Last Friday, a little before dawn, when the hurricane Helene fell on the mountains, the water rose “up there, up to the mailbox,” points out Shelby Holzhauser from the steps of her small white house, installed above the river.
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For several days, it was by walking through the rubble, on the other side of the bridge and this river which swept away everything in its path, that she went to fetch water and food with a backpack. “There is no water, no electricity,” she said Thursday, with her son Carter, 4, clinging to her legs.
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Before his eyes, on this bridge in the town of Swannanoa and like everywhere in the mountains of North Carolina (southeast), dozens of workers work to repair the broken roads, the burst pipes and the electrical lines torn by the hurricane, which left death and devastation in its wake.
“We are high up, we thought we were going to be safe, but (the water) came so close that I took my son, we left the house, I was afraid we would get stuck,” says this kindergarten teacher, aged 23.
In total, at least 201 people were killed by Hurricane Helen, from Florida south to these North Carolina mountains, including 61 in the county including Swannanoa and the neighboring city of Asheville, flown over Wednesday by the US president , Joe Biden.
Helene is thus the second deadliest hurricane to hit the United States in more than half a century, after Katrina in 2005. Scientists have linked its intensity to the warming of the seas caused by climate change.
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If on Thursday morning, almost a week after these devastating floods, the weather was beautiful and the carcasses and debris of all kinds were cleared from the main roads, life is far from returning to normal.
To flush the toilet, Shelby has to go fill a large bucket at the river. As she speaks, her husband plugs in the generator provided by his employer, allowing them to cook. A little further on, a few men run a stand with basic necessities under the roof of a disused gas station.
“Everyone helps each other, sticks together,” says Shelby proudly, dressed in a little red t-shirt and leather boots.
“Great” help
Usually, “work, work, work, that’s all you can do to survive, work to have money and pay your bills,” says the woman who has always lived in this region in the south of the Massif des Appalachia. “But since the disaster, I have become closer to my neighbors. They came down to check on us, make sure we had what we needed.”
In the parking lot of a closed fast-food restaurant, veterinarians offer free emergency care for pets. Audrey Pace, veterinary clinic technician, came to lend a hand.
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“It’s very difficult at the moment,” she notes. In all this destruction, “pets are an unconditional support for people,” she says, just before going to greet a car that arrives with a dog in the passenger seat.
In the field next door, helicopters land in succession with a deafening noise.
A little further away, an area with mobile homes serving as dwellings, typical of poor rural areas in the United States, was completely swept away, homes displaced, their windows smashed. From one comes out through the torn partition a red Christmas garland and a child’s clothing with the “Star-Wars” logo. There is no one left.
President Biden sent a thousand additional troops to help rebuild, after being criticized by Donald Trump for a supposed delay in federal aid.
In Swannanoa, the help “was great,” says Shelby Holzhauser without hesitation. 20 meters from his house, new water pipes are being installed, while a backhoe loader reinforces a broken road.
The teacher, looking at this army of technicians, has no illusions: “It will take a while before we recover.”
