Some are still picking up works after the storm sprints through the southern community. Here are some of their stories.
How Wendistancil Hot Springs residents jumped into action during Helen.
Wendistancil of Hot Springs, who works with the Madison Alliance to rebuild the community, spoke with News Records before Helen Anniversary.
A year ago, Helen tore a path of destruction throughout the American South as a hurricane and tropical storm that struck flooding with communities. It destroyed small mountain towns, historic estates, beachfront communities and beloved national parks.
Many of the affected communities are located in areas where network journalists from USA Today live and work, and as the storm anniversary approaches, journalists stock their communities, record their recovery and talk to people whose lives and livelihoods have been defeated.
Here are some of their stories.
Two sisters rebuild Asheville’s business
A year ago, the Asheville Tea Company’s original tea blend was scattered throughout North Carolina. There, the business was headquartered until Helen wiped out the facility. It may have been the end of a family business that was launched in 2016 and operated by a woman.
Sisters Jesse (CEO and Founder) and Melissa Dean (Sales/Marketing Director) followed the path of the 5,800-square-foot leased building after the flood retreated. It was lifted from the foundation, crashed through a utility pole and eventually embedded in a nearby restaurant. Office furniture and tea bags were scattered along the Suvannanoa River and remained tangled with trees.
Currently, Asheville Tea Company occupying its temporary headquarters at the Small Business Center at Asheville Buncombe Technical Community College. Tea boxes stacked on shelves await distribution to local wholesale retailers and online customers across the country. While helping her sister get the crushed business pieces, Melissa Dean also dealt with storm-related damage and total vehicle at her home.
“It was overwhelming to have everything in your life that you built over time.
Dean’s sister said there was no question about whether to rebuild the company that sources plants from local farms. Thanks to communities and friends across the US, crossing the northern border, they were able to pivot and return to business within weeks of the devastating storm, just in time for the holiday season.
The sisters said they have the support of each other and their family, friends and neighbors. This can include packing and transporting packaging and transport boxes, especially on difficult days.
Melissa Dean said she can’t imagine going through it all without her sister.
– Tiana Kennell, Asheville Civic Times
In Tennessee, we helped strangers get a new home
Christon Hicks’ mobile home in Hampton, Tennessee was damaged beyond repair during the flood caused by Hurricane Helen. Through the generosity of strangers, she and her grandfather, David Hicks, moved into a brand new home on the property. Local author Courtney Daly linked Hixes with a church in Louisa, Kentucky, to provide help after the hurricane. By the end of October, plans were in place to build a new place for Hixes to live.
In August, almost a year after floods hit the community, Hicks moved to a new home. “It’s a bit strange, but I wake up every day and feel very blessed,” Christon said.
When Knoxville News Sentinel, part of the USA Today Network, spoke with Kriston in January, she said one request for the home was that she was accessible to her disabled grandfather, a primary caregiver. Currently, David can use the lamp to enter and exit the house, allowing access to each room.
Immediately after the jiccess entered, the garden was flooded due to heavy rain. Although it wasn’t much more serious than last year, she said Christon is just as lively as he watched the water rise. Still, it was reassuring to know that if David needed it would be easy to evacuate his new home.
– Hayden Dunbar, Knoxville News Sentinel
From fear of their infants to building a new home
Evacuated from an apartment in Hendersonville, North Carolina a year ago, Joey and Brook McNeely settled in their new home, which they had begun to move just a few weeks ago. At 22 months, Lila laughed, squealed, and ran through the garden. There, on a recent September afternoon, I slammed my head on a picnic table when Hendersonville Times-News, part of the USA Today Network, visited.
In many accounts, the recovery in western North Carolina was cruel. But like McNeales, life feels like it’s back to normal. On September 27, 2024, Joey, 42, had to hang a 10-month lira from the two-storey windows of a flooded townhouse. The Henderson County Sheriff’s Deputy was paddled under the canoe window, grabbed the baby and waited for her to carry her to Brooke, 34, looking from the nearest relatively dry, higher ground.
“(Joey) I was hoping I would go first, but I didn’t want to leave without (Lila) and that was tough,” Brooke McNeely, 34, told The Times News.
Hoping for heavy rain, Joey, the general contractor and project manager, decides to work from home. A jewel and textile artist, Brooke grew up in Florida and remembers taking a break from school due to a hurricane. As the rain got worse, Joey checked online and found their apartments on the flood plain. By then, the water had already quickly approached their door. Soon water sprayed through the toilet and began to pass through the cracks around the door.
“At that point we knew we couldn’t evacuate,” Joey said, knowing that we couldn’t evacuate unless there were several feet of standing water outside rushing at once.” Neighbors and Henderson County Sheriff’s deputies came to McNelys’ rescue with canoes, kayaks and paddleboards.
“When I talk about the flood, I don’t talk about the day it happened. I’ll talk about the next month,” Brook said. The Srose of Recovery is something that sticks to her even more than the desperate, horrifying time of the storm.
While they were gone, their apartments were plundered, they said. One of Brooke’s most hurtful things was a box of memorial items from his grandmother, broken by the looters. “The mold took over quickly,” Joey said.
McNeeleys was in a hotel in Greenville that was refunded by FEMA. Joey worked in Hendersonville for about a month before returning to Hendersonville for nearly a year living on rentals. The lease ended on September 17th. One of the most upsetting parts for Brooke was that while dealing with the aftermath of the storm, the family felt like they were missing out on their baby’s first fall season.
“We’re going to make up for that this year,” she said.
“We’re so lucky, we’re thinking everything… (some) people have lost their kids,” Joey said.
– George Fabe Russell, Hendersonville Times News
read more:
USA Today’s network paper along Helen’s road tracked some of Helen’s most suffering communities under the horrifying winds and waters of Helen. Read their story here:
Keaton Beach residents feel forgotten and rely on each other a year after Hurricane Helen
What can you do to help children still cope with weather anxiety?
There are parks and attractions that have been reopened to fall in western North Carolina
Helen by Numbers: Data on recovery in Western NC after a year of storm is as follows
A year later, I revisited people and places in eastern Tennessee
Contribution: Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA Today
