Water was rising fast and 90-year-old Katherine Jowers, who’s lived in the same North Carolina home 54 years, wasn’t sure what to do.
The water “started creeping up pretty fast,” Jowers recounted in an interview with The Center Square. Firemen evacuated Jowers as flood waters encroached on her home.
“I’ve been here 54 years and never experienced anything like this,” said Jowers, who didn’t have flood insurance. “I wasn’t prepared and I didn’t know what to do.”
The long rebuilding process is just beginning for many in Asheville, one of many mouintain communities devastated by Hurricane Helene six weekends ago.
The storm dumped 30 inches of rain in some places, swelling rivers and causing catastrophic flooding and mudslides. Of 231 fatalities in seven states, 102 were in North Carolina – most (42) in Buncombe County were Jowers has been for better than half a century.
In the weeks after the storm, Jowers went back to the house daily to try and clean up, mostly packing up and recovering personal items. She didn’t know how she was going to clean up.
Then Samaritan’s Purse arrived, the Christian humanitarian aid group headquartered in nearby Boone. Jowers’ daughter has put in a request for help.
“Without them, I don’t know what I would have done,” she said.
Jowers doesn’t know how she’ll be able to pay for remodeling without flood insurance, and hasn’t yet applied for Federal Emeregency Management Agency aid. She said she was quoted $47,000 by a contractor for cleanup that Samaritan’s Purse is doing for free.
“I have no idea, this is going to be astronomical for me,” she said.
The volunteers at Jowers’ home worked to tear out drywall, insulation and nails in preparation for contractors.
“We’ve got almost 500 volunteers out in Asheville” as of Monday, Jodie Yoder, U.S. disaster relief program manager for Samaritan’s Purse, told The Center Square.
For Yoder, who’s worked disaster sites all over the country, this one hit close to home.
“This hits a little different for us because this is in our backyard,” said Yoder, who lives in Hickory, 77 miles east of Asheville. “Some of our staff members in Boone were hit really hard with damage to their houses. There was still a commitment to get out the day after to start helping.”
“It’s different when it’s people you know, it’s community members you know,” she said.
As of Friday, over 10,000 volunteers in the Asheville area with Samaritan’s Purse have helped to complete more than 900 of 2,500 work requests linked to Helene. The group also conducted more that 350 airlifts to provide supplies to affected areas.
“We’ll be here as long as we’re needed to be here,” Yoder said.
