How's it Going?
When we Asheville residents talk to our friends and family who live farther afield, they often ask how Hurricane Helene recovery is going. The answer? It’s going both poorly and very well. It depends on where you look. The progress we’ve made has taken a lot of effort and resilience from a lot of people, families, and businesses.
In fact, at Asheville Area Movers, we’ve had our own phoenix journey, which has kept us very busy. We’re long overdue to give that update, so you’ll find it here. Plus, read to the end for some local Helene anniversary events. But first, a reflection on what we’ve all come through together.
Hurricane Helene’s Impact in Asheville
This Saturday marks one year since Western North Carolina’s worst natural disaster on record. As many reading this will remember, between local storm systems and the tropical storm itself, the amount of rain that fell from September 25th to the early morning hours of the 27th was greater than our area typically sees in six months.
On that last day, after the storms had finally moved out of our little mountain basin, and while the sun shone, the rivers continued to swell—over 30 feet in some places. The water was powerful beyond comprehension, flowing with all the force of an EF2 or EF3 tornado. This 1000-year flood event devastated homes, businesses, and lives.
- Nearly 200 people in our Southern Appalachian region lost their lives, many in areas previously thought safe from flooding and landslides.
- About 100,000 homes were impacted, with 1000 of those being total losses.
- Since the floods, 40 downtown Asheville businesses have folded.
- Major throughfares remained closed for as long as 6 months after the floods.
Most of us here agree that there’s no going back to normal. It’s a process with no way out but through, and when we get to the other side, things will be different than they were before.
What’s Going Well in Post-Helene Asheville?
We’re a stronger community in many ways. The generosity, heroism, and kindness that flowed in and around WNC in the weeks after the storm were faith-restoring. We heard about regular people in canoes and kayaks heroically rescuing their neighbors from rooftops. Hardworking local volunteers, including some who had lost everything themselves, suddenly became full-time relief workers.
Outside help began to roll in: Brave civilians helped local first responders with search, rescue, and recovery. Visitors with chainsaws cleared land and roads. Linemen traveled from as far away as Nova Scotia; and supplies flooded in from concerned people everywhere. The military arrived and graciously took their orders from local community leaders, doing whatever was needed.
Most of that initial effort wrapped up around Christmastime when locals began to burn out and volunteers went home for the holidays. But hurricane recovery takes years, so what is Asheville doing now? Some highlights include:
- Mutual aid in our area has exploded due to increased need and awareness, as well as unprecedented fundraising. Organizations like Beloved and the Asheville Tool Library continue to help thousands access housing, clothing, furniture, building materials, essential cleanup tools, and much more.
- While many downtown businesses did close permanently, 93% of small businesses across western NC reopened.
- Businesses in two of the hardest-hit areas, Biltmore Village and The River Arts District are beginning to return after a year of cleanup and rebuilding.
- Government programs like Renew NC and nonprofits such as Samaritan’s Purse are rebuilding homes for those who lost them.
- Residential areas not eligible for rebuilding because of ongoing flood risk have been purchased by FEMA and will become parks and greenways for everyone to use.
Asheville Area Movers’ Loss & Recovery
We’re so grateful to be among that 93% of small businesses to reopen, and we have a lot more to be thankful for, too. First and foremost, all of our employees and families remained safe through the storm and its aftermath. If everything else had gone wrong from there, we could still count our safe loved ones as an enormous blessing.
Even with our entire business being wiped off the map, there are silver linings. The business we’d built over nearly eight years was gone, and that did present some challenges. But at the end of the day, the building and 11 trucks that were destroyed were insured and replaceable.
We also had an opportunity to ask ourselves if we wanted to continue in the moving business. Losing your whole enterprise in one day is a lot of things…a clean slate among them. The answer to this question came fairly quickly, however, in the form of calls from our community. We were needed, and we wanted to help.
One of the first calls came from a property management company looking for movers to relocate displaced residents from ~250 apartments. We usually specialize in this kind of last-minute moving, and we hated to tell them we couldn’t do it. Not only were our trucks lost, but so was a large portion of the local rental truck inventory. So, while that one job would have been enough to get us on our feet again, there just wasn’t a way. We were touched, however, to see moving companies come from Greenville and Charlotte to help those folks.
Our Silver Lining
The calls kept coming, and we wanted to help our neighbors. So, we began the process of rebuilding the business, securing a location, purchasing new trucks, and bringing employees back.
While we got on our feet, we did our best to help others do the same, working with Eblen Charities to move several storm-impacted families a week over the months after the storm. The opportunity to offer a hand in this way gave us all the reassurance we needed about our decision to resurrect Asheville Area Movers from the mud.
The past year has been hard for so many of us here in WNC, and starting Asheville Area Movers again from scratch was not easy, but it’s been a gift and a privilege. As expected, things look different on the other side. We’re grateful and humbled to find that we’re better than before.
- We have about half as many trucks as we did before Helene, and they’re newer and more reliable than the old fleet.
- Those new trucks are being painted, one at a time, by hand, by local artists.
- We are much more rooted in the community than we ever were before.
- We’re having our busiest year yet.
- We operate much more efficiently, given the unique opportunity to build a brand-new business with several years’ experience in that same business.
And finally: We now see how Asheville Area Movers can be much more than the service we provide, and we have had an opportunity to focus on what happens in the space between what we do and what the community sees. (We’ve heard this is called branding.) We’re not a cool new tattoo parlor or a sophisticated coffee-and-flower shop, but neither do we have to stay quiet about the great work we do.
By establishing a visual presence with our art trucks, by proudly wearing our AAM merch, by letting ourselves be seen, we can better connect with people around the region. As always, we still show up on time, handle your belongings with impeccable care, do business with integrity, and support important causes. AND we can also make ourselves visible and find ways to say, “Hey! Pleased to meet you. We’re Asheville Area Movers.”
Bonus: 15 Ways to Commemorate this September 27
Dozens of events around the region will remember the anniversary of Hurricane Helene, each one in its own way, providing opportunities to honor those we’ve lost, celebrate recovery progress, connect, process grief, dance, play, view art, make art, and more. These are the 15 that spoke most to us:
- Honor the heroes of Hurricane Helene at Highland Brewing.
- Help Root Cause Farm continue their mission to provide healthy, fresh produce to those in need.
- Scream until you feel better at the West Asheville Library.
- Compile your own images and memories and contribute to the Come Hell or High Water Community Memory Project.
- Reflect quietly, gather by the fire, and enjoy a community meal at the Warren Wilson Fellowship Hall and Chapel.
- Ground in music and community at the Black Mountain Blues Festival.
- Enjoy live music, local food, face painting, and more in the name of clean energy at MountainTrue’s event, Stronger Than the Storm.
- View 100STRONG’s Rising Above Helene documentary at Haywood Community College Auditorium or East Asheville Public Library.
- Access Helene-specific therapeutic fellowship with Resources for Resilience, which is offering a full week of discussion and connection opportunities.
- Volunteer with RiverLink to tend the pollinator meadow at Karen Cragnolin Park.
- Stay home and peruse the fascinating and informative story map created by ArcGIS and NOAA.
- Celebrate our region’s resilience and take home a tree to help restore the lost canopy at Black Mountain’s Community Tree Giveaway.
- View Swannanoa visual artists’ Helene-responsive work at Swannanoa Artists After Helene’s exhibition.
- Buy anything from Old Europe Pastries in-person or online (9/27), and they will donate all the proceeds to Beloved for their continued post-Helene community work.
- Support local artists and craftspeople at the grand reopening of Marquis Asheville.