BAKERSVILLE, N.C. — In North Carolina’s mountainous Mitchell County, made even more remote by Hurricane Helen, residents are trying to make sense of the unthinkable.
“Where are you going?” asked Susan Allen Wroblewski, 70, who calls Sarasota, Fla., her home for several months of the year. Communicate and keep in touch with your friends. ”
Mitchell County Deputy Austin Duncan said Friday that some Bakersville residents took it upon themselves to help clear and repair roads this week.
“We’ve had people come in with chainsaws and heavy equipment and ask where they can help,” he says.
Helen’s rage caused thousands of trees to fall, torn railway tracks to be left in the riverbed and a school bus blown away. Buildings in Mitchell County, as well as the sheriff’s office and the Department of Transportation, were flooded. For the time being, deputies will be working at the now-closed Bowman Middle School, Duncan said.
Hurricane Helen and its relentless flooding have killed at least 223 people across the Southeast, with dozens missing since it made landfall in Florida on September 26, and the death toll continues to rise. There is a possibility that it will continue.
Uprooted homes, submerged vehicles and sunken roads across western North Carolina, including Asheville and surrounding Buncombe County, testify to the devastation wrought by the unrelenting hurricane.
Access to and from Black Mountain became more difficult, and here too houses were lifted and dumped into streams. Toys, wallets, tires, milk jugs, and other personal belongings are scattered carelessly and dumped far from where they once were. It was.
Diane Douglas, 58, of Black Mountain, is cleaning out her home, which has become uninhabitable. She didn’t have flood insurance, so she doesn’t know what the future holds.
Rising water from a nearby dam pushed a storage unit across the street into a modular home, which in turn crashed into a neighbor’s house.
“I just sweat and do a fair job,” Douglas said through tears. “That’s too much.”
Mr Douglas, whose shirt and pants were covered in mud, said he runs a business from his home but doesn’t earn much. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said.
Behind her house was a group home for adults with disabilities.
Of the yellow buildings that were there a week ago, one was thrown into the river, another was uprooted, and the other two were torn apart.
All that remains is an empty lot, bricks, and old vinyl albums.
Once-busy roads adjacent to Black Mountain streams have caved in during the storm, making them undriveable and difficult to cross.
“I have to go through my neighbor’s house to get to my house,” said Dylan Shook, 32, whose driveway and mailbox were also thrown aside. Ignacio Espino, 27, stood in awe on the edge of town overlooking yet another area. A road that plummeted into the river below.
Espino waited out the hurricane at Black Mountain Academy, which supports children with autism.
“I’m shocked,” he said.
