Hurricane Helene a Year Later: A House restored and homes destroyed

COMMUNITY NEWS

BOONE, NC – A little over a year ago, citizens of western North Carolina awoke to a variety of loud noises. For many, it was a heavy rain, seemingly just a bad storm as many predicted the night before.

For others, it was the loud crashing of mudslides, fallen trees and despair.

One Boone family had a more memorable tale.

“I don’t recall precisely (the) sequence of events,” said Matt Mosher, a long-time Boone resident, “but what I do recall is that I was up here in the kitchen, when I heard just an incredible crash, as if it was, as if a thunderbolt had gone off inside the house… that was the point in time in which the roof of the gym had collapsed with the car on top of it.”

You may have seen a viral video of a sudden mudslide coming down a backyard and sweeping a car onto a garage. That was the Mosher family property. One of the four Mosher children, Rachel, and her husband, Israel, reside in that cabin and took that video.

Matt and Sue’s home after the mudslide. Photo Courtesy of Matt Mosher.

Matt and Sue Mosher are long-time Boone residents. Matt is originally from Ohio and Sue is from Georgia. They met in their master’s program studying international relations in Arizona, at the American Graduate School of International Management.

The couple just celebrated 39 years married on Sept. 13. They bounced around for work from Kenya, to Sue’s home state of Georgia, and then eventually to Hickory, North Carolina, before finally looking into Boone. Matt was traveling one day and checked out the area and said,

“I was on the road and came up here and thought, ‘oh man, Sue’s gonna like this’ and looked at a house one day… and then I called Sue. I said, ‘Sue yeah you’re gonna have to look at this house,’ and she said, ‘I want it.’”

They lived in that house for 12 years before landing on their current property for the last 20.

That same property, ravaged by Hurricane Helene.

Matt and Sue had just started renovations that reinforced an old foundation. Their contractor said that without those renovations, the whole house, with them inside, would not have withstood the mudslide.

They did lose the garage Matt worked out in, the basement flooded and family heirlooms were lost.

“But really the question was, well, where do we go?” Sue said, reflecting on that morning, “Because, you know, all the way down the driveway there were trees. So we went down and hung out in our barn there for, you know, a few hours in the rain, thinking, what do we do? But that also is kind of an interesting thing, because, as you’re trying to leave, you know, take things that I asked the question is, what do you take? You know, his medicine, my mother’s medicine. We’re trying to think, what do we need in case our house washes away?”

After a second mudslide damaged their vehicles further, they thought of moving out of their house. This meant moving Sue’s 96-year-old mother, who had been there for five days and was planning to stay for a few weeks before the hurricane hit. Matt recalled taking his mother-in-law out of the house saying:

“There’s just a fairly narrow passage around that side of the house, right? And so all this water is coming down. Sue mentioned is (was) maybe ankle deep. Well, initially it’s probably about knee deep… but it was running hard… it was like a swift water rescue.”

The family huddled in a small barn on the property to wait out the storm.

In the following days, Matt and Sue were not in contact with the outside world; their house was located on top of a small mountain, accessible only by a steep gravel road, leaving them isolated.

Sue said, “We just kind of had our head down and were trying to do what we could right to, you know, dig out to get the trees, you know, cleared off the driveway. So I felt like for a few days, we were just very much, you know, focused on surviving and cleaning up.”

Sue briefly left on Monday to take her mother to her family in Georgia. While driving down, she saw a tree that almost hit a home and remarked,

“If that tree had fallen differently, yeah, those people would be dead, and I just saw that over and over.”

She said that the trip was when she realized the widespread effects on the area.

Those effects were devastating. In December of last year, the State of North Carolina reported that $59.6 billion in estimated damages occurred statewide.

Much of that damage was to homes. Housing is still an issue in western North Carolina. Samaritan’s Purse is a large disaster relief non-profit based in Boone that works domestically and abroad. They are still very active in western North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and more states. According to Samaritan’s Purse President of North American Missions, Jason Kimak, housing is one of the most significant issues following the hurricane. Kimak commented,

“I mean, there’s still people that are not living in their home, and they’re either living in short-term housing, they’re living with family members, they’re renting property, they’re living in campers. They’re displaced from their property.”

On a more local level, a Watauga County spokesperson affirmed this sentiment when asked about the housing crisis in their region,

“Many residents remain affected by damages brought on by Helene. While much work has been done, the process of private road and bridge repair, state hazard mitigation, such as property acquisition and elevations of damaged structures, emergency watershed protections, and more are just getting started.”

All over the county, you see new wooden bridges on private properties due to the volume of bridges swept away by the storm. In the days after the storm, people were stuck on the other side of rivers that were connected by private bridges. They had to rely on friends and neighbors to bring them food and water.

Flooding on Highway 194 in Watauga County just outside of Boone. Photo credits to Thomas Hicks.

These problems are still being addressed. Kimak pleaded with people to consider the needs of their neighbors in western North Carolina. He went on to say that Samirtan’s Purse is still working to process and fund requests for housing repairs. Of their current work, he said,

“We’re doing repairs for homes. We’re doing furniture packages for families who’ve lost, you know, their furniture from having their home destroyed. We’re working with families who’ve had issues with their driveway, their culverts and their bridges, as that was a major issue across western North Carolina was people who didn’t have access to their home.”

They are still accepting donations on their website for these families.

Private funding isn’t the only issue. Watauga County said that federal funding and other problems have roadblocked projects,

“The changing scope of projects, sometimes changing between applications and the start of work remains a challenge. Decreases in funding at the federal level for both recovery and for future preparedness projects create obstacles to public safety.”

More need persists farther down the mountain in Asheville. Celestial Balson is a local woman who has become very involved in helping her community recover. When the hurricane hit she happened to be on crutches and could not volunteer with physical labor, but she drove around to get to know her community better. She was able to learn of needs and build relationships. When she did she continued to see over the months how housing was crippling her home,

“We would meet people who were sleeping in their cars with children and had nowhere to go.”

Through her church, the Swannanoa Christian Church, and a nonprofit, Divine Disaster Relief, she has served as a matchmaker of needs and donations. Her work has impacted many families, but many issues remain. She listed price gouging at overcrowded recreational vehicle parks, clogged city drainage and funding issues. She says,

“Businesses have moved away, closed down, even though it didn’t flood, because there just hasn’t been enough tourism to the area or that family is suffering hardship. So it’s just going to be a very long road to recovery, many years.”

Much progress remains to be made in North Carolina. While much of this help has been provided by non-profits and government entities, a significant portion has also come from neighbors like Celestial and others.

The Moshers saw that firsthand. One day, during their struggles to rebuild their property a kind woman with a catering company came to them and gave them food as she did with many other people, she was an, “angel,” as Matt described her.

Many more offered a helping hand to the Moshers. Matt kept a notebook of names of the people who came and helped them. He stepped away for a moment while I spoke with Sue. He came back a few minutes later and started reading names,

“Andrew, Grace…”

Of the people who helped them get back on their feet,

“Austin, Ian, Kai…”

People who helped them with repairs on their home

“Jeez, it just goes on,” Matt remarked.

The Mosher home being cleaned up. Photo courtesy of Matt Mosher.

The notebook had several pages of names and notes and memories from that time. Something that stood out with the Moshers was their perspective. Both then and now, they had gratitude, a reverence for God.

Some young men came to tear up the carpet last year for Matt and Sue after they started having folks on the property. According to one of those men, when they arrived, Matt said something along the lines of,

“It’s good to see y’all, let me show you how God has been kind to me.”

He proceeded to walk them around the property, showing them the destruction and pointing out how God had protected them and provided for his family.

Matt and Sue’s faith stood out in contrast to the gloom and doom of that time and the pictures they shared. One figure Matt remembered in that time was Job. Job is a Biblical Old Testament character who goes through a terrible loss of family and wealth for a purpose unbeknownst to him. Yet he remains faithful to his God. Matt said of that time when the hurricane beset on his family’s home that he remembered the story of Job,

“I remember the day itself… I just had that constant refrain of Job, you know, the Lord has given the Lord’s taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Matt and Sue Mosher on the porch of their home under construction. Photo Credit to Thomas Hicks.

Matt and Sue’s message of their hope being in the Lord was not merely a comment made here or there, but a train of thought woven into the core of their story. It got them through those times.

The Mosher’s home is about 70% done, they still have a few more months to go. They said the timing of the renovations made for some cold winters yet they never complained.

While their home only has a few months to go to be made whole, Western North Carolina will feel the effects of this storm for years to come.

Thomas Hicks is a journalist with video, PR, and writing experience who studied at UNC and the Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Thomas is always looking for work and the next story! He loves working with his camera or with his pen. This reporter can be contacted at thomasjhicks55@gmail.com, LinkedIn: Thomas Hicks and X: ThomasJ_H