Picking Up the Pieces
The Aftermath of Hurricane Helene
We were in Erwin, a small trail town of approximately 6,000 residents in eastern Tennessee, when Hurricane Helene swept through the community. Erwin is nestled in Unicoi County and sits along the banks of the Nolichucky River. Just 50 miles from Asheville, Erwin ranks among the communities hit hardest by Helene.
Six months ago, our family set out on the incredible adventure of thru-hiking the entire Appalachian Trail. With just over 500 miles to go, we got caught in the midst of one of nature’s most powerful forces—a Category 4 hurricane. This is our account of how we narrowly escaped the wrath of Hurricane Helene.
It was pouring rain on September 25, 2024, in the Cherokee National Forest. About an hour after dark, a park ranger shone his light on our shelter and spoke through the fabric of the tent wall. He introduced himself and said, “No need to unzip the tent. I don’t want you to get wet. I’m just letting everyone know that we are closing the campground tomorrow due to the hurricane. Everyone needs to be out by noon.” Helene had turned quickly from a tropical storm to a Category 1, and was now registering as a Category 4. Helene was expected to make landfall in Florida the next day, carrying catastrophic effects on Florida and the southern Appalachian Mountains.
We heeded the evacuation order from the Cherokee National Forest. To escape the possible danger of Hurricane Helene, The Tramp booked an Airbnb in Embreeville, just outside of Erwin for four nights to ride out the storm. Unbeknownst to me, the place we booked was a Nolichucky riverfront property. When we arrived, I was shocked to see that it was right next to an already angry and swollen river—not exactly the best place to be during a hurricane. Later, this would become yet another piece of the “what if” puzzle that I’m still trying to sort out in my head. However, in our wildest imaginations, we could not have fathomed the amount of destruction this river would cause.
Upon arrival, I had an opportunity to speak with the neighbors on both sides of us. Our neighbor to the left was a 90-year-old woman who had lived in her house her whole life. She recalled a flood that had happened fifty-two years earlier in 1977, but didn’t expect things to get that bad. The neighbor on the other side had placed a rope with metal stakes in the ground to measure the distance the water was rising. Down by the river, I had an opportunity to converse with him as we watched whole trees and tires float swiftly by on the undulating rapids. He assured me that the water was only supposed to rise to the fourth stake, which was not near enough to the house to warrant fear.
Monica, our Airbnb host, arrived and gave a similar account of her experience with what she had seen along the river, while in the same breath expressing a deep respect for the strong undertow and referring to the Nolichucky River as “the river of death.” She said that she had “never seen the water get higher than the fire pit”, pointing to a place in her yard. She had planned to ride out the storm in her other rental property in front of our house, nearer the water.
Everyone agreed that if the water rose to the point of concern, there would be time to move to higher ground, so there was no need to worry. Everyone was prepared for a gradual rising of water, not for what was to come.
Being a prepper, I assessed the surroundings. Pointing in the direction we would go, I laid out an elaborate plan to The Tramp that in case of a flood emergency, we would head to the mountains on the other side of the road. A “prepper” is a person who believes a catastrophic disaster or emergency is likely to occur in the future and makes active preparations for it, typically by stockpiling food and other supplies. After seventeen years together, he’s used to my disaster scenarios and just gave me a nod and a smile.
The boys and I spent the remainder of the rainy day throwing sticks in the river and watching debris float by. We also had a front-row seat from our screened-in back porch, so we sat watching “window” until we went to bed.
Before heading to the Airbnb, we had gone to the grocery store and stocked up on $400 worth of food and gallon jugs of water for the next five days. At this point, excitement for the impending storm was running high, but none of us were feeling fearful. The storm was expected to hit Tennessee the next day, so we went to sleep knowing we were safe for the night.
I'm still struggling to comprehend the events that allowed us to escape. All I know is that I'm deeply grateful we made it out.
When we woke up on hurricane morning, the depth of the river was holding steady at the point it had been when we went to bed. From 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., the water steadily rose as predicted. We still had power. We baked a pizza and vegetarian sausages in the oven for dinner in anticipation of losing power. We talked about how we would be in good shape when we did lose power because we had our camp stove to cook on and five headlamps for light.
I filled up all of our water bottles and pitchers with extra water, just in case. I looked for a bucket to fill up to flush the toilet, just in case. We washed and dried our sleeping bags and sleeping bag liners. When I pulled them out, they were warm and smelled heavenly. I laid them out on the bed to fluff. I put our hiking clothes in the washer, hoping to get them dried before we lost power. Our tent was drying out on the screened-in porch. We were prepared to be hunkered down for five days.
In the meantime, I had befriended and was feeding a stray cat that I found hiding under the porch in the vacant rental property in front of us. As the water rose throughout the morning, the water’s edge began to lap at the porch that the stray cat was hiding under. Worried about the cat’s safety, I managed to pull her out from under the porch. I brought her inside our house to wait out the storm with us. She was very sweet and was feeling loved, safe, cozy, and fed. She made herself at home on the back of the couch and visited her feeding station frequently.
We lost power as expected. From 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., the water slowly began to creep past what was supposed to be the highest point, prompting me to start packing our things and carrying them out to the car. “Just in case,” I said. We had moved everything into the car except for our tent, sleeping bags/liners, toiletries, and food. I was beginning to feel a little apprehensive at this point but was hopeful the water would just continue to rise slowly. Anxiety and excitement were building among the boys as well. The Tramp was cool, collected, and steady.
A police officer visited the house, as they were going door-to-door in the neighborhood to check on everyone. They said that an evacuation had not yet been ordered, but they recommended that if the water reached our back porch, we should leave, just to be safe. Bumpus Cove Road was flooded and impassable to the left, with Fire & Rescue busy rescuing folks who had stalled out and were trapped in the flooded roadway. The police officer informed us that, in the event of an evacuation, we would need to exit to the right.
Because the river had risen higher than expected, Monica was flooded out of her house closer to the river. She moved to higher ground in our house and was hanging out with us as we watched the river rise from our back porch. A police officer was stationed in front of our house, blocking anyone from going down the flooded road. Other emergency vehicles frequently passed by the house with lights flashing.
From 10:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., things got intense. The neighbors on one side of us had decided to leave but didn’t want to go without the elderly lady on the other side. It took some convincing, but she agreed to leave with them. They left at 11:15 a.m. We had also decided to leave and were getting ourselves ready to get in the car. From the time we made the decision to leave to the time we got in the car, the water started rising at an alarming rate. It had breached the back porch stairs, crept around the front of the house, and spilled into the driveway.
I approached the police officer for written driving directions. I told him that we had decided to leave and wanted to go to a hotel in Johnson City, but we were not familiar with the area and asked if he could write down directions for us so we would not get lost. Our GPS was routing us onto flooded roads, and I was worried it would send us into danger. Monica knew we were leaving, but she had decided to stay in our house to wait out the storm. She said the water was supposed to start receding by 3 p.m., and she would be okay.
However, after hearing my conversation with the police officer, Monica knew that I was anxious about getting lost and offered to lead us on the 24-minute drive to Johnson City. She planned to return after the water stopped rising a few hours later.
Only 15 minutes had lapsed from the time we decided to leave until the time we got in the car, but the water was already creeping up on the underside of the car. We said goodbye to the police officer as we left. He commended us on our “wise decision” to leave.
If we had not left when we did, the roads would have been swallowed by the flood and rendered impassable. Like so many others, we would have died in our car trying to flee. If we had not left when we did, the house would have been wiped out with us inside, as there would have been no time to move to higher ground.
When the flash flood hit, the wall of water roared through Bumpus Cove like a freight train, flattening everything in its path. An entire community was wiped off the map. So many people lost their lives, their loved ones, their pets, their homes, their livelihoods—everything.
Many of the neighbors did not get out in time. We saw two kids playing in their front yard across the road from our house when we left. I deeply hope their family was able to get out in time. The police officers were still stationed in the neighborhood to assist anyone that needed help. We left at 11:45 a.m. Two minutes after we left, an “evacuate now” order came through on our phones.
We crossed the James D. Elliott Memorial Bridge on Tennessee Highway 107 over the Noluchucky River. The river was massively high and wide—raging and close to breaching the bridge. My video footage shows the flood water as it roars under the bridge.
Because Monica led us out, we did not get lost and subsequently die in our car trying to flee. Because we needed help, Monica left her house to lead us and did not get washed away in the flash flood herself. We left at 11:45 a.m. The evacuation order came in at 11:47 a.m. A police officer told me that by 2 p.m., our house and most of the houses in the neighborhood were completely gone. Just minutes made all the difference for us. Had we waited for the official word, it would have taken us another 15 minutes to get out of the house, and that would have been too late. It’s hard to grasp how just a few minutes or a single decision could have changed everything for us. We left with the expectation of returning the next day, not realizing how close we came to tragedy.
I’m generally very private about my spiritual beliefs, but I will say that for many months before we began our hike, I prayed for our safety in every possible disaster scenario I could think of. Our angels, both seen and unseen, protected us, and we made it out alive. Whether it was strangers offering a helping hand or forces beyond my comprehension—we made it out alive.
When I think of my angels, I like to imagine an army of all the animals and insects that I’ve ever saved, protected, defended, or loved. It would be the hugest, most fierce army of angels ever. They would rise up together, fierce and untamed, forming an unstoppable force of protection and love that follows me wherever I go.
Until I reach my final resting place, I will never know how divine intervention has guided me throughout the entirety of my life. But I will continue to be grateful, try to leave things a little better than I found them, and live my life to the absolute fullest every day.
The devastation is beyond anything I could have imagined. I've seen scenes like this on television, but being there in the midst of it was surreal. My heart breaks for everyone grappling with such overwhelming loss, and my thoughts are with those trying to find a way forward.
I don’t think anyone in the Appalachian Mountains could have anticipated the amount of devastation Hurricane Helene would bring. In the past century, the mountainous Appalachian regions of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and southern Virginia have never experienced any hurricane or flood this catastrophic.
We made it to a hotel in Johnson City, expecting to return to the house the next day to collect the cat, gather the rest of our hiking gear, and then head to Maryland to dry out and regroup. We had decided that we were going to adopt the cat, and we were all very excited about that.
It would be two more days before we realized how narrowly we had escaped death. The day after the hurricane, we looked up driving directions back to the house and Maps indicated that a route was not possible, with a double red line signifying impassable on all possible routes. There was no information available online that indicated what was happening in our neighborhood specifically. We assumed a messy, muddy, flooded house and nothing more. We would spend another night in Johnson City and go back the following day.
We booked the hotel for a second night. Everything in Johnson City was operating normally. We had electricity. People were bustling about, going to restaurants, shopping, etc. There was nothing but a little rain and wind in Johnson City, Tennessee. Nothing to indicate that a hurricane had happened. We spent the entire second day after the hurricane at the Johnson City Library, followed by a playground, and didn’t return to the hotel room until after dark. At the playground, we began hearing horrifying personal accounts from people regarding friends and loved ones—stories of missing people, people who had died in the flash flood, daring rescue attempts, and the devastation that had occurred.
That evening, I began searching the web again. At 2 a.m., I found aerial drone footage of Erwin, Tennessee. A sinking feeling came over me as I watched the video in disbelief; most of the houses along the Nolichucky River were gone. I woke The Tramp up to show him the video. I said, “Babe, I think this is where the house was,” pointing to a place in the video. We spent the next two hours using satellite maps and watching the video, trying to figure out where the house was. We couldn’t figure it out. The Tramp eventually fell asleep, and I lay awake until the sun came up, worrying about the cat, all of the people that were trapped, and feeling sick.
The Embreeville Fire Department was just down the street from the house that we were staying at. We called their number to ask if someone could go to the house to check on the cat. The number was no longer in service. A deeper sinking feeling came over me. I contacted Monica. She said as far as she knew, the roads were still impassable.
Growing even more concerned, we tried mapping a driving route again, and this time a route was available. We packed up the car and headed toward the house. We did not expect to actually be able to make it to the house. If not, Monica would ship our belongings to us when she had access to the house and give the cat to her friend, a cat lover, so we could head to Maryland.
On the 24-minute drive, the destruction went from nothing in Johnson City to completely decimated in Embreeville—an entire community wiped off the map. We were able to pass on a road that had one lane remaining, as the other half of the road had been taken out by the flood.
The closer we got to the neighborhood, the stronger the sinking feeling became. The river had carved out a massively deep chasm. As we arrived at Bumpus Cove, an onslaught of despair, loss, and shock enveloped us as we witnessed countless Search & Rescue personnel digging through the rubble, heavy machinery of all kinds clearing debris from the roadway, and residents trying to sort through the destruction that had been their lives just days before. Doors of most houses that were still standing were marked with fluorescent orange Xs with a number under it to indicate that the houses had been checked and no bodies remained. Residents were crying and embracing one another.
Total silence filled our car as we looked on in stunned horror. When we arrived at where the house once stood, our hearts sank. The house and everything inside was gone—completely swept away by the floodwaters. The only remnants were fragments of debris scattered along the riverbank, evidence of what had once been a home.
Almost all of the houses were gone. The only traces of many were driveways and foundations. As we stood atop our home’s wasted remains, my body alternated between waves of nausea and goosebumps as I began to process the enormity of what had happened.
The cat was nowhere to be found, and the weight of loss pressed heavily upon us. We didn’t take the cat with us to the hotel because we thought the cat would be safe from the flood in the house until we returned the following day. I’m still struggling with the decision not to take the cat with us, but we couldn’t have known the house would be completely wiped out.
Lots of tears were shed. Seeing the devastation was immense. Losing the cat was particularly hard on the boys too because the cat was something tangible—something they could pet and hold. We felt responsible for her because we had tried to save her. She was a living breathing creature and the closest thing we had to losing a loved one. Her absence and the thought of her unfortunate demise left a palpable void.
The flash flood had stretched all the way across the street and taken out the houses on the other side of the road as well. A few houses further back were spared, but every house was affected in a massive way, except for a single house—the one highest up on the only hill in the neighborhood—a lone house untouched.
We began making piles of sentimental items that we pulled from the mud, most likely from neighborhoods upstream. There was not much to salvage from the wreckage, and the belongings of the people in our neighborhood would likely be many miles away. The devastation and destruction were beyond anything we could comprehend. The only recognizable things from our house were a baking pan that was lodged deep within some debris. We recalled using it to bake chicken nuggets. The dryer door was lying in a gully, atop the foundation of the home, that the water had carved out among the wreckage.
One neighbor told me a gut wrenching account of a grandfather and his six grandchildren that were washed away in the floodwaters. We heard countless other stories of human loss. To explain the feeling of being there, seeing the intensity of the destruction, and hearing the painful stories is not something that I can adequately articulate.
We embraced the neighbors that we had spoken with before evacuating. They were the only familiar faces from our brief moment at Bumpus Cove. I witnessed a moment so powerful between the two of them as they sat hugging and crying on the steps of their house. After they were done crying and began moving about the wreckage, I approached them and said, “this is probably wildly inappropriate, but if you like, I can use your phone to take some photos of you while you are sitting on your step.” They said, “yes, please” and immediately handed me their phone. I used their phone to capture some images for them that will hold significant value long after they have rebuilt their lives. Out of respect, I was very careful not to photograph anyone else in the community.
Hurricane Helene has claimed the lives of so many, and the death toll keeps rising. Hundreds of people are still missing—mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, friends. If everything had not lined up exactly as it did, we would be among those missing people. In the very neighborhood we stayed, they were still pulling bodies from the rubble.
One of the things that struck me so powerfully as we watched the news before Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, was a reporter urging residents in certain areas of Florida, who did not heed evacuation orders, to write their names on their legs in permanent marker so their family members would be able to identify their bodies. The storm in the Appalachian Mountains was expected to hit hard but the power of the flooding and enormity of the devastation far surpassed anything that was anticipated.
Rainfall caused the overflow of dams many miles away from us that brought the deadly flash flooding and destruction our way. The breached Nolichucky Dam, located near Erwin, was reported to be at risk of catastrophic failure. However, it was the dams many miles away in North Carolina that nearly broke, causing the massive flash flooding in this Tennessee neighborhood.
Significant flooding and overflow from the dams affected both North Carolina and Tennessee. Specifically, two North Carolina dams, Waterville Dam and Lake Lure Dam, experienced significant stress. The Waterville Dam, located near the Tennessee border and approximately 20 miles from Erwin, was at risk but did not fail. Lake Lure Dam, located about 75 miles from Erwin, also overflowed due to the heavy rainfall but remained intact despite some damage to its structural supports. The flooding from these dams contributed to flash flooding and rapidly rising water levels along the Nolichucky, Pigeon and French Broad rivers, further complicating the storm’s impact in both states.
Hurricane Helene has significantly damaged the southern Appalachian Trail as well. According to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, “This storm has been described as the most extensive natural disaster affecting the trail in its 100-year history. The aftermath includes substantial damage from flooding, high winds, and downed trees, with particular communities in North Carolina and Virginia being hit hard. Areas such as Asheville and Hot Springs in North Carolina, along with Erwin and Roan Mountain in Tennessee, reported severe effects.” The damage to the trail is still being assessed. Hikers are urged to avoid those sections due to impassable conditions. Having just completed all of those sections weeks and days before, the affected trail communities are still fresh in our minds.
After seeing the remains of the house, we headed to Maryland with heavy hearts. It’s impossible not to keep recalling what we witnessed. We will continue to think of the thousands of people who have lost so much.
The devastation caused by Hurricane Helene has left entire communities shattered, and our hearts go out to those who now face the unimaginable task of rebuilding their lives. In the midst of all this, our hike feels incredibly insignificant, and while we’re working on a plan to replace our gear and finish the last 500 miles, we’re enormously grateful for the safety of our family. We hold a deep hope that the communities impacted by this tragedy can find the strength to rebuild and flourish once more. As we move forward, we will do so with a mindful awareness of the profound losses endured, respecting those who have been affected by the devastating destruction of Hurricane Helene.
~Mel Heurich (Lovely Tramp)
In the wake of Hurricane Helene, there are many ways to support the communities affected. Here are but a few:
The Humane Society of The United States
As I began following your journey, I wondered how the storm impacted you & your family. Seeing your pictures & reading your words of the “real time” events happening around you, truly showcased what people were enduring. This is local for me & your respect & honor in the way you shared everything is so appreciated! I am looking forward to reading the rest of your family’s story & am thankful, you heeded the feeling of getting out when you did.
Wow, what a respectful and detailed picture you have drawn for us all to truly understand the levels of devastation that has affected so many. Thank you for sharing the links for donation so we can help on some level. So glad you are all safe. Absolutely terrifying how close you came ro another outcome.