NEWLAND — Judy and Denny Venable removed damaged inventory from their shop, Pack Rats on Thursday morning, Oct. 17, a block from the Avery County courthouse. They opened 28 years ago selling military surplus, antiques and camping gear. Among their clients have been autumn leaf peepers and migrant workers in the region’s Christmas tree industry.
Two weeks earlier, the two arrived in the store at 6 a.m. Friday during Tropical Storm Helene, assuming incorrectly that the North Toe River, which flows through Newland, had already crested. By 8 a.m., flood waters overwhelmed and engulfed the shop within a fast-flowing current.
Trapped, the two stood for several hours in nearly 3 feet of water. The water receded enough by 1 p.m. to allow them to move to higher ground.
[Subscribe for FREE to Carolina Public Press’ alerts and weekend roundup newsletters]
Like many in the rural county of just over 17,500 residents, they are defiant in the wake of the storm and plan to reopen in the spring if their damaged building is deemed worthy by authorities.
Following Tropical Storm Helene, Avery County’s tight-knit communities are grappling with significant damage from flooding and landslides. The state’s official tally has four storm-related deaths in this small county, one of the highest death tolls per capita in the state.
As county residents rally to repair roads and aid each other, environmentalists point to the broader challenge of withstanding severe storms, intensified by climate change.
Judy Venable said this is the third flood they’ve experienced in Newland since opening.
“You know they say three strikes you’re out,” she said, wearing a rainbow-patterned toboggan hat. “We’re kind of dumb to go at it again, but it is what it is and we’ll clean it up and start over.”
Although much of Avery County experienced severe damage from the storm, the corridor of isolated communities along US 19E and the North Toe River that runs south-to-north through the western portion of the county are reeling in the wake of the storm.
“Some places are really bad because the creeks carry a lot of water and in other places slopes failed,” said Avery County author and environmentalist Jay Leutze who lives near the rural community of Minneapolis. Leutze is the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy’s senior adviser and works with Avery County landowners to conserve land through voluntary strategies.
The North Toe River flows west through a gorge from Newland to Minneapolis through a gorge.
However, portions of Old Toe River Road through the gorge were destroyed by rushing water. Midway between Newland and Minneapolis a landslide uprooted several trees and discharged a truck size boulder, preventing passage by vehicles.
Other routes take drivers to and from Minneapolis, but much of the road system and numerous bridges in this portion of Avery County were heavily damaged or destroyed. Along US 19E private contractors and state workers have been repairing portions of the two-lane highway parallel to the river.
Jodi Jones spoke to Carolina Public Press in front of the Baptist church in Minneapolis. Over the last two weeks, she has shuttled supplies to her 97-year-old grandmother and 68-year old uncle, who uses a wheelchair.
The two live on a rural road roughly a mile from the church. It could take several weeks to restore power and water to their home, where the flooded basement caused damage to the foundation, Jones said.
“She prefers to stay in her home, but I believe they are going to have to leave,” she said. “It’s overwhelming. So many people have had everything taken away. It’s really hard to see.”
Jones said there is an outpouring of support for the community. Since the small community is not centrally located, she said, it’s often overlooked.
“People here are really talented and really resilient,” Leutze said.
“They have fierce pride. There are strong family networks, church networks and social networks that can kick into gear and take care of life and property quickly, even in the face of devastation.”
Despite their self-reliance, Leutze worries that the present need may “outstrip local capacity. People are hearty, but also exhausted.”
Downstream and south of Minneapolis, the Frank Volunteer Fire Department is bustling with activity. Anne Avery Foster who lives next door to the station managed the distribution of food, clothing and supplies. She coordinated volunteers, overseeing the preparation of three meals a day for residents, volunteers and emergency responders.
“We’ve had every state in the union come help us, except Hawaii,” she said. “We’re still waiting for Hawaii to walk through the door.”
Yesterday, Oct. 16, Foster said, was the first snow in Avery County.
“We’re trying to make sure people have heat in their homes,” she said. “Our people are proud and won’t ask for help.”
In a corner of the fire station, Kathleen Watson of Newland established a mobile beauty saloon.
“God woke me up one morning and said start using your skill set and cut hair,” she said.
Her goal is to provide 1,000 free haircuts at fire stations, elementary schools and country stores over the next several weeks.
Watson is also encouraging people to vote. “That’s my main goal,” she said. Watson told CPP she is a “captain” for the Trump campaign. In Avery County, 7,348 are registered Republicans; 1,296 are Democrats.
“People will take their four wheels or they’ll walk,” she said. “People are going to vote here.”
Between the communities of Frank and Plumtree and throughout the county are numerous Christmas tree farms. In 2022, according to the USDA, cultivated Christmas trees and short rotation woody crops generated $17.7 million in revenue and represented 68.5% of the market value of agricultural products sold in Avery County.
Graham Avery, his brother and parents operate Avery Farms in Plumtree. The North Toe River runs through their property which has been farmed by their family for over two centuries. Their tree operation employs about seven people and includes more than 80,000 Christmas trees, many of them planted in a flat field along the river.
Many Christmas tree farmers, he said, plant in the fertile soil of the floodplain.
Avery explained that they begin cutting trees around Halloween for mail-order customers and typically harvest around 10,000 trees each season. In addition to managing tree lots in Florida, Georgia and Alabama, the family also operates a construction business to supplement their income.
During Helene, the swollen river flattened and mangled rows of saplings. On slightly higher ground, the water rose several feet damaging the lower portion of mature and valuable trees. Some of the trees may have been spared where the rushing water was eased by their sprawling shop and barn. But a large portion of their equipment, trucks and tractors were destroyed or damaged by the flood waters.
“I don’t know how the bottom of the trees are going to respond, but honestly, none of them are really any good at this point,” he said. “They were our bread and butter. That’s a lot of our future income that’s gone.”
Since the storm, before addressing the damage to their own crops, the Avery’s used their surviving construction equipment to help community members clear debris and access their homes.
One of the hardest-hit areas along Avery County’s US-19E corridor was the Roaring Creek community, where the stream’s headwaters form in the Roan Highlands on the Tennessee border.
On Thursday, an employee of Burleson Trucking and Grading operated an excavator below a maple tree, its leaves bright red, repairing a portion of Roaring Creek Road above a landslide while a truck dumped a load of steaming black soil and small rocks.
According to Leutze, much of the repair along the road is spearheaded by brothers Tony and Randy Burleson, despite facing their own property losses during the storm when Roaring Creek flooded their equipment and work station.
The NC Department of Transportation is also working to repair U.S. 19E, but there are several portions of the two-lane highway in which only one lane is open.
“I’m really impressed with NCDOT and the standard to which they’re doing it, but in the future we’re going to have to wrestle with the fact that our transportation network is not resilient against storms of this magnitude,” said Leutze, who believes Helene was likely intensified by climate change.
“This storm rewrites the history books, and it should make us rethink the carrying capacity of streams and how we need to build infrastructure so it can withstand the next one,” he said.
At the moment, however, functioning roads are critical to address immediate needs of isolated communities in Avery County and other rural sections of Western North Carolina.
“My neighbors love the isolation that goes with living in a deep holler on a crooked road,” Leutze said.
“They love being in small communities. They love being connected through church networks and family networks, but they’re facing a deep threat right now, with a lot of homes uninhabitable, or gone altogether. This is a watershed moment.”
Avery County photo essay
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may republish our stories for free, online or in print. Simply copy and paste the article contents from the box below. Note, some images and interactive features may not be included here.
