Storm Stories from SHR

October 31, 2024

Storm water mitigation in action last winter

 

Gardener Kody Stanley stayed on site at Southern Highlands Reserve with his young family while Hurricane Helene roared through our region.

I’d like to start by expressing my gratitude for SHR and our team. I’m thankful I was able to seek refuge with my family at the lodge as we were in danger of tree damage due to the high winds and saturated ground. The understanding of that privilege cannot be overstated as my heart mourns for those who did not have a safe place to go. With that, I urge everyone fortunate enough to help those who are not by supporting local charities in any way possible. I am extremely hopeful as I’ve witnessed the community come together and take care of those that need help. Now more than ever is the time to practice empathy, compassion, and gratitude.

Managing a woodland garden is no easy task, especially when it’s situated at 4,300 feet on the top of a mountain. Co-existing with the weather can be the hardest task at SHR. The high winds we experience shut down all work in the landscape as a safety precaution. We’ve tried to minimize these risks by removing hazard trees or limbs that have the ability to hurt guests and employees. Heavy rains can potentially ruin months of hard work in a matter of hours if left unchecked. Thankfully, Executive Director Kelly Holdbrooks understood this issue from years of diligently tracking the runoff and implemented water mitigation techniques that have proven to withstand the torrential rains we experience at SHR. Rock runnels are situated along main roads and trails that are pitched to allow water to find the path of least resistance. This feeds into box drains or pipes that are directed to creek beds and into the pond. We prepare for every rain event by making sure all of these drains are free of debris that would block this flow and create “blowouts” causing such damage that we work so hard to minimize.

Understanding that we are only capable of trying to work with nature to the best of our ability is vital to our goals at SHR. We cannot control nature, we can only prepare for these situations and attempt to have a symbiotic relationship. All of these preparations helped cushion the blow from the 20 inches of rain before and the 20 inches that came with Helene. The 80-mph wind guests roaring through the forest were powerful and re-emphasized my position as a human and gardener.

 

Gardener Brent Antrim and his wife, Kim, moved to Western North Carolina from Athens, Ga., just over two years ago. They weathered the storm at their home in Pisgah Forest.

Kody and I had come up to SHR Thursday. We put on rain gear and checked every drain to make sure they were all clear. One on Summit Ridge Road was overwhelmed with the 20 inches of rain we got earlier in the week. The stormwater cut a few furrows down Pond Road, but we were pleased with how our preparations held up.

This was the first natural disaster for me and Kim. We’ve never been through anything like that before. It was definitely an eye-opener. We now have a long list of things to purchase to be ready in case of another long power outage down the road. We had an old boombox that runs on D batteries, eight of them. We had seven. A neighbor who works at Target brought us one more. We used our cast iron fire pit to boil water for coffee and sponge baths. It made us aware and thankful for modern conveniences and how quickly they can be jerked away. Kim and I are old-school and always carry cash, and I was glad of that for the few days stores couldn’t accept cards.

I kind of rolled through it. I kind of figured you just suck it up and take it. Where our house is, there’s a pretty steep slope above us, but it pitches to one side so water goes down to a creek. There are plenty of trees and shrubs on the slope to help. Two people had landslides in our neighborhood, where the steep slopes had no vegetation and the road gave way above it. One of our friends had a catastrophic landslide on her property that knocked her house off its foundation. The Sherriff’s Department came out to inspect it and gave her five minutes to go in and gather her stuff. Insurance denied her claim, saying it was due to flooding, but she’s nowhere near a body of water. No one ever would’ve thought she’d need flood insurance. She was about to put it on the market and the proceeds would’ve been her retirement, but now it’ll likely be condemned.

That’s all minor compared to what I’ve seen in Asheville, Swannanoa, Burnsville and other places. A few of the garden suppliers and service companies we work with were wiped out. We easily could’ve gotten wiped out here if the storm had jogged 40 miles this way. It would’ve flattened this garden.

 

Executive Director Kelly Holdbrooks was at home with her family in Brevard during Hurricane Helene’s pass through Western North Carolina.

After a mostly sleepless night listening to the wind and the rain, we emerged Friday morning to an eerie feeling outside. Our two dogs and cat would not even venture out. From my back deck, I could see the French Broad River and how it had swelled up. Then it just became a process of assessment. We went neighbor to neighbor, knocking on doors and asking if they were OK. We drove around to check on friends and family. We went over to Sugarloaf, where we like to walk the dogs, and the land was under several feet of water all the way up to the apartments. One of my neighbors had a generator. He stopped what he was doing, put fuel in it, wheeled it down to our house, and showed me how to use it. It became a serious process of resource management, sharing groceries and gas, every day going on and on with no power and no way to communicate. I felt an immense amount of pressure as head of the family and tried to keep it together even though I knew things were really bad because of my education in landscape architecture.

I had a clipboard with paper and a Sharpie on my front porch to communicate with people when we left the house, and when people stopped by, they left messages. Until we got cell service, I didn’t know what was going on with friends in Asheville, my beloved community before I moved to Brevard. Soon we heard there would be a Starlink satellite internet station set up on Sunday at 185 King St., and people could use it to contact loved ones. For many, it was the first time in since Thursday to have any means of communication with family and friends. Those days of the unknown were so difficult, and the emotion we saw as people reconnected — it’s hard to describe what it felt like on an emotional level to see that vulnerability in humanity.