On the evening of September 25th, 2024, I parked at one of my favourite truck stops, the Hot Spot in Inman, South Carolina. I had two aims: get rest and work out. I was ten minutes from my customer in Spartanburg and wanted to get there the next morning, get loaded and get out of the Carolinas. I knew a hurricane was coming and I wanted no part of it. I understood little about the imminent storm, aside from tidbits I read on Facebook links. I figured that as with the majority of storms, the forecasts rarely match the results. So, I’d learn about any devastation soon.
My evening began with a nap, as is typical for me, to slough off the effects of a long day. After waking and eating dinner, I looked on my phone at the Weather Network’s local forecast. It showed intermittent showers coming soon. As I began to stretch and walk outside my truck, light rain began falling. I grabbed my portable pop-up lamp, opened my trailer doors and pulled myself up onto its wooden floor. I started with pushups and jumping jacks and kept an eye on the rain, as I moved to the beat on my headphones.
Soon the rain let up and I got out of the trailer, anxious to pull out my kettlebells and complete three sets of front swings and cross-body military presses with the 15, 25 and 35-pound weights, and finish with two sets each of sumo high pulls and overhead presses with the 50-pound weight. As usual, I was determined to complete my entire workout before heavier rain came and before fatigue set in. Shortly after finishing, I grabbed my duffel bag and headed to the store for a shower. There, I scanned the fridge for sports drinks found my favourite: Cherry Lime BodyArmour. After my shower, I had a nice exchange with a store employee who overheard me say I’m Canadian. It turned out this young guy was a huge Toronto Raptors fan, as I am. He showed me his Raptors arm tattoo and we talked about our favourite all-time Raptor. His is Demar Derozan; mine is Fred Vanvleet.
The next day, following the quick pick-up of light freight, I faced intermittent pounding rain as I drove without stopping up the I-77 out of North Carolina, through southern Virginia and into West Virginia, where the showers eventually let up. Despite the downpour, I didn’t consider how horrific this storm might prove to be, in the Spartanburg-Greenville corridor that I just left and far more so in the Asheville area one hour to the north. It would focus its worst devastation on western North Carolina. In fact, Hurricane Helene was well on its way to annihilating stunning inland mountainous areas that are rarely susceptible to tropical storms.
In the following days, I saw countless video clips on Facebook, posted during the devastation, including moment-by-moment live footage: people waist deep in flood waters in their home, discussing when they might have to leave, if they could indeed leave and where it might be safe to go; the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers overflowing, cresting and flowing ravenously; shocking “before and after” (the storm) scenes; a horse left stranded in flood water in front of a barn after it apparently freaked out when people tried to rescue it. Startling images, all of them.
Helene levied horror on western North Carolina. On October 11, Forbes published an update on the outcome of Hurricane Helene. It stated: “North Carolina was the state hardest hit by Helene and entire Blue Ridge Mountain communities were wiped off the map, Governor Roy Cooper said, as more than two feet of rain fell in some places.”
A big question begs asking: why wasn’t western North Carolina adequately warned and evacuated in advance of the storm’s arrival? A CBS news report (dated October 14) suggested that in some areas severe weather watches and warnings weren’t received by cell phones until hours after they were sent, possibly due in part to cell towers being down due to flooding. In a startling revelation, the report said 29 of 43 counties that experienced deaths, no alerts were sent out using IPAWS. This is the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, which sends public messages to TVs, radios and cell phones. While investigations study the reasons for the lapse or nonaction, weather experts have speculated that few if anyone expected this level of destruction.
Then there are the personal stories. Never once did I think I would be privy to one of these accounts. But on the morning of Wednesday October 9, I was picking up freight from a customer in Valdese, North Carolina, a small town on I-40 about an hour east of Asheville. The slightly-built dock worker was sitting patiently on the forklift waiting for me to arrange space in my trailer. After he loaded me and I was signing paperwork, I said something like ‘Man, you guys have had it rough here the past couple of weeks.’ He agreed. I asked if his family were all okay and he shocked me with his answer: “We lost four people in my family.”
This guy’s name is Ron. He’s from Morganton, slightly west of Valdese, areas that are both barely out of range of the worst of the devastation. I talked to him for about ten minutes and asked questions about who passed away, and listened to his answers through tear-soaked eyes. I wish my terrible short-term memory would allow me to recall more details of his answers. But these details are terrible enough: he lost his father-in-law, his father-in-law’s sister and two kids (not his own children) ages seven and nine.
They all lived in the Swannanoa-Black Mountain area, the heart of the storm. Their home was washed away in an instant, without warning. They were among the missing and presumed dead. I tapped my heart repeatedly and offered my heartfelt sympathies. Ron said that a lot of tears have been shed but his family is dealing with the loss. He said the tragedy is compounded by the deaths his family already experienced from COVID. Not knowing what else to say, I asked if any Canadian emergency response teams had arrived to help. He said some had come. He said the community is asking no one else to come because there is no place for them to stay and no food to feed them.
I told Ron that I heard this area hasn’t been hit by a storm this bad in a hundred years. He said they haven’t seen anything like this in 250 years. Historical accuracy isn’t crucial here. The point is, people in this part of the country simply aren’t familiar with monster storms. This isn’t the Gulf Coast or the Atlantic Coast.
Throughout our brief conversation, Ron repeated a message that it seemed he wanted the world to remember: “Were good people.” I told him I know it. I said I’ve been coming to this area for almost eight years and have met many good people here.
Good people in breathtaking surroundings.
When you enter the region from the east, you are quickly nestled amongst the highest peaks in the Appalachians, which predominate the landscape with startling beauty in every direction as you travel along the I-40. You may not much consider the low-lying areas in between, because of course you’re transfixed by the elevated areas. The many bends in the road and the few steep uphill climbs are worth it for the privilege of simply being here. Most of Western North Carolina is indescribably picturesque. It is Appalachian paradise.
So, I feel like an asshole to say it’s my opinion that Asheville – the city that is the focal point of this area – is not a pleasant place to drive a transport truck. It has tricky interchanges with tight turns and quick merges. There is no bypassing the most congested areas. It seems as though the city developed rapidly as a tourist beacon without considering the increasingly massive amount of commercial traffic that expansion would bring. It’s been playing catch-up with highway and rest stop construction, which has caused more traffic backup. Yet, it’s wonderful to visit as a tourist. At least, I’ve seen enough evidence, and heard enough great things from others, to understand this.
In March 2023, I delivered freight in the heart of Asheville’s renowned and charming River Arts District. I was too focused on safety to look around much. As I neared my customer, the area seemed unusually busy for midday in the off season. People were walking everywhere. Obviously, there was no true offseason here. I summoned great patience to crawl at five or less miles per hour through their parking lot as adult tourists and their children walked carelessly all around my slow-moving truck, evidently ignoring its ominous presence. Once I parked safely by the loading docks, I took a few moments to scan the area and wonder about all the galleries, artist’s studios, restaurants and coffee shops that I couldn’t see from here. I heard there was a microbrewery nearby.
On Monday, October 21st, three and a half weeks after the storm started, the I-40 was reopened in the Asheville area, while parts of the I-40 and I-26 remained closed westward and northward. I had two deliveries in the area and of course I wondered what remnants of destruction I might see. Actually, I didn’t see much. The highway showed streaks of brown dirt and on its shoulders lay large branches and chunks of tree trunks that had been cleared from the lanes. When no traffic was nearby, I glanced over at low-lying areas and could see brown-washed tracts. I could only imagine what awfulness had occurred there. At my first customer, in Mills River, I asked the dock worker about his and his colleagues’ outcomes from the storm. ‘We made it out alive,’ he assured me. Thank God for that. I didn‘t want to hear another story of anguish. There are plenty enough of those. Plenty enough pain for a very long time.
May God have mercy on western North Carolina.