Uninsured/ Underinsured Accident Injury Attorneys in Asheville, NC

With a storm headed toward Western North Carolina, many residents may be remembering the destructive effects Tropical Storm Helene had on the region in late September.

The good news, according to the National Weather Service, is that while the storm will certainly sweep through Asheville and the WNC region, it will be nowhere near the scale of Helene.

Here's what meteorologists said.

Hazardous weather outlook in Asheville, WNC

A weather alert issued by the NWS at 2:10 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 10, warned that a storm system is moving into the area with multiple rounds of showers and possible thunderstorms. Locally excessive rainfall from heavy showers moving over the same locations may result in isolated flooding.

While gusty winds are a possibility, these conditions are most likely after the storm has passed on Wednesday, Dec. 11.

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How much rain will Asheville, WNC get?

The NWS expects Asheville to see roughly 1.5 inches of rain from the storm, according to NWS Meteorologist Chris Horne. Amounts will vary across nearby areas, with potentially closer to 2.25-2.5 inches toward Skyland and Fletcher, and 2.5 inches near Fairview and Bat Cave.

"Across Buncombe County in general, there's going to be kind of a gradient," Horne said. "It's going to bring more in the South, like towards the airport and east toward Fairview area and Swannanoa, but less the further northwest you get in the county, like up toward Canto or Weaverville."

Will it flood in Asheville, WNC?

Luckily for WNC, no serious flooding is expected due to the incoming storm. Some isolated flooding is possible, as indicated by the hazardous weather outlook, but Horne said that river overflow shouldn't be an issue.

"There's certainly going to be some kind of concern about flooding of low-lying areas," Horne said. "Right now, our French Broad and Swannanoa river forecasts are for it to remain below flood stage. So, you know, there's going to be areas of high water, perhaps some drainage issues here and there, but you know, nowhere even near the magnitude of what happened two and a half months ago."

Will there be more landslides?

Landslides aren't an NWS area of expertise. However, Horne was able to say that, while the amount of rain the region will see isn't generally enough to cause concern, areas already weakened by Helene should be monitored.

"Any kind of heavy rain can disturb already-disturbed soil, even though the magnitude of rain is typically far less than what we would expect for any landslides that occur," Horne said. "But just off the top of my head, given the past history of all the numerous landslides, I bet you there's going to be a little more susceptibility for them to kind of move again."

There were over 2,000 landslides in the WNC region caused by Helene and the storm's predecessor rainfall event.

When will the storm end?

After tonight, Dec. 10, the hazardous weather outlook issued by the NWS will end. Any showers on Wednesday, Dec. 11, are forecast to occur mainly before 9 a.m., with some patchy fog before noon.

Iris Seaton is the trending news reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at [email protected].

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The Smoky Mountain Toy Run, which is an annual toy drive and motorcycle parade that started in 1981, was held last month to raise money and collect Christmas gifts for Asheville-based Eblen Charities’s Saint Nicholas Project. (Photo courtesy of Rey Castillo Jr.)

Last week, The Ledger shared a shopping guide to Western North Carolina businesses during this holiday season. (If you’re looking for unique gifts that double as support for the mountain economy, check it out here.)

There’s also the “Potters Market” happening Dec. 14 in Charlotte at the Park Expo and Conference Center. Handcrafted pottery from more than 30 Western North Carolina artists will be for sale from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sounds like the perfect place to shop for a gift and support local artists affected by the storm.

This season, I’ve also been thinking about the children who have been affected or displaced by Tropical Storm Helene. Hundreds of families lost so much, and this holiday might look different for many.

Christmas is just a few weeks away, so some initiatives have already closed their windows for donations, but I’ve rounded up a few ways you can still help families fill their kids’ stockings and provide gifts under the tree:

Here are the latest updates from Western North Carolina:

Lindsey Banks, a native of the Buncombe County town of Swannanoa, is a staff reporter with The Charlotte Ledger. Reach her at [email protected].

How to help

Many organizations have deployed groups across the region, tasked with distributing food, water and supplies. You can donate to their efforts at the links below.

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Hurricane Helene swept across the Southeast, causing major flooding and destruction throughout North Carolina. Here is ongoing coverage from The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer about Hurricane Helene and the aftermath, particularly in Western North Carolina.

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After Helene’s rains struck, Thomas Whiteside and his grandson watched a creek near their Black Mountain house rise hundreds of feet in minutes. Had they waited to evacuate, they would have been trapped inside when water reached the windows.

Weeks later, Whiteside received a free, temporary shelter on his property from Cabins 4 Christ, a group created to help some of the many people made homeless by Helene. This past week, he received even more news: The group will rebuild his roof for him, free of charge.

In his 51 years of living in Black Mountain, Whiteside never expected a storm as bad as Helene, he said. He also didn’t expect the community’s response to the damage to be so strong.

“I’m 67 years old. I’ve been retired for 20 years, medically retired, and sometimes you just feel like you don’t get the help you need. But during this mess, honey, I’ve got more help than I can shake a stick at,” he said.

Helene’s floods and mudslides damaged at least 100,000 homes in Western North Carolina, according to a state count. As of this week, FEMA has committed over $52 million in displacement assistance and more than 5,300 families are currently checked into hotels.

The momentous task of repairing and rebuilding could take years as owners navigate government aid, securing insurance payouts, obtaining building permits and the rest.

Seeing this reality, many nonprofits stepped in to help, with everything from knocking on doors to offering free, immediate repairs to driving caravans of campers to hard-hit areas where displaced residents have been living in tents.

Devin Taylor is the founder of Campers Care, a disaster-relief ministry based in Virginia. He and his wife Julie started Cabins 4 Christ to provide temporary shelter in the wake of Helene’s devastation.

The group’s mini homes are 8 x 16 foot shed-like structures. They have no running water, no kitchen and no electricity, but come stocked with a composting toilet, storage space, supplies like water and a small cooking stove, a mattress and occasionally solar panels, Taylor said.

The sheds also have insulation and an extra layer of plywood to keep them warmer, he said, and both individuals and families continue to sleep in them as winter nears.

The group routinely checks on people given the cabins to ensure they have enough supplies including propane for cooking and heat, blankets and food.

“We don’t just give them something and say, ‘Here you go, sink or swim,’” Taylor said. “We actually have a team of people that go back out and check on their needs, especially the elderly this time of year.”

Whiteside was the first to receive a cabin from Cabins 4 Christ, but the group has homed 141 families or individuals in over 90 cabins built by the group and in donated campers and trailers it received, Taylor said.

The group usually draws around 100 to 125 volunteers a day to Camp Cedar Cliff outside Asheville to build the cabins, manage donations, and repair homes in the area, he said.

On Nov. 25, volunteers from across the country, some individuals and others whole families with children, worked on the grounds of the Christian-oriented camp’s welcome pavilion, which now looks more like a construction site than camp site.

People drove from Colorado to donate a camper and from Texas to help cook for volunteers. Some materials have been driven in from as far away as New Mexico, he said.

“Some stay a day or two, some stay longer,” Taylor said. “I’ve got people here that’ve been here since day one, from as far away as California, and sleeping in their cars.”

Each morning starts with a huddle where volunteers receive hot food and beverages before they get to work hammering, sorting donations, delivering cabins or traveling to nearby homes to make repairs.

Whiteside, whose home was too badly damaged to reoccupy, was connected to Cabins 4 Christ by his daughter, who suggested he reach out and ask for help.

He lived in his cabin for around a month before he received a Nomad camper trailer with a bathroom, furnace and bed gifted by another group in early November. He still likes to sleep in the cabin, in a recliner that helps his back pain.

The cabin is a “Godsend,” Whiteside said. It has allowed him to stay on his property and keep watch of his car and damaged home. Most importantly, it was a safe roof over his head.

Once his roof is repaired and his home is safe to move back into, his older sister who also lost her home to floods in Swannanoa will move in with him.

“The Lord is opening his doors, and the Lord’s inviting anybody to walk in who wants to, and Devin is standing there right now with him holding the door,” he said.

Helene’s destruction took down cell phone service across western North Carolina counties hit hard by the historic storm. Shortly after that, FEMA staff flew to Camp Cedar Cliff via helicopter and set up a temporary communications tower to help with rescue efforts, said camp director Tim Brady.

The portable tower trailer had a 40-foot tall extending antenna and was up for three days, he said.

After that, the camp hosted 200 Duke Energy lineworkers in cabins while they worked to restore power in hard-hit Asheville and the Swannanoa Valley.

The camp was damaged by the storm, Brady said, but surrounding areas were hit much worse, he eventually saw.

“The whole time I was thinking, ‘this is awful, we’ve been hit so hard. You know, what a story this is going to be to tell people how bad this was,’” he said. “When we finally got to the front gate and were able to get a vehicle out of camp, we realized we were blessed because of the loss of life right outside of our gate.”

A human resources director from Buncombe County Public Schools called Brady in mid-October, he said, and asked if the camp would be willing to host a new organization called Cabins 4 Christ. It needed a place to build cabins for 30 teachers.

From there, they just kept building.

As the need for emergency housing wanes, Cabins 4 Christ is pivoting to helping people repair and rebuild their permanent residences, Taylor said.

During Thanksgiving week, Cabins 4 Christ volunteers were dispatched not far down Old U.S. Highway 70 in Swannanoa to the home of a woman expected to give birth on Dec. 5.

One volunteer was Michael Barry-Rec, a builder from Virginia there to help Cabins 4 Christ for a week.

The homeowner was pregnant and stuck in the home when it flooded up to the window, Barry-Rec said. The group was hustling to have her house livable by the time the baby comes.

“The devastation breaks my heart, but the people that have risen and have come down to help offsets that despair. It really is something to be part of and witness,” he said.

But the work isn’t always easy or free of complications. Relying on donations means that construction materials may not be compliant with building codes and regulations. In one case volunteers couldn’t use donated insulation for a home that didn’t have insulation before Helene because it wasn’t the right grade.

With so much demand, it takes time to land needed inspections while trying to get people back into their homes as quickly as possible, especially because some families resorted living in tents after the storm.

One reason Cabins 4 Christ hasn’t installed electricity or plumbing in its sheds is because it would be too difficult to comply with state building codes, Taylor said.

“We build them the way that we do so that we could be good partners, not only with our ministry partners, but also good partners with our local government,” he said.

Despite so many challenges, it’s been inspiring to see the community come together and help each other amid tragedy, Brady said. He’s especially proud of religious groups.

“It’s too soon to say, ‘here’s the silver linings,’ because there’s no silver linings in clear view yet,” he said, yet: “Churches and the faith-based organizations like ourselves… have just shut down and said there’s nothing more important than meeting the needs of our community.”

This story was originally published December 4, 2024, 5:30 AM.

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