More than a week after Helene leveled vast swaths of western North Carolina, Kim Ashby is among the hundreds of people still unaccounted for.
A week after the storm, the smell of death overpowers the cool mountain air over the isolated, twisting roads of devastated rural western North Carolina.
Large sections of western North Carolina, hundreds of miles from the coast, have become unrecognizable.
I grew up in western North Carolina outside of Lake Lure, spent every summer in Chimney Rock.
We can’t really account for how many people are missing because there’s little hollers (or valleys) all over western North Carolina, little pockets of communities, little trailer parks.
On the final Thursday of September, Kim and Rod Ashby made a stop at the house they were constructing in Elk Park, North Carolina, as Hurricane Helene began its destructive journey from Florida to the southern Appalachians.
According to Kim Ashby’s daughter, Jessica Meidinger, the Ashbys “felt safe there” despite the light rain, with pillars supporting their second home roughly 20 feet above the ground close to the Tennessee state line.
The National Weather Service in North Carolina issued a warning about a historic combination of heavy rain, potentially fatal flooding, and devastating landslides along the mountains for days prior to Helene’s arrival in Florida. a system that entered the region before Helene had caused the rivers and soil to become saturated.
The Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, weather forecast office said, “This will be one of the most significant weather events to happen in the western portions of the area in the modern era,” more than ten hours before the hurricane, which was hundreds of miles away, would make landfall. “.”.
The Ashbys were eating breakfast on September 27 when the Elk River, which frequently floods, carried their house away. While it was floating away, a neighbor took a picture. Rod Ashby grabbed his wife and their three dogs right away. At first, they held on to an old mattress. Then, Meidinger said, to a piece of wall that finally collapsed, dividing them in the swiftly flowing, debris-filled waters.
That was his final encounter with my mother. About her stepfather, Meidinger remarked, “The last time anyone has seen my mom.”. He told his relatives that he managed to pull himself out of the water by reaching for a tree branch, after which he ran up and down the riverbank while yelling for his wife.
There are still hundreds of people missing, including Kim Ashby, more than a week after Helene devastated large areas of western North Carolina.
Lauren Meidinger, the daughter-in-law of Rod Ashby, stated, “He wants to find Kim.”.
In the state, there have been over 100 recorded fatalities. Helene was one of the deadliest hurricanes to hit the US mainland in the past 50 years, killing over 200 people in six states overall. According to poweroutage.com, more than 350,000 people in Georgia and the Carolinas were still without power as of Sunday afternoon, with over 153,000 customers affected in North Carolina alone.
In the meantime, as the hard-hit area struggles in the wake of Helene, President Joe Biden has ordered an extra 500 troops to western North Carolina to help with ongoing assistance.
After Biden ordered 1,000 troops to assist with response and recovery efforts last week, the deployment follows. The White House reports that more than 7,000 federal employees and more than 6,100 members of the National Guard are aiding in the recovery efforts on the ground.
“The scent of life lost.”.
As a Category 4 hurricane, Hurricane Helene made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend on September 26. It left behind a 500-mile path of devastation that included devastating winds, power outages, and catastrophic flooding.
The cool mountain air over the remote, winding roads of devastated rural western North Carolina is dominated by the stench of death a week after the storm.
“As you drive past cities, you can smell the dead bodies,” said 32-year-old Jazmine Rodgers, a nonprofit consultant who has been helping neighbors in Asheville, a city that has been hit hard.
Asheville is located in Buncombe County, which has the highest number of recorded fatalities in the state—at least 72. Lillian Govus, a spokesperson for Buncombe County, stated that the county medical examiner had to cease updating the death toll while they awaited the arrival of a state support team. Following the hurricane, hundreds of county residents are either stranded or missing, Govus announced on Saturday.
Rodgers broke down as she told CNN, “I remember how people would talk about the smells during Hurricane Katrina.”. The odor of deterioration and the scent of death, you know. I’m likely to remember that for the rest of my life. “.”.
According to Asheville Fire Chief Michael Cayse, Asheville became a “catch basin” for rain that poured down 4,000 feet of elevation because it is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he told CNN. Located at the confluence of two significant rivers, the French Broad and the Swannanoa, the 95,000-person city is susceptible to flooding.
Hundreds of miles from the coast, large swaths of western North Carolina have lost their identity. The emergency response has been complicated by ongoing communication outages and hindered by hundreds of destroyed roads and bridges.
“My hometown is essentially extinct now. I spent every summer in Chimney Rock, which is outside of Lake Lure in western North Carolina, where I grew up. “It’s gone,” Rodgers remarked.
When I was driving around for a few days, I was in denial. I firmly believed that a tornado had struck. The idea that our river grew so large that it wiped out everything was beyond my comprehension. It’s just the water’s power. “.”.
A community is destroyed.
The raging floodwaters in Chimney Rock, a village about 20 miles southeast of Asheville, destroyed every home and building. The once-idyllic mountain enclave, which has fewer than 200 residents, gets its name from the imposing granite outcropping that looks over it.
“It’s literally washed away everything you take for granted,” Mayor Peter O’Leary said to CNN affiliate WSOC-TV.
“Every single building and business has been destroyed or seriously damaged,” O’Leary stated.
In places where roads are still impassable, residents are receiving food, water, and other necessities from pack mules, according to Rodgers and others. In the hopes that worried family members would see pictures shared on social media, some of the stranded wrote their names on tarps. Many communities can only be accessed by helicopter.
“Although there are smaller communities outside of Asheville that also need attention, Asheville is currently receiving a lot of attention,” Rodgers stated.
Around 450 people have been rescued in nearby Black Mountain, North Carolina, where authorities have shifted their focus from search and rescue to recovery efforts, according to Black Mountain fire chief John Coffey, who spoke at a news conference on Sunday in Buncombe County.
Ryan Cole, assistant emergency services director for Buncombe County, stated that crews are searching specific areas where homes were destroyed.
Cole stated during the press conference on Sunday that “we’re having to go through debris piles and utilize specialty equipment.”.
“That’s going to take a lot longer because going through that is a systematic approach,” he stated. It’s being pulled up piece by piece. “.”.
It is unclear how many people are still unaccounted for. Administrator Deanne Criswell told CNN that FEMA was verifying the amount in collaboration with state and local officials.
“If you live on the side of a mountain, you might like having one way in and one way out,” Rodgers said, referring to the actual geography of western North Carolina, which includes both small and larger towns. “And people are stuck if a group of big trees topple over on your main street.
We’re talking about whole mountain slopes being totally destroyed. Because western North Carolina is made up of small hollers (or valleys), small communities, and small trailer parks, it is difficult to determine how many people are missing. Additionally, you most likely have never heard of them if you don’t have family in those places. “.”.
Joseph Franklin McElroy, of Maggie Valley, North Carolina, a resort town approximately 35 miles west of Asheville, reported on Wednesday that his 6-year-old twins were handling the tragedy by viewing it as a “grand adventure,” but they were still unaware that their favorite teacher, who they described as “like a second mom,” had perished in the storm.
“They truly adore this educator,” he said to CNN. We must now inform them that their beloved teacher was killed in this epic adventure. “”.
McElroy bemoaned what he described as the inadequate resident-local government communication.
He said, “You know, we got nothing when the internet goes out.”. Many people continue to miss their loved ones and are unsure if they have been rescued. There is a genuine psychological trauma occurring here that people are unaware of. “.”.
“We have to get out.”.
Jessica Meidinger, Kim Ashby’s daughter, says her mother, who spent 20 years teaching in North Carolina schools, was “the glue that holds everyone together.”. “”.
The Elk Park home has been under construction for roughly two years, and Kim and Rod Ashby have visited frequently to put the finishing touches on it. The pair visited their second home on Thursday to see how it was doing before the storm hit, even though they live in Sanford, which is roughly 45 miles southwest of Raleigh.
According to Lauren Meidinger, on the morning of September 27, Rod noticed something was amiss while her in-laws were eating breakfast. A crack caught his ear. When he went outside once more, he noticed that the house’s footer was gone, according to Lauren.
He dashed back inside. “Hey, we must put on our clothes. He informed his wife, “We must evacuate.”.
A few seconds later, the house was washed into the river. Kim Ashby and the dogs were seized by Rod Ashby, and they clung frantically to a piece of wall until it collapsed.
He yelled for his wife all the way up and down the bank before scuttling to a neighbor’s house for assistance. On Tuesday evening, Jessica and Lauren Meidinger brought him to their home.
Lauren Meidinger remarked, “He wants to go back up there and keep looking.”.
She is a combative person. Meidinger remarked of her mother-in-law, “You know, Kim battled and defeated breast cancer, and she’s fought her entire life.”. If she managed to escape that water, we can be certain that she is still alive. “.”.
She has not yet been found by search teams utilizing dogs, drones, or helicopters.
