Hurricane Casts Long Shadow, But Helpers Emerge from the Darkness

As we scurried about, our phones announced a mandatory evacuation of nearby Texas Road where several dear friends lived. Immediately, the power went out. I phoned D.C. Grubb Horne (wife of Matt ’78) and said, “Come now! I’ll light a lantern for you.” She and Matt had already been awakened by police ordering their evacuation. I called two other friends who lived alone and urged them to come to our house.

D.C. and Matt arrived quickly to huddle by candlelight in our shuttered living room.

We were still and quiet. Our beloved woods were not. Every few minutes the house shook when a thud announced the felling of a massive tree. We winced with each crash, murmuring with wonder when none hit our house.

Dawn came slowly, as vicious storm clouds dimmed the sun. When the light finally shone through, we stepped onto the porch to survey a newly drawn landscape. Fallen trees were piled three stories high across our driveway. Our garden of native moss and ferns had become a muddy wetland. Squirrels and bears wandered by, displaced, and disoriented.

Our driveway and neighboring streets were impassable. The formerly lazy trickle of a creek bordering our property roared as a turbulent brown cascade and a second newly born creek carved its bed into our yard.

Waterfalls tumbled down driveways and steps, crossing roofs, roads, and bridges. Greybeard Trail had become Greybeard River. Water crashed high above the Montreat dam, topping the memorial pillars at its edge. The water’s immense power left us quaking and curious. We climbed over massive 150-year-old tree trunks and threaded our way through cables and downed lines to gape, gasp and try to grasp what happened. We were alive, but suddenly in a place we didn’t recognize.

I found myself in unfamiliar emotional territory. I felt frightened, out of control, and trapped in a dangerous moment and space.

Gradually, we realized that we not only lost our electricity but had no clean water from our faucets or even non-potable water for toilets. We had no internet or cable, and only shaky, intermittent cell service.

I made coffee on our gas cooktop with water set aside the night before, and we sat together trying to unravel the confusion.

No cars were going anywhere, electrical wires were everywhere. We checked for damage inside and out, and within minutes discovered water rushing into the basement. The power outage caused the sump pump to fail and our flashlights revealed rapidly rising water.

We formed a bucket brigade to lower the water so drains could function. Then we collapsed on the sofa in exhaustion.

The next sounds we heard were exquisite: the buzz of chainsaws, the humming of search and rescue helicopters, and the lovely voices of friends calling through the woods, “Are you there?” “Are you okay?” “How can I get to you?” We wept.

Friends who usually took a 10-minute walk on the road to our house took hours to hike through the woods to us, detouring around collapsed bridges, clambering over trees and debris, and constantly rerouting to avoid cables, wires, and angry yellow jackets.

Our newly formed commune shared our loaves and fishes: apples picked from a nearby orchard; a seafood casserole prepared for a canceled house party; and bags of our most precious commodity—coffee.

I pulled out food from our church’s planned October flood relief mission trip to Canton, North Carolina (for a previous year’s flood). Since Hurricane Helene had rendered I-40 and 399 other roads impassable, the food could help Hurricane Helene survivors.

Carlisle Willard (grandson of Dr. Thomas English ‘Boo’ Walker ’39) and William hauled out their chainsaws, hewing a hiking path to Bob Peel’s ’64 generator-equipped home. We charged our cell phones so we could text our families, pausing to rock on Bob’s porch in the solace of his companionship.

Back at our house, Matt dragged over a propane grill to cook our rapidly thawing food. Jody pulled over a wagon laden with drinks and homemade bread. Sally shared a poem.

At nighttime, everyone claimed a bed and snuffed out candles.

On Saturday, we took turns cooking, hauling creek water to flush toilets, or boiling it to wash dishes. Then on Sunday afternoon, our ears thrilled to hear the gigantic excavator lumbering towards our house. We watched in awe as the driver deftly lifted huge tree trunks off the road, then dropped them into the ravine.

Sami, a young Afghani friend and refugee, helped William chainsaw the driveway clear. A few hours later, Sami returned with a precious case of bottled water salvaged from a semi that had overturned. It had been en route to deliver this water to Montreat. The driver was okay, and volunteers helped complete his mission.

From our very limited perspective (as we were cut off from radio, television, or internet communication with the world), things were generally and quickly ‘looking up’ as FEMA, The Red Cross, The Cajun Navy, Montreat’s town staff and elected officials, and other good neighbors extended life-giving services with stunning rapidity.

The excavator, Carlisle, Sami, and William gave us a functioning driveway and a safe exit from Montreat. We had bottled water and Matt was firing up the grill again for dinner. We said grace and shared a meal of thanksgiving. We had no idea what awaited us or the horrific tragedy the storm had unleashed on Western North Carolina.

Untold Destruction

During dinner, our son Jordan called from Marshall. I was relieved to hear his voice but shocked when he told me what was happening beyond Montreat. The storm had ravaged Western North Carolina. Marshall’s downtown had been swept away by the French Broad River. The Swannanoa River’s high waters and Helene’s winds had obliterated much of Swannanoa. Countless other communities, homes, businesses and people were lost.

Jordan had worked nonstop in rescue and recovery efforts since the storm hit. Other wilderness responders, medics, and EMTs he worked with urged him to ask us to evacuate. They believed the remaining dams, bridges and roads were precarious; and rescue and medical teams were stretched far too thin. Jordan invited us to stay with him.

Six of us evacuated. Carlisle remained on site to continue helping at the conference center.

William and I grabbed framed family photos, important papers, galoshes and our postcards for swing states that needed to be mailed. We drove down the darkened streets and through the Montreat Gate and were met by brightly lit emergency vehicles and workers with glowing headlamps. More trees had fallen in the last hour. We slowed to a crawl and our rescuers once again chain-sawed us free from our village.

There were no streetlights, no functioning stoplights, and no townspeople or ‘leaf peepers’ wandering down Cherry Street. Everything was dark, the quiet only broken by our car’s motor and helicopters.

As a Davidsonian and a pastoral counselor, I’ve been taught to listen, observe, and reflect and, only then, to act in response to a crisis. This was a crisis unlike any I had seen before. Helene had much to teach us and she was a merciless educator.

Some had lost loved ones to drowning, mudslides or falling trees. Some had their legs or backs crushed by beams or flying debris. Some had arms or shoulders pulled out of joint after lifting a car or log off a trapped survivor.

Others had lost everything they owned or rented: trailers, houses, tents, cars, trucks, tractors, furniture, clothes, crops, livestock and pets. The storm destroyed or disabled businesses and organizations where they worked and received essential services. The stores where they had bought groceries or picked up prescriptions were completely gone or flooded.

Schools and libraries were filled with mud. Ball fields were strewn with boulders, cars and river debris; churches, synagogues, mosques and temples had their roofs blown off, or front steps impeded by a house or a car thrown there by the rushing river.

So many losses, so much to mourn, and so many agonizing decisions: what to let go, what to replace, what to rebuild, and how to reshape our communities into more sustainable and equitable places where our children and grandchildren can grow and where we can hope to age gracefully.

We’ve seen extraordinary hurricane rescue and recovery efforts. Heroes, both local, as well as from across the country and Canada, have worked, prayed, and sent and distributed mountains of donations and love.

I no longer envision angels in diaphanous white gowns and halos, but can attest to countless sightings of them in orange vests and hardhats wielding chain saws; masked, gloved, and booted in hazmat suits while they shoveled toxic mud and stripped saturated sheetrock; and aproned while serving up hot meals and hugs.

It is a tribute to Davidson College’s legacy of servant leadership to see many of these angels wearing Wildcat caps or t-shirts. Thank you to the college’s leaders for constantly preaching that message of servanthood. Many Davidson students listened, learned and seek to follow their selfless examples. 

It’s been a privilege to witness Jordan’s crisis response work in his adopted community. In the past he has rescued people caught in the French Broad River, but his rescues in this crisis have been more land bound. He has chain sawed families free from houses girdled by trees and hiked into remote hollers to do wellness checks. He and his housemates hosted a trail of evacuees. They shoveled tons of river debris from homes and businesses. They offered coffee, comfort and compassion to everyone.

William and I are incredibly fortunate. Although we’ve had some financial and material losses from the storm, we know that it’s just stuff. We’ve seen indescribable devastation and witnessed seemingly limitless acts of courage, generosity and grace.

We will continue to volunteer in Marshall and Montreat and areas where hurricane recovery needs will span decades. Our communities face many grueling and heartbreaking days as we transition from rescue to recovery. But I have faith that if we keep our eyes open, we’ll continue to witness countless moments of spectacular beauty and unending acts of kindness.

Our sense of hope and purpose grows stronger as we move beyond being victims to becoming helpers. We’ve done that by planning, provisioning and cooking meals for emergency workers at Jordan’s house. They’re phenomenal people. Some of Jordan’s friends, including Sam Taylor ’14, son of Dave and Tandy Gilliland Taylor ’82 created free temporary childcare centers for children in Marshall so their parents could focus on recovery. Working with these amazing children provided me much needed distraction as I sewed Halloween costumes, including a ‘Morticia Addams’ designed by a budding nine-year-old fashion illustrator.

People in Hurricane Helene’s footprint have been embraced, fed and financially supported by strangers, neighbors, friends and family, many of whom are Davidsonians.

Soon we’ll be ready to host Davidson students, staff, faculty and alums from around the country to volunteer to do construction work and landscaping, prepare meals, provide crisis counseling and pastoral care, shovel mud and muck, do oral history projects, and sort and distribute donations.

We’re also asking alums to loan their Montreat cottages to provide lodging for work teams to come and enjoy the undaunted beauty of our mountains, some hard work, great food and Wildcat fellowship.

I close (at last) with deep gratitude for our survival, awe for the strength and spirit of the people of Western North Carolina, and thanks for the many generous people extending hands and hearts to help us rise again.

And we will rise.