‘Our Road Turned Into a River’

We knew something had gone terribly wrong when the culverts washed up in our backyard like an apocalyptic art installation splattered with loose rock and black concrete. The circular metal tubes were a crucial piece of submerged infrastructure that once channeled water beneath our street, the primary connection to town for our small rural community just outside Boone, North Carolina. When they failed under a deluge created by Hurricane Helene, the narrow strip of concrete above didn’t stand a chance. Weighted down by a fallen tree, the road crashed into the river, creating a 30-foot chasm of earth near our house.

I have been through my share of disasters: the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles, many hurricanes in south Florida, the early months of COVID-19 in New York City. In those places at those times, the first noise you heard when you poked your head outside was the sirens, the weirdly comforting sound of first responders coming to rescue you or your neighbors in need—the modern equivalent of the hooves of the cavalry arriving just in time to save the day. But out here in the aftermath of Helene, separated from that lifesaving government infrastructure by impassable roads, mountains covered in feet of mud, and overflowing rivers, there was nothing but silence.

With some roads blocked by downed trees and others destroyed entirely, emergency vehicles have struggled to reach rural areas, like ours, hit by the storm. As soon as the rain and wind slowed down Friday afternoon, people in our community began to emerge from their homes. Recovery efforts, at least for now, have had to be done on our own.

[Marina Koren: America’s hurricane luck is running out.]

One neighbor, a roofer named Russell Taylor, who rode out the storm alone while his wife was deployed with our volunteer fire department, started blazing his chain saw, cutting away the trees that blocked his driveway and the road. In little time, he and others cut a path through so that cars could get by.

Farther down the road, a spring on top of the mountain had burst, causing an avalanche of rocks, water, and farm supplies to tumble toward the houses below. A truck had been thrust against a garage, a trailer had moved hundreds of feet, and the road was flooded.

Dylan Shortt and J. Willson, two Appalachian State University students who had recently moved from downtown Boone and were renting a place at the bottom of the hill, watched the catastrophe unfold outside their window.

“Our road turned into a river,” Willson told me. “You cannot see one inch of gravel.”

That river brought debris that made the road to the house unpassable. A neighbor arrived with a bulldozer, cleared the rubble, and moved on to fix another driveway.

As neighbors watched one another rebuild their roads and cut back debris, the urge to help became contagious. Void of cars, our road became a parade of people from the neighborhood carrying anything they could—chain saws, shovels, food, cases of beer and water—while looking for people in need. The loss of electricity meant that our well pumps couldn’t provide running water. Taylor, who owned a generator, dispensed jugs of water from his bathtub.

Before the storm arrived, my wife had made two giant pots of chili we had planned to serve at our book club. With the electricity out and the refrigerators losing power, the food wouldn’t last long. So we packed it in family-sized serving bags along with a side of chocolate-chip cookies and started knocking on doors. While we were gone, someone came onto our property and repaired water damage to our gravel driveway. (We later learned that it was Chris Townsend, a farmer who lives about a mile away, who just did it while he was driving by on his four-wheeler. He didn’t say a word about it then, and hasn’t since.)

Soon, cars in search of a way off the mountain began to arrive. We learned that Google Maps was directing people down our street as an evacuation route. Because there was no local cell service or internet, no one could alert the app that this path ended with a gap in the road the size of a tractor trailer, which could send unwitting cars plunging into the river. A Ford F-150 came tearing down the street, slammed its brakes and stopped before going over the ledge.

With no indication that our local transportation department was coming with a barricade, we built one ourselves. We stacked lawn chairs, stray orange traffic cones, tree branches, and even a blue playground slide that had washed up in the storm near the edge to warn drivers. John Barry, who plays piano in the local church band, found a downed road sign and balanced it on the other side of the precipice with sticks. Its words broadcast a truly understated warning to oncoming traffic: LOOSE GRAVEL.

“The chasm,” as it became known, is now a gathering space for the community. In a place cut off from the world, all information is delivered, passed along (and perhaps sometimes exaggerated or misconstrued) by word of mouth. It has become the place where families met to check on one another. To shout across the divide and see if anyone needed anything. One side of the hole connects to a road that led into town. For the first few days after the storm, the other remained isolated.

As the waters below receded, people trekked to the bottom of the hole by foot and pulled themselves up to the other side. The next day, steps were built into the mud, making crossing back and forth easier. Then a handrail made of rope was tied between the trees. People began to arrive with food: Pots bubbling with hot soup, bags loaded with candy, and jugs of fresh water made their way back and forth over the land bridge. Anxious people who couldn’t reach their families by phone for days parked their cars at the edge, scrambled across, and were shuttled in strangers’ cars and four-wheelers to see their loved ones.

[Marina Koren: North Carolina was set up for disaster]

This far-western region of mountainous terrain in North Carolina was long ago known as one of America’s “lost provinces,” a place notoriously unreachable thanks to its poorly maintained roads and lack of access to the outside world beyond southern Appalachia’s network of hollows. The early Scotch-Irish settlers who carved a home in this rugged terrain became known for their extreme self-sufficiency and distinct culture. Modern infrastructure and transportation has made these areas more accessible in recent decades—Boone is home to Appalachian State University (where I teach) and has become a popular vacationland for tourists—but Helene’s onslaught is a stark reminder that age-old vulnerabilities remain.

We are still learning the catastrophic toll of the storm on communities like ours in southern Appalachia. Homes are destroyed, lives lost, and infrastructure devastated. Rebuilding will require extraordinary means and support, both public and private. We don’t know how long it will take for emergency crews to reach our community, to fix the power and repair the damage. But in the meantime, people aren’t waiting around.

“The rain’s over,” declared Sarah Sandreuter, a 23-year-old who lives on our side of the chasm. “It’s time to get to work.”