Our Hurricane Helene Story: Part 2

When last you left me, it was Thursday afternoon, the day before the flood. The French Broad River was a bit high — too high for a hurricane with 18 hours of rain yet to release. Our staff had mostly evacuated to work at an Airbnb, and me and Melissa and Jeffrey had just finished moving items to waist height inside our building. It was drizzling.

I went to our new shop on Glendale Avenue in Asheville to drop off a few things we had been meaning to move anyway. I picked up takeout from my favorite restaurant and said goodnight to my niece. Her mother urged me to stay with them, but I insisted on returning to the Airbnb where we had taken all the business stuff. I reasoned: “The weather will be gross in the morning, and people will want to stay home, but if I can tell them the roads are OK and start working myself, they will want to come too!” I had no idea what I was going to wake up to.

In fact, the next morning when I woke up at the Airbnb to the storm at 6:30 a.m., I still had no idea. The power was out — expected. It was windy and rainy. So what? There was a small tree — maybe a cedar? — outside the window. I knew it was a shallow-rooted tree, but it was still standing tall. It still had its needles. “As long as that tree is standing, everything is fine,” I told myself.

Over the course of the morning, I watched the tree. First it lost a branch. Then the branch it lost blew away. It began shedding needles in a big ring. And then it began to lean. Slowly, slowly, the angle increased. As the wind subsided, the little tree fell to the ground.

Always of the opinion that natural disasters are overblown for the sake of selling ads on the Weather Channel, I ventured out as soon as I could. Remember, I had never been to this house before, so although I knew where I was in relation to the rest of Asheville, I didn’t know the neighborhood.

At 10:45, I made it to the intersection of Hamburg Mountain and Reems Creek roads, and I was not prepared for what I saw. The water of a creek that is normally 10 or 12 feet wide stretched as far as the eye could see, swallowing the entire road and low lying homes. The photo below shows this scene, but honestly, it’s hard to capture the full scale. The photo just looks like a big old puddle.

“It’s going to be awhile before I can get out,” I told myself. And then I immediately went looking for another way out. Trees were down everywhere, roads were blocked. I was trapped, and there wasn’t any service. “Is it like this everywhere, or just here?” I wondered.

I went back to the house and tried to read, reminding myself that this scenario was basically my dream come true: alone with my book and no phone service, nothing to do but read all day. Somehow the shine wasn’t there.

The wind was less, the rain had stopped. With no radar, I couldn’t check the progress of the storm, but the forecast had called for it to stop around mid morning. I ventured out on foot. “Surely there will be cell service in Weaverville,” I thought. The town was about a mile and a half away. I am a great walker. No problem.

The problem was, about 20 minutes into the walk, as I entered the forest, the wind picked up again. I thought about the little cedar tree, how soft, waterlogged soil makes roots loosen. I looked at all the smashed trees and telephone polls around me, and then I imagined myself, smashed just like that on the asphalt — and no one knew where I was. I had told my family I was staying at the Airbnb, but I didn’t tell them where it was.

I scurried back towards the house, reflecting on how I had scoured Airbnb for a house with no creeks or trees nearby — and found one! — unfortunately I was too dumb to stay in it. The treetops careened from side to side over head, and the maze of power lines I had ninja’d my way through a few minutes prior became a high-voltage net, swinging back and forth.

I put myself in time out. I went to the place I felt most comfortable — the middle of someone’s pasture, and plunked down on my heels. No trees, no powerlines. I was safe. Nothing to do but wait. I could hear branches breaking and crashing in the woods nearby. I started to wonder about the neighbors. With no way in or out, I was trapped with the people around me, and then I started to feel afraid of them! (In retrospect, I’m sure they’re all lovely.)

Anyway, I had plenty of time to contemplate how my intrepid tendencies get me into trouble. I sat in the wet field. I waited. I ate a granola bar. Eventually, the wind let up, and I booked it into the house where I put on dry clothes and then stalked the halls like a wildcat in a cage. I was not relaxing. I was not reading my book.

Hours went by. Still no service. Still no power.

And then, in the distance, I saw a car flash along the bottom of Reems Creek Road, and I bolted. The wildcat saw an opening. The person who, sitting in the middle of a wet field terrified of the destruction and uncertainty all around, had vowed to avoid risky maneuvers in the future — that person was out the door and in the car, ready to take on the floodwaters.

Some people never learn. I am one of those people.

But with weddings scheduled for Friday and Saturday, I needed to take stock. What if the damage was localized and life was as normal in the city? Such were my hopes.

I had a lot more never learning left to do that day.