A mother of two, currently pregnant, feels utterly confined within her home in North Carolina.

09/28/2024

No electricity. No food. And no safe roads to leave the houses they’re trapped in.

These are the dire conditions faced by some residents of North Carolina, who are enduring the aftermath of Tropical Depression Helen, one of the most devastating floods in recent memory.

Jennifer Replogle, an expectant mother with two young kids, finds herself “totally stranded” in her home perched on Tater Hill in Boone, North Carolina, which sits at an elevation of 4,200 feet. Floods of this scale are not common in this region. Early Saturday morning, she sent a message saying, “We weren’t prepared for this. The roads have vanished, as if they were never there.”

Power had been out since Friday morning, leaving Jennifer and 700,000 other residents in North Carolina without electricity. This includes 19,226 people in Watauga County, where Tater Hill is located. Jennifer shared that they are running out of food and water, and narrow, winding roads from the mountain to Boone are impassable.

“Yesterday, our basement flooded. If they don’t send help soon, I genuinely don’t know what we’ll do,” she said. Jennifer is also worried about her family’s plumbing and water service business. A photo of their flooded parking lot makes her fear that they’ve “lost almost everything.”

Even their employees are stranded at home or staying with friends, she added. Watauga County officials declared a curfew from 8 PM to 8 AM, citing “dangerous conditions,” “damaged roads,” and “ongoing emergency operations” on a Facebook post. Boone city officials also issued a boil water advisory due to multiple water line breaks.

Helen first made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane Thursday night, destroying homes, buildings, and leaving widespread power outages across the Southeast. The storm claimed at least 55 lives in five states.

Governor Roy Cooper described Helen as “one of the most devastating storms in modern history for parts of North Carolina.” From Wednesday morning to Friday morning, over 2 feet of rain drenched the state’s mountainous regions, with one small unincorporated area near the Tennessee border recording a staggering 29.58 inches in just 48 hours. The State Department of Transportation reported that more than 400 roads were closed in Western North Carolina by Saturday morning, urging that “all roads in Western NC should be considered closed.”

Patrick McNamara, a resident of Asheville who runs a small milk distribution business, told CNN that floodwaters wrecked his facility when the storm hit. By Saturday, he could finally witness the devastation for himself. “The floodwaters were four feet above the loading dock,” he said, “and the entire building is destroyed.”

Machinery was strewn about, spoiled milk was everywhere, and several inches of mud coated the floors. McNamara estimated he’d have to discard thousands of gallons of milk. As he walked through his warehouse, he pointed out, “This is our cooler, what’s left of the inventory that’s not washed away.” His biggest challenge now is removing the thick layer of mud from the building. “It’s two or three inches thick,” he said while shoveling mud off the floor, “and it’s not an easy clean-up job.”

According to McNamara, the floodwaters broke through the five-foot-high loading dock, filling the building with nearly four feet of water. It’s still unclear when basic utilities like water and electricity will be restored, and he is considering relocating his business to another facility.

““We’re exploring multiple locations in Nashville,” McNamara mentioned. “Although we plan to maintain our operations here, the situation poses unique challenges. Not all venues have the amenities we need.”

In parts of Western North Carolina, particularly Asheville, forecasts indicate that the region could see as much as an inch of rain this weekend. The governor took to X to caution residents, stating that “significant danger still remains.”