ASHEVILLE, N.C.—The vehicle sat by itself on a dried mud plain. Its shape was definitely car-like, in a smashed-up, crumpled way.
It used to be blue, maybe, but its color was now faded and augmented by scrapes, dirt, as well as an uncountable number of twigs and grasses.
While no longer a prime model for photography, its positioning made for a good news image. Another way to illustrate the damage done to property and minds by Hurricane Helene in the Asheville area of North Carolina.
Whatever the make and model, the car belonged to Michael and Brhianna Stapleton, who live in Old Fort.
The young couple, who were visiting their former mode of transportation on Oct. 4, told The Epoch Times it was their way to escape the rising waters of the nearby Catawba River.
Michael said they were home on the day of the catastrophic inundation.
“We were like, hey, we were not allowed to go to work today. Should we get some coffee?”
“We fed the baby [Poppy], and started noticing puddles. We got a flash flood warning saying, ‘Don’t drive anywhere,’ and by that time, we started seeing the [Catawba] river, through one window, starting to come up across the street from us.
“It was coming up very quickly.”
The couple said they had parked the vehicle at the school across the street the night before, although they thought that was “over the top.”
“I think we went from a ‘We are not going to be going to work mentality,’” to having to get out of the house and to safety in 40 minutes, Michael said.
“By the time we walked through our front door, off the front porch, Brhi [who had Poppy strapped to her] was probably hip high in water. Luckily, it wasn’t dark; it was in the morning—9.20 a.m. or so.
“I made three trips to the car. One with the baby and Brhi, then I went back for the pets—a dog and a cat—then we went back for our bag that we packed.”
Brhianna said: “Passports and social security cards, baby stuff. So we get to the car, and that was plan B.”
“Our house was quickly being surrounded, and we said, ‘All right, we need a Plan C,’” Michael added. That idea was a nearby school bus, which could have worked had it not been swept away.
But, by the time they got to their car, the street—one of only two out of the neighborhood—“was totally whitewater.”
“Once we were in the car, I checked the other street, and water was essentially surrounding us. It was coming up,” Michael said.
“So we were in the car for something like 10 minutes, and we were looking around, and the high ground was at the elementary school in Old Fort.
“We were like, OK, that’s our safe spot.”
And then they had the thought they might have to break into the elementary school.
Michael said: “Even at that point, we were thinking, are we breaking the law? Are we going to get into trouble for this?”
Crossing over to the closed school, he was banging on windows and trying to open doors.
In the emergency, Michael switched gears. “I picked up a piece of debris and was on my backswing to break in when I saw that someone was actually in the school.
“They saw us and ... quickly opened the door.”
He hurried back to the car for Brhianna and Poppy. At that point, the water was ankle-high.
“I went back for the pets, and by the time I got to the car and the school, it was about waist high,” Michael said.
It was also seeping into the first floor of their hoped-for refuge.
“We got up to the second [floor] and, honestly, I would say that was probably the safest place.
“It was a good plan ... a solid plan.”
From their sanctuary, the Stapletons looked at what was going on outside.
“About 40 minutes after getting out of the car, we saw the river swallow it. It wound up two miles down the river.” That was under the bridge at I40.
“Our other car was another half mile down,” and then it, too, went under.
Baby Poppy is with her grandparents now, and the pets are safe—but everything else is lost.
“We owned our own house, and ... it’s gone. Well, it will be,” Brhianna said.
“The water was six feet through the house ... the waterline is eye level. There is no insurance. You can’t get flood insurance in this area.”
They said more than 200 people nearby were affected by that.
“We moved in two years ago. We had remodeled. Poppy was going to go to the elementary school ...”
While their world has been thrown upside down, Michael and Brhianna remain grateful.
“We are all alive,” Brhianna said.
And they have a lot of support.
“We are really thankful to our neighbors for opening that [school] door,” Michael added.
