In Western North Carolina, devastating floods have left only faith and hope for Christmas

Edward Graham, COO of Samaritan's Purse, with the Rev. Bradley Boone (right), during one of the charity's relief trips into Pensacola, N.C. Photo by Rachel Boone, posted on Facebook and used with permission of the Boone family.

By Terry Mattingly

For generations, the B.B. Wilson Store marked the only real crossroads in the tiny town of Pensacola, tucked into the Cane River Valley high in the North Carolina mountains.

Sometimes it was open, sometimes not. But the store was always there, even when the doors were locked and its future uncertain. 

Now the landmark is gone, carried away by the historic rainfalls from Hurricane Helene in late September. That storm poured 25 inches of rain on Mount Mitchell–the highest mountain East of the Mississippi River–and the Black Mountains that loom over Pensacola.

The locals quickly put a large image of the store next to the one battered gas pump that survived. Now there is hope that a Wilson's General Store can open in another old building a 10th of a mile away, offering some of the milk, bread, eggs, drinks and basics left over from waves of relief efforts in the ravaged region. Will it be open by Christmas?

The Cane River Valley now has a fragile power grid, months before officials thought that would happen. But winter winds are coming. The one two-lane highway has been patched, but no one knows where the permanent riverbed will be, which makes long-range plans iffy. Roads matter when most of the local blue-collar folks need to drive 30 to 40 minutes to get to their jobs.

"Truth is, there are people here who need everything, because they have basically lost everything," said the Rev. Bradley Boone, the 47-year-old pastor of Concord Baptist Church in nearby Burnsville, the county seat of rugged Yancey County. "People are struggling to get to work. And they have to work if they're going to be able to hang on to their land, the land that their families have lived on for generations." 

Boone is a symbolic figure in these parts since he's part of the seventh generation of a family tree topped by the legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone and his brother, Israel. Pastor Boone is also a veteran leader of the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department, the hub for the urgent rescue work during and after the flooding, as well as ongoing relief efforts. His own home was hit by one of the 2,000 landslides in the North Carolina mountains, and the first time he saw the private road up into his land it looked like it had been bombed.

The remains of the bridge to Riverview Road near Pensacola, N.C., along with the temporary one-lane bridge built with the pieces that fell. Photo by Debra Mattingly.

Pensacola is part of my own story, since I have three decades of ties there with family, friends and neighbors. We live in one of the flood zones in Northeast Tennessee and it took more than a month before we received word from our Cane River Valley neighbors that we could make the winding one-hour trip up to our land. The final mile involved a careful drive over a tiny, improvised bridge the locals built on the riverbanks, using large planks of concrete from a fallen state bridge.

This is, of course, only one of the many battered small towns along the complex matrix of rivers and creeks that cut through the granite and basalt ridges and peaks of the Blue Ridge and Great Smokey Mountains. 

The big picture in the Southern Highlands is so stunning that, for me, it helps to focus on the mountains, the roads, the creeks and the people that I know best. It's hard to cope with numbers like these: AccuWeather has estimated that Helene damages are approaching $250 billion. News reports have stressed that Western North Carolina alone lost at least 100 bridges on crucial roads. Those are state-maintained bridges, as opposed to the estimated 5,000 to 7,000 privately owned bridges–links to homes, farms and businesses–that were washed away.

Conditions are improving, due to heroic work by engineers and construction teams at the local, state and regional level. But this reality remains: Hundreds, even thousands, of people are facing Christmas in badly damaged homes, loaned mobile homes or worse.

Donors have shipped in truckloads of Christmas gifts for the needy. But it's hard to put Christmas trees inside tents or tiny loner mobile homes.

Back at that Pensacola crossroads, the Laurel Branch Baptist Church survived–in part because a bus-sized RV was swept into the front of the sanctuary and diverted some of the floodwaters. There is a massive gap where half the sanctuary floor collapsed, and the flood-soaked pews were drying in the sun the day when my family drove past. But the faithful have brought in folding chairs to resume services.

The locals are leaning on each other, said Boone, knowing that–even if FEMA officials come through–a "$13,000 check from the government isn't going to replace your home." 

What do the people in mountain towns need? Efforts to rebuild will continue for months and even years, with locals cooperating to rent construction equipment to work on private roads, bridges, driveways, barns, churches, water springs and other basics that, ordinarily, people would take for granted.

Boone stressed that donors who want to help need to be careful. In a memo he posted on Facebook, he offered this advice to outsiders:

"If in doubt about what to send find an organization that is already on the ground and has a proven track record and give financial gifts to them. I would highly recommend Samaritan’s Purse as they have been well organized and an absolute blessing to our community, but there are other organizations worthy of your support. Just make sure you research them before giving.

"If you are going to send people to help it's best to partner with a group on the ground already working. This avoids duplication of effort. We have been blessed in WNC with an outpouring of support from across the country and this has been essential! But remember that the local people on the ground know best about the current needs that quickly change."

This will not, of course, be a normal Christmas. But Christmas is coming, no matter what. Right now, mountain people may fight back tears when someone drives past and yells, "Merry Christmas!" They remain steadfastly cheerful, even though it's "hard to talk about the way things really are," said Boone.

"What do people in Pensacola want for Christmas? Pretty much what everybody wants up here. They wish for pavement on their torn-up roads. They'd like to see some guard rails on the sharp turns next to the rivers. They need folks who have the skills to put the river back where it belongs."

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Terry Mattingly writes the national "On Religion" column for the Andrews McMeel Universal syndicate and "Rational Sheep," a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media. He is a member of the Overby Center panel of experts.

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