Some North Carolina residents are ‘trapped’ in their homes without food or water after devastating flooding
Sep 28, 2024, 12:27 PM
Residents talk after having canoed the flooded South Fork New River for 32 minutes and landing at a washed out road on September 27, 2024 in Boone, North Carolina. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
(Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
Asheville, NC (CNN) — No power. No food. And no functioning roads to safely leave the homes in which they are stranded.
These are the conditions some North Carolina residents face amid the worst of the flooding caused by tropical depression Helene.
Jennifer Replogle, a pregnant mother of two young children, is “completely trapped” at her home above Boone in Tater Hill, North Carolina, elevation 4,200 feet, where severe flooding from tropical storms is not the norm.
“We weren’t prepared for this,” she said via text early Saturday morning. “The roads are gone, like completely gone.”
The Laurel Fork Road bridge is destroyed by floodwaters raging in the Upper Laurel Fork creek in Vilas, North Carolina, on September 27. (Jonathan Drake/Reuters via CNN Newsource)
Power has been out since early Friday, she said. She is among 700,000 North Carolina residents without power as of Saturday morning, according to poweroutage.us., including 19,226 in Watauga County, where Tater Hill is located.
Replogle said she has no food and is running out of water.
The few narrow, winding roads from the mountain into Boone are impassable, she said.
“Our basement flooded yesterday. If they don’t get somebody to us soon, I really don’t know what to do,” Replogle said.
She is worried about the plumbing and water services business she and her husband own. They have seen a photo of the business’ flooded parking lot and fear “we have lost most of everything.”
Their employees are also trapped at home or staying with friends, Replogle said.
Watauga County authorities have declared a curfew from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m., according to a post on the county’s Emergency Services Facebook page. The post cited “dangerous conditions,” “compromised roads” and “ongoing emergency operations.”
And the town of Boone issued a boil water advisory Friday due to “multiple water breaks,” according to the town’s Facebook page.
Helene first made landfall in Florida Thursday night as a Category 4 hurricane, destroying homes and buildings and knocking out power across the Southeast. The storm has left at least 55 people dead across five states.
Helene “is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of North Carolina,” Gov. Roy Cooper said. More than 2 feet of rain fell in the state’s mountainous region from Wednesday morning to Friday morning, with Busick, a small unincorporated area in Yancey County, along the western border with Tennessee, recording 29.58 inches in just 48 hours.
More than 400 roads remain closed in western North Carolina, the state Department of Transportation said Saturday morning. “All roads in Western NC should be considered closed,” the post on X says.
Another North Carolina resident, Patrick McNamara, the owner of a small milk distribution business in Asheville, told CNN his business was torn apart by flood waters when the storm struck.
As the day broke Saturday, McNamara was able to take a first look at the destruction left in Helene’s wake. “The floodwaters were four feet above the dock,” McNamara told CNN. “So the entire building has been wiped out.”
The facility’s machinery was strewn across the warehouse, milk spoiled, and inches of mud pilled all over the floor. He estimates he will have to get rid of thousands of milk gallons. “Here’s our cooler, that is what’s left of the inventory that’s not in the middle of the road out there,” McNamara said as he walked through the warehouse.
He says his biggest problem is cleaning up the mud that flooded into the warehouse. “That was two or three inches solid,” he said, taking a shovel and beginning to push mud across the floor. “You know, it’s not an easy cleanup job.”
Floodwaters broke over the five-foot-tall loading dock and flooded the building with an estimated four feet of water, according to McNamara. It is unknown when resources like water and electricity will come online again. McNamara said they may have to consider relocating the business to another facility.
“We’re seeking some places in Nashville. We’re gonna stay right here, but it’s a tough and unique business,” said McNamara. “So not everybody has the facilities that will accommodate what we’re looking for.”
Over the weekend, totals of up to 1 inch of rain are expected for some parts of western North Carolina, including Asheville. The governor said Saturday morning that “significant danger from this storm still exists” in a post on X.
