British Broadcasting CorporationDays after a tropical storm devastated parts of North Carolina, causing catastrophic flooding that left dozens dead and hundreds missing, entire communities were coming to terms with the devastating loss, and in some cases, narrow escapes.
For more than 40 years, Nancy Berry’s trailer in Boone Township has been her mountain oasis and her family’s home.
Here she created memories with family and friends and preserved those that were lost. Her mother died in the same trailer.
But it only took Hurricane Helene a few hours to wash it all away.
Now the 77-year-old is working to salvage what’s left. Her bed, still soaked from the floodwaters, contains mementos of who she was and where she came from.
At the top is the death certificate from when her son died of COVID-19 three years ago.
“I grabbed it and laid it out,” she told the BBC. “I have to protect my family’s history. But a lot of it is lost.
Ms. Berry’s great-niece rescued her and helped her wade through three to four feet of water.
“They kept calling me – thank God for my cell phone. You never know, long ago, what could have happened,” Ms. Berry recalled.
When her great-niece arrived, she found Ms. Berry trying to put some of her belongings up high to preserve them.
“Auntie Nanny. Come on. Get out. Get out,” she shouted.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Ms. Berry replied. She grabbed the wallet and handed it to her great-niece, who raised the wallet above her head and helped Ms. Berry escape safely.
“She was strong, she was just pushing me and pulling me, and the water was -” Ms. Berry said, shaking. “It’s not a nice moment.”
As floodwaters rose, others on her street had to be rescued by boat.
Ms. Berry’s hometown is a relatively quiet place hidden in the mountains, with a population of about 20,000.
Its landscape is marked by creeks and rivers that flow beneath towering green trees.
It’s also home to Appalachian State University, which has converted its facilities into emergency shelters hit by the storm.
Communities like this can be quite isolated – built on a dirt road on the side of a mountain. These features add to Boone’s beauty, but also its fragility.
Two people died in surrounding Watauga County, local media reported.
Western North Carolina is more than 300 miles (482 kilometers) from the ocean and is no stranger to storms, said Kathy Dello, a climate expert at North Carolina State University.
She said tropical storms had caused “catastrophic” flooding in nearby Carousel, killing six people, but there had been no incidents like this. At least 180 people are known to have died. More than 600 people are still missing. Thousands of people were without power and fresh water supplies were reduced.
The government has sent 6,000 National Guard members and 4,800 federal aid workers to the region, but many have criticized the government’s response, saying most of the relief efforts have been carried out by volunteers.
“We are cut off from [the outside world] About three days,” Green Valley Fire Chief Kenny McPhee said.
“Here, it’s mostly neighbors helping neighbors.”
The cities of Boone and Asheville have been hard hit, but remote communities deep in the Appalachian Mountains are also in serious trouble, Dillo told the BBC.
Even before the storm, cell reception and Wi-Fi were spotty. Poverty and rough rural roads make it more difficult for people to get out.
“A lot of times people say, ‘Well, why don’t they leave?'” Dillo said. “Well, maybe you can’t afford a tank of gas and stay somewhere safer for a few nights? Maybe you know you can’t leave your family, maybe you can’t leave your job.
In Green Valley, a woman who did not want the BBC to use her name said she was still without power and contact with the outside world five days after the storm.
The only device she had access to was a battery-operated antenna radio, which she said was decades old.
“If you grow up in the mountains, you can handle it,” she said.
While speaking to the BBC, a car pulled up and brought her news about family members living on the roadside. She had not seen or heard from them since the storm.
“They are all fine, thank you again, God,” she said.
Although she recalled severe storms, the woman said she had never seen anything like Helen.
Less than five minutes’ walk from where she stood in the driveway, another house was completely flattened.
“God is getting people’s attention. He is really getting people’s attention, not just here but everywhere,” she said. “But I really think it’s just to let us know who’s in control.”
Nicole Rojas, 25, had recently moved from nearby Tennessee to a remote home in the Vilas Mountains of North Carolina that was, in her own words, “off the grid.”
“I kind of wish I could stick to a little bit of my lifestyle because I always have drinking water, shower water and food,” she told the BBC while searching for supplies in Boone.
She heard that now, she and her roommates, who include a 54-year-old woman named Karen, Karen’s 74-year-old mother, and a family with young children, could be without power for several days. Zhou, this is the only way out.
“The only reason I was able to get out was because the gentlemen of the community got out their chainsaws and tractors and moved all the trees away,” she said.
Ms. Rojas was at home when the storm hit the mountain on Friday. On Sunday, she and Karen ventured into town after her neighbors spent all Saturday clearing the road. Karen brought the supplies home after suffering a life-threatening allergic attack after being stung by an insect during the chaos of the storm.
Meanwhile, Ms. Rojas stayed in Boone with friends so she could work at a local health store. She plans to return home Wednesday with more supplies.
It all finally clicked for her when she heard another customer’s story at work.
“She had to drive a truck that was delivering goods, and there seemed to be bodies in the truck, and she started crying,” she recalled. “That’s when I broke down.”
“You hear everyone’s horror stories, like, how their whole house slid down the hill.”
“I feel like I just survived the apocalypse.”
