowhere to run.
In my neighborhood the Swannanoa runs between two roads: the two-lane Old US 70 and the four-lane US 70. When I could finally reach US 70 and drive east past the remains of businesses along US 70 I could see the devastation wreck of the north river bank, which is the Old 70 side of the river. My side of the river. My home. Everything was gone.
In my extended neighborhood of Grovemont, there were mudslides and flooding. My friends helped save a man who spent hours clinging to the top of a refrigerator floating in the river. Then they watched in horror as a mother lost hold of her child then disappeared into the flood waters as she tried to save her baby. Nobody could reach them. Nobody could save them.
Neighbors dug survivors and bodies out of mudslides, and uses chainsaws to remove trees that had fallen and trapped people in their houses. We stood together, for the most part, offering hope and encouragement, witnessing tragedy and loss, in the small pockets of community trapped and isolated by water, mud, downed trees, piles of debris, downed power lines, and washed out roads.
Two of my adult children live here in Buncombe County, my son in Arden and my daughter and her husband in the nether lands of Candler. I had no way to reach them to let them know we were safe, and I was holding space and faith in their safety.
Friday evening my determined, loving, reckless son drove, then walked, then somehow crossed the river (he wont tell me how), walked once more, and climbed a small mountain to make sure we were all right. Knowing in my bones that he was alive made that first long night more bearable.
Saturday came and went, and most of Sunday, too, before my daughter was able to contact us. She and her husband watched as the river rose around their home, water rising to the porches. They worried that the house might flood or wash away with them trapped inside. My always strong, brave girl cried when she heard my voice on the phone. I cried, too.
There are already thousands of stories of heroism and courage, love and kindness, suffering and trauma, fear and death. There will be thousands more in the days and months to come.
Truth be told, there are also stories of looting, burglaries, robberies, fights, and other violence. Fear and greed bring out the darkness in some people, and to some, those actions or behaviors are part of their everyday, normal life.
I cannot allow myself to think about that now.
Wreckage alongside Old US 70 in Swannanoa, North Carolina [Bill Rhodes]
Friday, 4 October 2024
I am able to get through each day by compartmentalizing situations in my mind. Trauma goes here, death goes there, destruction in this bin, loss in that one. Fear, grief, anger, frustration – all of y’all please hold for the next available operator.
My focus is on the daily tasks necessary to survive, and those needs are constantly shifting. They are also being met by my own hard work, as well as my husband’s, and the work of legions of volunteers and relief agencies.
Grassroots efforts began before the first day ended, and have continued to grow and flourish through volunteer efforts. I cannot speak for every community, but it did not take long for organized relief efforts to make their way here.
There are hiccups and rough spots. There have been armed intruders acting under the guise of deployed security who were neither invited nor allowed to be here. It was apparent they were attempting to intimidate and threaten persons of color or uncertain immigration status. They disappeared after one day, but I doubt they are gone, even though they were not welcome here.
I focus on the helpers and on helping where I am able. There is so much love and compassion moving around here that it overpowers any negative energy, even that of social media trolls and keyboard warriors.
Dirt, mud, and dust are everywhere. So are hugs and tired smiles. So are listening ears and storytellers. Arts and crafts tables for children in parks and parking lots where hot meals are being served. People working on site and behind the scenes to make the good things happen.
A butterfly spotted in a cemetery following Hurricane Helene [S. Barker]
The first day after the rain stopped, I noticed that the flowers in my gardens were covered in bees, far more than usual. They have been here in abundant numbers every day since, covering thousands of tiny aster blooms and other flowers. Butterflies are here in larger numbers than usual. Swallowtails, cloud sulfurs, frittilares, monarchs, and half a dozen other species. This pollinator presence makes me feel hopeful by reminding me that life continues.
Autumn color is beginning to appear in neighborhood trees and on the surrounding mountains. Temperatures are dropping; the next problem for survivors is the anticipated night time temperatures of 40-50 degrees. May these needs be met as the Wheel continues to turn.
Tonight I drove to a pretty veteran’s cemetery a few miles up the road. It is a peaceful place with a stream winding through an open area, and I have been going there to fill buckets with non-potable water for flushing toilets. I cannot access my favorite park with the oxbow lakes right now, so this has become my private respite away from home. The first morning I came here, there were bear tracks in the mud along the bank of the stream. I felt welcomed.
Darkness came this night and still I lingered, sitting in the grass beneath a tree. There was enough light left that I could see beyond the grassy field to the neat rows and rows of small grave markers, soft white in the sea of darkness, faded stars in the night. I thought then of Wednesday morning’s brilliant display of dazzling points of light cast onto soft darkness that is liminal, not endless.
We are all connected; the lights in the sky, the ones in that rolling field, the ones shining or wavering or dimming in the people all around us.
I think that I shall never forget that again.
Lewis in the water, holding onto ground lines, while the people he was attempting to bring out in his canoe look on [Bill Rhodes]
Sunday, 6 October 2024
Much of the noise is back today. I hate mechanical noise, but not right now. It means that lights are on, that CPAPs and oxygen machines are running, that communication can happen. But I will take the stillness where I can find it. In a month or two that might be in a bookstore, where I will go to buy a paperback thesaurus.
Monday, 7 October 2024
Today I talked with neighbors Mad Dog and Presh. Mad Dog works at a club in downtown Asheville, and he has talked with a lot of houseless folks after the flood. Many of the houseless camp people who lived along the river near my home evacuated ahead of the storm.
I was also able to drive down Old 70 between my road and Riverwood today. The heartbreak I felt seeing the destruction was balanced by seeing the resilience of my neighbors whose homes had been washed away by the Swannanoa. They have set up tents and are literally holding their ground.
For many people, this place is home, come hell or high water.
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