Chasing Adventure

We love many things about living in the mountains, but our favorite part has been the humans. Salt of the earth, genuine, authentic kind of humans.

The 3 days leading up to Hurricane Helene hitting the area brought us 7.61″ of rain. THEN the hurricane rains came. Good for us, bad for the NC side, the mountains broke up much of the rain bands so we didn’t get as many inches as the NC side. I heard on the news, Mt Mitchell got something like 37″ of rain!

We have 3 bridges that get us from our side of the mountain into Greeneville – Erwin Bridge for the north side of town (and what we use to pull the rig off the mountain), Jones Bridge for downtown, and Ashville Hwy Bridge for the south side of town. We live closest to the Jones Bridge, but use Erwin the most by far.

I remember that it was a Friday and I was at Arcane for my 5pm crossfit class, having gone over the Erwin Bridge about 4:45p. Done with class, I went to go back over the Erwin bridge about 6:15p and it was barricaded off (turns out it fell in the hour I was in class).

I went over to the Jones Bridge next, but the water was so high I couldn’t even see the road leading up to the bridge.

I called Greg to get me over to the Ashville Hwy Bridge without going back through town. By now, it’s close to 7pm. The cars were backed up for quite a ways over the bridge, but I was able to cross and get home. I was so worried about getting home, I didn’t think about stopping at the store to make sure we had groceries in case the rest of the bridges went out! The waters pouring over the Ashville Dam were incredible and scary… To the right, the water carved its own way down the dam, causing more issues than the dam could handle. About 9pm they closed the bridge and by midnight, officials were knocking on doors for anyone who lived within a mile of the river to evacuate. One family got out about 15 minutes before the waters swept everything away, leaving only a concrete slab where their home used to be. They left with just the clothes on their backs and 1 vehicle – losing everything else.

This is about when we put out the call for prayer. With Erwin Bridge gone, Jones Bridge flooded and not knowing if it would still be standing when the waters receded, the Ashville Hwy Bridge being closed for imminent dam failure that would wipe out that bridge, and Marshall, NC affected by their own flooding, getting to a grocery store looked to be a huge effort if all the dominoes fell. By noon the following day, the waters had crested and the dam remained. Praise Jesus.

It was about 10 days for us to get back access to Jones Bridge. Turns out it had about 20′ of debris on it which had to be cleared and then portions of the road repaved to make the area drivable once more. This is the view of the bridge from town looking back toward the mountains (behind the clouds).

We lost power for one day, which meant we lost water as well, since our community runs off a well. However, because we run off a well, as soon as we had power, we had water, which wasn’t the same for Greeneville proper. The Nolichucky River rose so high, it completely wiped out the pump house for Greene County. Residents of the area (not on wells) didn’t have water for more than 2 weeks in some places.

Again, the TN side of the mountains did not receive the damage the NC side did, so our local communities rallied resources to take care of our own and help out our neighbors. Through the crossfit gym, I found multiple opportunities to help. For about 3 weeks, there were multiple days of handing out cases of water every afternoon for days. The weekend after the event, the gym partnered with some local volunteer fire departments to feed about 700 people a hot lunch. The events were fun and it felt so good to be able to help!

When the waters receded, the heavy equipment came in to start the process of clean-up. We heard story after story of neighbors helping neighbors, strangers helping where they were needed, and just an overall sense of community from the people of Greene County. Over a community breakfast where we served the people to raise money for the Camp Creek Volunteer Fire Department, we heard that the TN governor wanted to know what Greene County was doing because we seemed so organized in taking care of each other. It warmed my heart to be a part of this community.

More than a month later, the heavy equipment is still around and clean-up is still happening. The people have taken it all in stride (for the most part) and are showing they are Appalachian Strong.

It was the Erwin Bridge and the I-26 highway collapsing that caused us some personal worry because that is our route to FL.

Through some scouting, we found that we can go over the Ashville Hwy Bridge and head south by way of Knoxville and Chattanooga, coming down I-75. It’s about 2.5 hours longer, but hey – it’s another adventure, right?

Grateful to have been in a bubble of safety – thank you, Jesus!

~Katie