North Carolina town bands together after Helene wreaked havoc: 'That's what we do'

RED HILL, N.C. – James Waters watched Helene's torrential rains and fierce winds decimate his farm set among the hilly slopes of Appalachian North Carolina, snapping trees, ripping out fences, and causing a landslide. 

"The whole side of the mountain came down," he said. "Then it filled up the valley with mud."

It took him a full day to dig to the main road with a farm excavator. He found windy roads strewn with downed power lines, fallen limbs, thick mud, and debris. In some areas, cars were washed into ditches. One neighbor found a dead body near a riverbank, he said.

No one had cell service or power. People couldn’t find out if their relatives were alive or dead. Waters knew he had a huge recovery ahead of himself. But his family had survived. So, like others in the area, he first grabbed his chainsaw to help clear roads and check on neighbors.

On Sunday afternoon, it led him to pull his muddy white Chevy pickup — an 8,000-watt generator in the back — up to a darkened general store in Red Hill, a tiny mountain community near Bakersville set along a road between steep hillsides.

The store, run by Kacie Smith, 28, and her father, is a community hub. Outside, two soda machines sat near an old diesel pump topped with a sign advertising live bait. Inside, residents generally come for pickled eggs, aspirin, chewing tobacco, batteries, lottery tickets, snacks, and community news — at least before the loss of power.

Since the storm, they’d lost upwards of $6,000 worth of stock, the ceiling was sagging from water and the gas pumps weren’t functioning. After arriving, Water pointed a flashlight at a fuse box to jury-rig the generator’s connection. Smith said such help is just how things are done.

Smith added that much of the tree removal from roadways in her area by Sunday was completed by local residents, who did not wait for overwhelmed state crews. "It’s Red Hill — it’s a pretty tight community,” she said, cautioning that the recovery would likely be long and painful for the region.

"It’s been just mass destruction around here," she warned.

Searching in anguish, fearing the worst

Across western North Carolina and parts of eastern Tennessee, Helene’s destruction continued to emerge on Sunday, having washed away bridges, closed roads, destroyed buildings, and cut off power. At least 90 people have died across multiple states since the record-breaking storm hit the U.S. last week.

At a church shelter in Greeneville, Tennessee, just over the state line run by the Red Cross, volunteers made pancakes early Sunday for a handful of people still sleeping on cots after being forced from their homes. Many who were there on a previous night had found housing with friends or hotels, Pat Barraclough, a volunteer, said.

In Erwin, a town of about 6,000, people from the region impacted by the storm streamed into a local high school serving as a shelter to get hot food, bottled water, and clothing. Some were still searching in anguish for missing relatives, fearing they were swept away in the floods. Others, having lost access to homes or saw businesses damaged, were grappling with next steps.

Some there had arrived from North Carolina, weaving through treacherous mountainous backroads littered with electric wires and downed trees and avoiding roads cut off by washed-out bridges. Some bought fuel for generators and returned home. 

How can I help those affected by Helene?Here are ways you can donate.

Further west of Red Hill, in the town of Burnsville, more than 100 people stood in line at a grocery store to purchase food. At another location, people clustered around an emergency relief Wi-Fi site. The roads were choked with utility trucks and emergency vehicles.

Smith had made a trip to Tennessee too where phone service was still operable. Back in Red Hill on Sunday, she talked to a steady stream of people pulling up to ask for directions as one’s phones or maps worked.

"How is the road down to the bridge? Can I get my car to it?" one woman asked. "Can I get over it?"

"They were working on it. You might be able to get through today," she replied.

One resident handed a slip of paper, asking Smith to make a call the next time she went to a place with cell service. It was a note with a phone number and the name of his neighbor’s family. "He is OK, but we have no power, cell or internet," it read.

Smith said most of her neighbors made it, too. And she has faith they’ll be OK even with the possibility of being without power.

"Everybody around here’s in the same boat. But they’ll survive," Smith affirmed. "They’ve got their grill, their generators."

'We’re going to check on the neighbors. That’s what we do'

Waters isn’t sure that insurance will cover his losses to his farm, which include cattle and a sawmill. He know it’s a long road. At least his Scottish Highland cows survived, he said.

But he sees a silver lining, too, watching some people who rarely speak suddenly thrust into helping each other. That’s heartening in a time of political division, he said. And that silver lining extends to his kids, too, he said.

"They’re learning about life without the internet. My son got to go out and learn about helping the neighbors," Waters recalled. "He’s like, 'Where are we going?' We’re going to check on the neighbors. That’s what we do. These are good lessons."

As Sunday afternoon light wanted, Waters — helped by friends who tried to sort out why the generator wasn’t working — finally saw the lights flicker back on as the generator roared. The lottery sign lit up. The freezer came back on. 

The gas pumps weren’t working, but they kept at it.