BURNSVILLE, N.C.—Nestled in the mountains of Yancey County in western North Carolina, Burnsville looks like a town that might feature in a Norman Rockwell painting or a Hallmark Christmas movie.
Even before Thanksgiving, the town square was decorated for Christmas. Antique shops, cafes, and coffee houses dot Main Street, bustling with activity. On the surface, it appears to be a typical holiday season, but all is not as it seems. Two months after Hurricane Helene struck the region, Burnsville and Yancey County are still on a long path to recovery.
Crystal Capps, a real estate agent whose family has lived in Yancey County for several generations, said immediate and long-term assistance is essential for ensuring locals’ safety and enabling them to remain in the region.
“There is a sense of urgency. Winter weather is here. People are tough in these mountains, but it’s cold—too cold for people to be sleeping in tents and in their cars,” she told The Epoch Times. “I saw houses floating down the river when Helene hit. I’ll never forget that. For those who survived but are displaced, they need help.”
Capps is one of several Burnsville natives, including many friends from Mountain Heritage High School, who serve on the board of the Appalachian Disaster Coalition.
“We have a lot of work to do, but we have hope, and we are doing all we can to give hope to people who are struggling,” she said.
Bradley Honeycutt was born and raised in Yancey County. His parents live on a 48-acre mountainside property and have cattle and horses.
Honeycutt helped start the Appalachian Disaster Coalition just days after the storm. He was born and raised here and graduated in 2006 from Mountain Heritage High School.
Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 hurricane. It left a swath of destruction throughout the Southeast extending to western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.
Raging floodwaters and landslides from Hurricane Helene reached western North Carolina on Sept. 27, devastating urban and rural communities and severely damaging roads, homes, and power sources.
Just before Helene hit, storms drenched Asheville and surrounding western North Carolina towns when a weather front stalled over the Appalachian Mountains. Some areas received more than a foot of rain, saturating the land before Helene arrived.
Hundreds of roads were blocked or completely washed away, requiring rescue crews to reach victims by mule, by horseback, and on foot. Search and rescue efforts and delivery of supplies were challenging because many residents who live on a mountainside have only one way in and one way out.
Honeycutt heard about what was happening in western North Carolina on the news. He tried to reach his parents all day on Sept. 27.
Finally, a cousin connected a Starlink terminal to a generator, enabling internet access, and contacted him through Facebook Messenger, he told The Epoch Times.
“It’s really bad,” his cousin told him. “We don’t know what the rest of the county looks like, and we have not heard from your mom and dad.”
Honeycutt booked a flight to Charlotte and arrived at his parents’ property on Sept. 28.
“They weren’t there when I got to the house,“ he said. ”I knew they were safe because the generators were running and the lights were on. When they pulled into the driveway, we hugged and talked for around an hour. Then I said, ‘I gotta go and see what I can do.’”
Honeycutt contacted friends who had experience with search and rescue after disasters. They traveled to Yancey County to help.
Friends in Dallas, where he is finishing a degree in architecture and design with the intent to return to Burnsville and open a business, established social media accounts under the name “Bradley Loves Burnsville.”
The accounts gained followers, and Honeycutt outlined the area’s immediate needs to them.
“We needed propane. We needed gas. Before we knew it, a tanker with 11,000 gallons of gas arrived. Necessities and other items like generators started coming in. It was chaos,” Honeycutt said. “There was no outside communication since cellphones didn’t work. No water. No power. It was dark, and we were on our own.”
The current priority is getting displaced residents into campers and temporary homes, Honeycutt said. The group has partnered with other nonprofits to expand their capabilities. Eventually, they plan to build 30 three-bedroom, two-bath, single-family homes for locals in Yancey County.
The Appalachian Disaster Coalition and other independent groups are important in ensuring that the town isn’t forgotten, according to Honeycutt.
“It’s like a funeral in the south. People bring casseroles and offer their condolences, and then eventually they stop coming and calling and everyone goes on with their lives you’re still grieving about the death. This is similar, only on a different scale,” Honeycutt said. “People here didn’t have a lot to begin with. They don’t have a lot of money, and they work hard for the money they have. A lot of people don’t have the resources to clean up and rebuild and buy another car. Our purpose is to make sure Burnsville isn’t forgotten.”
The Appalachian Disaster Coalition has more than 100 volunteers, some of whom have stayed since late September.
Whitney Dailey is one of those volunteers.
Until Helene, Dailey was a sales and training manager for Ulta. The 45-year-old single mother of adult children has prior disaster response experience and said she felt led by God to travel to western North Carolina.
Originally, she planned to stay for 10 days. She served as a liaison between the multiple independent groups that set up in a Burnsville shopping center parking lot, coordinating the receipt and distribution of supplies.
That’s where she met Honeycutt, who asked her to serve on the newly formed nonprofit’s board.
Dailey slept in a tent on an air mattress for a while. The Appalachian Disaster Coalition arranged for Dailey to stay in a house, allowing her to remain in the area.
“Western North Carolina was not a hurricane-ready area. They didn’t have the resources to react to a disaster like this,” she said. “You can turn onto any side road and see campers and tents, towering piles of debris, and washed-out bridges and roads. It looks like the day after the storm in many places.”
An Arkansas native who moved to the western North Carolina mountains 20 years ago, Tracie Adams is a farmer, horse riding instructor, and small business owner who operated Carolina Goat Yoga and Snuggle Sessions.
Using her social media platforms, which have a vast following, Adams continues to promote disaster response organizations in the region that have volunteer needs and match displaced residents with campers and temporary housing.
Initially, after Helene passed through, she intended to focus on animal rescue. Then she arrived in Burnsville with a load of hay.
“I saw the destruction, and my purpose here turned into something much more,” Adams told The Epoch Times. “I was forever altered early on seeing what people were going through. I’m still impacted by what I see on a daily basis. People are struggling and they need our help.”
She lives near Morganton in Burke County. She travels an hour and a half back and forth each day.
Independent groups are fueling the recovery in western North Carolina and have since the beginning, according to Adams. Part of the Appalachian Disaster Response is helping locals work with FEMA.
“People have a mistrust of the government here. A lot of people don’t even want the government here, but people need help and they need FEMA resources. We are helping them understand how to apply for aid and that it’s OK to get the aid,” she said.
Adams recalled the initial days after Helene’s departure: “We were communicating with whiteboards about people who needed help and addresses to check. We went down in the morning to see the notes on the board so we had an idea of who needed what type of help.”
The front porch of the NuWray Hotel is one place where the whiteboards were stationed.
Situated in the downtown Burnsville town square, the NuWray Hotel has contributed to providing some sense of normalcy.
Husband and wife James and Amanda Keith bought the property in 2021. The NuWray is believed to be the longest continuously operating inn in North Carolina, dating to 1833, according to the National Register of Historic Places.
Celebrities who have stayed there over the years include Elvis Presley, President Jimmy Carter, and authors Mark Twain and Thomas Wolfe.
When Helene hit, the NuWray was fully booked. The Keiths completed extensive renovations to the 22 guest rooms with five additional suites in the Carriage House, which is located behind the inn and also serves as a coffee and wine shop.
“We lost power and water, but we were lucky. There was leaking in the lobby, and they bailed water in the restaurant area, which is under renovation. We had all this food and started serving it to anyone who needed a meal,” Amanda Keith told The Epoch Times.
The NuWray emerged as a hub during the initial weeks after Helene. Hotel staff served sandwiches and meals to guests, search and recovery teams, and residents. They prepared smoked barbeque. Residents and organizations donated food from their freezers.
“We had groups that showed up with 800 pounds of chicken. Nobody wanted their food to go to waste, and people wanted to make sure others were fed,” Amanda Keith said.
Eventually, the NuWray teamed with World Central Kitchen to provide meals.
“This inn has long been a source of pride for the town. It was important to be open, help the community, and show even the slightest sense of normalcy,” she said.
Appalachian Disaster Coalition team members praise Burnsville businesses such as the NuWray for their role in the recovery and for creating an atmosphere where people who are struggling can venture into town for even the slightest feeling of normalcy.
They worry about maintaining the necessary volume of donations and volunteers so that the recovery can continue.
“Winter weather is here, and the pretty leaves are gone,“ Adams said. ”It’s cold, sometimes even frigid, and winters can be harsh here. The work needed here is hard work. We need people who are committed in their hearts to helping everyone in need. We need tradesmen. We need donations and materials to provide temporary housing and permanent housing. We can’t have anyone left out in the cold.”
Dailey agreed. In Florida and even coastal Carolina, communities are prepared for hurricanes but not in the western North Carolina mountains.
“Probably nobody is prepared for an event where you have tornadoes, hurricane damage, mudslides and rockslides, and flooding,” Dailey said.
The Georgia native, who had never set foot in North Carolina until she arrived in Burnsville to volunteer, told The Epoch Times that Yancey County will be home for at least the upcoming months.
“This is a disaster where there is such a great need everywhere you look. All is not OK here,” she said. “There was an influx of help the first 30 days, but people got fatigued from donating and volunteering. Every person matters, especially now when so many people are out in the cold or living in houses that need a lot of repairs. There will be a great need here for months, so I’ll be there for months.”
