Matt and I moved to Asheville NC a year ago to watch our dream home being built in an upscale mountain community in nearby Arden NC. This is where we will retire, nestled in the Appalachian mountains and breathing the cool, clean mountain air. In the meantime, we are renting an apartment in Asheville, near Biltmore Village. When choosing our destination we considered Asheville’s climate as a key factor in our decision. I generally considered Asheville’s weather to have four mild seasons. I thought Asheville was immune to extreme weather.

Thursday, September 27, 2024

We were watching carefully the updates on Hurricane Helene as it passed through Cuba and made its way towards the bend in Florida. My Dad lives north of Tampa, so I was checking in to see if he was okay. They kept talking about the storm surge and how powerful this was going to be once it made landfall. They were telling Floridians to evacuate, leave now while you can. Little did I realize we should listen to their advice.

The weather channel was calling out Asheville NC as forecasted for heavy rainfall and this long band of storms already reached north. We did get rain the last couple days. I knew we would get more heavy rain once the eye of the storm came our way, but what eventually happened was unprecedented.

Friday, September 28, 2024

Though we had known about its approach for days, nothing could truly prepare us for what happened. We awoke to no power. While this saddened us, it didn’t come as a total surprise. We hoped that it would be only a temporary inconvenience. The storm had not yet even passed through Asheville. It was still on its way. Late in the morning, Hurricane Helene arrived. We noticed our water pressure dwindling and started filling up our bathtub with water before it shut off. Which it did, not hours later.

Why was there so much rainfall in Asheville?

This "100-year flood" is no expression — the flood of 1916 in Asheville crested at 21 feet, a record that has now been smashed by Helene. It's partially due to a rare weather event, some back luck, and potentially climate change.

Helene produced such a large amount of rainfall due in part to a predecessor event, small (relative to a hurricane) regions of heavy rainfall produced ahead of a hurricane. These rainfalls produce a band of "deep tropical moisture" which, when mixed with a hurricane, cause significant rainfall. Those predecessor rainfalls hit Western North Carolina on Wednesday and Thursday. causing 10 inches of rain to fall on Asheville before Helene even reached the area and streamflows were already running at daily record high levels in upstream, upslope parts of the French Broad River basin. As mountain streams became overrun with moisture, that water rushed down the rivers and into towns such as Asheville, all while the heaviest rain from Helene was just beginning to fall.

We fully charged our mobile devices but used them sparingly in fear of running down our batteries. We both called our employers with a heads up that we wouldn’t be online today. By evening, we lost cell service entirely.

Matt and I generally shop for the week’s groceries on Friday’s and eat everything we purchase. No waste. Well, here it was... shopping day, and our refrigerator was empty. We ate what little was left in the refrigerator. Our pantry contained half loaf of wheat bread, saltine crackers, peanut butter, dry cereal, oatmeal and some snack bars. We did have a dozen bottled waters and probably 3 8-packs of gatorade (good thing I stocked up when they were on sale recently).

This experience taught us a valuable lesson: the importance of being prepared and having a bit of a buffer in our supplies. While our routine of shopping weekly and avoiding waste is efficient, we realized the value of keeping a few extra staples on hand for emergencies.

Our apartment community, The District, is located walking distance from Biltmore Village, just up the hill. This provided us with safety from the water surge. Because it rained hard for so many days, that excess of water washed down the surrounding mountains into our village. Three rivers converge in this area; French Broad (which oddly enough flows north), the Swannanoa and Sweeten Creek.

We could see the rivers rising until they merged into one, with strong currents coming from all directions. With a broken heart, we watched waterlines rise in the nearby restaurants, shops and breweries.

This is a thriving historical community; regularly filled with tourists from all over the world. We watched a lazyboy chair float out of David Furniture store. We saw a palette of locally brewed beer float in our direction coming out of the front doors of the French Broad Brewery. We finally lured that one in only to find that they were empty cans!

The apartment complex down the hill was severely damaged. Residents on the first floor units lost their belongings. All cars left in the parking lot were submerged.

River Arts District

The River Arts District, known for its galleries and artsy vibe, is grappling with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Before the hurricane struck, the district thrived with eateries, art galleries, breweries with visitors flocking to its colorful streets. My Saturday morning run club meets down there and we run along the river bank followed by coffee at the local Summit Coffee shop.

Biltmore Village

If I’m not running with run club, then we take our Saturday morning run to the hills of the historic Biltmore Forest neighborhood. This 100 year old community has challenging hills and beautiful homes located on what once was Biltmore Estate property. We always have money in our pocket so we can finish our run at the Well Bred Bakery & Cafe located in the heart of Biltmore Village. We treat ourselves to coffee and a bakery treat. The mountain eclair is decadent and is large enough to feed four people! With coffee in hand, I also like to pop into the Lululemon store and check the sale rack.

Tourists are easily identifiable by being well dressed and the fact that they walk around carrying shopping bags from the many quaint stores in the village. People come from all destinations to visit Biltmore Estate, which is just down the street. We have a season pass to Biltmore Estate property and visit maybe 2-3x a week. My happy place. But Asheville is also a great place for the music scene, arts, breweries, Blue Ridge Parkway and mountain fresh air. The fall is simply unbelievable with the best Fall colors I’ve ever seen.

Aftermath

That afternoon we walked into historic district of Biltmore Village to see the damage. This small village, architected by Frederick Law Olmsted, is adjacent to the main entrance of Biltmore Estate. This was originally created as a “company town” for the estate workers. The community was planned and designed to reflect an English country village, with its own church, post office, hospital, school and train station.

Photo Gallery

Click to scroll through photos

Click to scroll through photos

Pool

Matt and I are comfortable eating dry cereal and gatorade for breakfast, but some people are into food. We have a community pool area with a couple gas grills that were working. Initially, there was plenty of food as people cleared out their refrigerators and freezers. I was amazed at the effort and capabilities of the chefs at work.

The pool quickly became the community hub where people gathered to listen to the 10am and 4pm local Buncombe County news updates on a battery powered portable radio. At this time, we had no other source of information. Talking to others served as the best way to hear about available resources. None of us had access to the outside world.

The pool water served another purpose. People were carrying buckets of pool water back to their apartments to flush their toilets.

Saturday, September 29, 2024

We heard about the road closures. It was really hard to believe there was no way in or out of Asheville. We were an island, not surrounded by water, but rather mountain ranges. The rain caused flooding and damage to bridges, but also mudslides took out highways in a way that seemed impossible. People were stranded here. I heard rumor that possibly you could get out via I-240 East. We drove over the intersection. It was a parking lot and remember gas was not available to purchase. Before we passed the point of no return by getting into a lane of traffic we could not extract ourselves from, we pulled into the nearby Home Depot which was open for business. People were buying gatorade and candy bars. Honestly, I would have done that too except the lines were so long. I just shook my head. People were trying to get out of town, but eventually turned back because of road closures miles away. In fact several of our neighbors who packed up and left, returned with the same message. Too soon.

The city of Asheville’s emergency water supply is physically housed in Swannanoa. Swannanoa was hit so hard that we were unable to access those palettes of water for distribution. An estimated tens of thousands of people in and around Asheville, N.C., are still without running water, six days after the tropical storm Helene.

We heard that if you walked about a mile up the hill on Fairview Road, there was a spot near Oakley school where people were receiving a cell signal. We hiked up the hill and sure enough we had clear view of a cell tower and there were people talking on their phones. Unfortunately we did not get any reception. It turns out that only people with Verizon were able to make calls. We have AT&T.

I generally read books on my iPad and had a couple books on loan from the local library. However, without cellular service I could not access them. Fortunately, we passed a free library on our walk and I salvaged an old John Grisham novel that I read in bed while wearing a headlamp.

Sunday, September 30, 2024

I heard that a couple grocery stores were open and still had some food. So early Sunday morning, I decided to venture out. I arrived at 7am to see a long line of customers. The store was allowing only a few customers in at a time to maintain some semblance of order and safety. The wait time, I learned was estimated to be three to four hours. I turned around and went back home, empty handed.

This situation is a real social equalizer. A large portion of our apartment community are Biltmore Estate workers, cooks, hotel workers, etc. And then there is us, building a home in an upscale community nearby. But none of us had basic necessities, like electricity, food, water or cell service. It was amazing how this community bonded together.

Biltmore Estate is one of the largest employers in the area. A white Biltmore van has a route through our complex to pick up employees and take them to work, which is just a couple miles down the road. As I am sitting on our balcony I see the white van drive up and drops off hamburgers plus dozens of fresh potatoe buns. Biltmore Estate has a working farm and they serve their own beef from the black Angus cattle on their grounds. The employees took the food down to the pool area where we had a gas grill. Not long after, I headed to the pool to hear the 4pm update and catch up on local gossip. Sure enough, they were cooking up those burgers and sharing them with whomever was hungry. I took two back up to our apartment and shared with Matt. That was the best tasting hamburger I have ever had. That’s all we had, a burger and a gatorade. But we felt so full and comforted by this gesture.

Monday, September 30, 2024

The road damage on I-40 at the Tennessee / North Carolina border is estimated to be closed until September 2025.

On Monday, we confirmed a viable route to Chicago, where we plan to stay with family until Asheville is restored with electricity and water. That route took us East before we headed North and then back West. While on the road, we were relieved to find an open gas station without a long queue of cars. However, what I remember most is washing my hands for the first time in five days at the Love’s Truck Stop near Gastonia, NC. In that moment, I knew we were safe.

AFTERMATH