The Western NC September 27th Flood

 

"While most of the images are coming out of Asheville, Boone, and more populated areas, there are hundreds of small communities off narrow, winding roads that are difficult to reach in good times. I fear for those people and wonder how long it will take to reach them."

--Thomas Mills 

Many roads on creeks have simply ceased to exist for long stretches. Big trees are down everywhere, many still across one or more lanes of traffic. Untold numbers of people cut off and without electricity. Some are considered "missing" only in the sense that friends and families can't reach them and haven't heard a word about how they're faring. Cell service, Internet connection, WiFi went dead for thousands, and is still spotty.

I know of people in a rented house on Winkler's Creek who watched a mudslide come down the mountainside from an upslope development that had clear-cut. Big timbers, riding on the cushion of moving mud, slammed into their house, knocked it off the foundation. They had to break a window to get out.

The rescue people and the restore-electricity people and particularly the water department in Boone and the people cutting trees off roads have been saviors, often self-sacrificing and always dedicated to the tasks. Quiet heroism. The volunteer spirit is alive and robust and downright inspiring.

Yesterday, Jon-Dalton George, the 25-year-old Mayor Pro-Tem of Boone, was wading through mud to knock on every door in a flooded-out trailer park, doing wellness checks, and coming back where necessary with water and other supplies. Another young man, a student at AppState, joined many others who showed up at a staging area for volunteers in the recovery and offered his help. He got teamed up with Councilman George, door-knocking trailer parks.

This disaster should occasion an honest assessment of modern development in narrow Appalachian valleys in the context of climate change which brings bigger storms and more sudden water. The historic development all along what is known locally as Kraut Creek in Boone, the whole Blowing Rock Rd. corridor, is historically and morphologically a natural floodway that has been culverted and covered over with asphalt and concrete. In the new reality, we can't keep the lid on that creek without more major damage. It's gonna happen again.