Asheville residents, like Ixeah Caddick (seen above), and volunteers from around the country are working together to rebuild in the western NC region.
It’s been more than a few weeks since Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina. In the most unexpected of circumstances, what is typically a weather hazard beginning over one of our planet’s expanses of ocean water and largely impacting coastal regions, instead took a path through the Piedmont and Appalachia. While significant damage was sustained in states like Tennessee, Georgia and Virginia, North Carolina’s western region is where most of the storm’s fury was felt.
With the combination of significant rainfall that saturated the ground before the initial storm combined with the cresting of dams in several NC counties and winds up to 106 mph, landslides occurred, long-standing trees fell, and flooding waters engulfed multiple towns & travel thoroughfares. These devastating causes and effects led to fatalities and whole stretches of towns being washed away. Millions lost power, homes and their livelihoods.
The LGBTQ+ community, thriving in Asheville and other towns in the North Carolina mountain regions, was not spared the effects of the storm.
One such haven in the region, The Odd in West Asheville, was able to survive much of the damage that occurred in other portions of the city. As posted on the establishment’s Instagram page October 2, just a few days after the storm, the venue changed temporarily from a space that offers such entertainment as music, drag and burlesque to a hub where those in need could gather essentials.
“We opened our doors and gave out all the food we had in house for the first two days.” The Odd said in their post. “We may open our doors since we just regained power and offer our space to everyone and anyone in need as a place to come, charge your items and reconnect with friends. We will continue holding space for you all and do the best we can. We do not know what the future holds, but seeing the community come together and be with each other has given us the energy we need to keep going.”
In the days since the storm, The venue had become a place where one might find a bit of levity in an otherwise dire situation. Those that know how to get there are able to pick up supplies such as blankets, jackets and food as fall temperatures start to dip all around the region. As of October 11, patrons were invited to come by and check out live music from The Deviled Eggs band. While recovery efforts are constant and change by the day, The Odd is doing its best to be a place of hope and help, as well as an oasis to those needing to blow off a bit of steam, even in the worst of times.
While The Odd is up and running, even at partial capacity, it may be a while before some of the talent that called it home can return to a semi-normal status in the region.
Two of The Odd’s frequent members, as well as locals in the community, Kasper Caron and Mo Corthell, are unfortunate examples of much lost because of the storm. Caron, better known as the drag king Rob Scene was, prior to the storm, a consistent performer all over North Carolina. Whether traveling to Charlotte, Winston-Salem or the greater Triad area, Caron, along with Corthell and close collaborator Ixeah Caddick toured as the alternative drag presentation Decoupage, acclaimed for their creative visual stagecraft.
Caddick still continues to reside in the area and participates in community care at locations such as Ebb & Flow, a massage therapy center nearby that has been offering meals and distributing materials to those in need.
Caron and Corthell are examples of lives so disrupted they made the decision to leave Asheville.
[“We] were in our apartment during the storm,” Corthell told Qnotes. “The morning after the storm I decided to go out and see the aftermath, and literally the entire area around our complex was either underwater, covered in fallen trees and debris or washed away. We were very lucky that our complex only had fallen trees and no flood damage.
“We evacuated three days after the hurricane,” Corthell recalled. “We came up to PA on September 30, and we’ve been up here since.”
While the pair are set to return in order to pack up and try to make things work, much of how they previously made ends meet is still in disarray.
Elsewhere in the region, Charlotte resident Scott Lindsley, owner of Janus Real Estate and the non-profit Good Company, has been hauling goods from Charlotte to the western North Carolina region on a consistent basis.
Good Company is described as a way “to work on community events, including [providing] food & music from Charlotte’s diverse communities” (as stated on the 501-C3’s newly established Facebook Page). The hurricane has been more than enough reason for Lindsley to shift the same support he and his staff give to the Queen City over to North Carolina’s Mountain communities.“[With] our business, we have access to buy stuff wholesale. So, we started taking food and water up there a couple days afterwards,” Lindsley explained. “Then, near our community, we found [a] restaurant that we go to frequently was serving free food, and a shelter that was also providing a food pantry. So we supplied those folks, along with others, for about the first 10 days, until regular supplies started getting to them from FEMA and other bigger resources.”
Lindsley said that he and his partner Joey Hewell were also affected by the hurricane.
In what can be seen as a very close shave, Lindsley and Hewell were already on the road out of Asheville by the time the real damage started to take place. Knowing it was projected to be a big storm, the two made the decision to return to their Charlotte home. After the hurricane had passed, the two checked on their property and community in Asheville to find a good bit had changed.
“Our actual home, fortunately, wasn’t damaged, but the well and septic system on the property were washed out and not functional. Electricity was down throughout the community we live in, accessed by a mile-long gravel road that had basically disappeared,” Lindsley explained. “The stream that it ran beside changed course and became the road, we lost part of [the] porch on our home, and had trees on a couple of buildings, but the primary damage we had was the driveway and road into the community.
“You can four-wheel drive into it now. It was not passable at all, and you had to hike in immediately afterwards. Some folks in our community, as well as a couple of volunteer groups with big equipment came in and worked on the road. We were fortunate that we left and it was a good thing we were in Charlotte rather than there.
Brandon and Davie Davis, owners of the bar DayTrip have been using their space to gather supplies for those in need. The couple are also in mourning. Just a month after opening, flood waters swept through the establishment, severely damaging the structure and the interior.
On August 23, the couple opened DayTrip at 219 Amboy Road. Both owners are veteran bartenders in the area. Davie is a native of Asheville and Brandon arrived on the scene after meeting his future husband at the restaurant he worked for at the time, Rosetta’s Kitchen.
Flash forward to September 26, when the torrential rains from Hurricane Helene crested the French Broad River and resulted in massive flooding. Chronicled in a Reel video on DayTrip’s social media, Brandon Davis is seen walking around in water up to his ankles, exploring what had already transpired. The next updates, from September 28 and 29, showed the bar and its buildings being slowly engulfed, with the latter photo taken from above, capturing the back roofs floating away from where Day Trip sits on Amboy.
While the situation is grim, at least this horror story has a good ending. The couple had been working through the damage, while a friend, Meredith Sims, created a GoFundMe account for Day Trip. As of the most recent count on the website, the goal had been met, with a grand current total of $198,922 raised in order for the couple to start again at begin repair and reopen in the near future.
Brian and Davie shared their thanks in a post dated October 6 on the GoFundMe account and confirmed they would be there for the immediate community and everyone that had lost so much because of Hurricane Helene.
“As for support for the community, what we need is for people to keep spreading the word of the areas decimated by Hurricane Helene. It is not getting the coverage it needs,” Brandon said.
“[The] search and rescue is still on going,” he continued. Cadaver dogs are still sniffing out the unimaginable. People have instantly lost so much. Please do not stop sharing, reposting and spreading the word on this event. We need more people to know. The loss is massive and truly a nightmare. Any help you can offer victims of this storm is still so needed. Ask fire department and churches in North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia what you can do to help. We need not only people on the ground, but more media coverage of these communities.”
From where the community was after the hurricane touched down and left a path of destruction, to where groups and establishments such as Good Company, The Odd, Ebb & Flow and Day Trip have stepped up, the changes have been slow, yet consistent.
For the foreseeable future, this is the state of how Western North Carolina will recover, thanks to those who live there and others from outside the area who have come to the region to help and support the community. While it is difficult to predict when things will completely return to a semi-normal state, with people like Lindsley, Hewell and Caddick at the forefront, there is hope.