As Hurricane Helene brought unprecedented rainfall to the region last week, numerous people had to be rescued in Macon County, much of the county was without cell or internet service for several days and many remain without power.
After making landfall on the gulf coast of Florida, Helene eventually crossed six states leaving behind devastation and more than 100 people dead. Some North Carolina mountain towns and communities were completely submerged. Supplies are being delivered by air to areas where roads remain impassable.
After viewing the area from the air on Monday, Congressman Chuck Edwards said, “From the helicopter, it was even clearer just how much devastation Hurricane Helene has wrought across Western North Carolina and the urgency of getting resources to folks, especially for those in more remote areas which are harder to reach. We discussed the path forward and ways we can optimize congressional resources to support Western North Carolina’s recovery. Our district is facing a long road ahead, but Western North Carolinians are resilient, and I will continue to explore every avenue to bring home the support and resources that are needed in our mountains.”
President Joe Biden was expected to fly over the area on Wednesday as the roads were too damaged to accommodate his motorcade.
Rep. Karl Gillespie representing the 120th House District of Macon, Clay, Cherokee and Graham counties said his office is utilizing all available resources to provide assistance the region.
“We are coordinating closely with local, state, and federal officials, as well as the private sector, to ensure a swift and effective response given the challenging road conditions. Other areas in far western North Carolina have experienced significantly more damage than the 120th House District and we will do all we can to assist our fellow citizens in the aftermath of this unprecedented event,” Gillespie said. “The primary focus for my district is on restoring communications, clearing debris, and addressing water-related concerns. Portable cell towers are being deployed and the delivery of satellite systems are anticipated. Various nonprofits are setting up relief sites throughout the region.”
Helene hits Macon County
On Friday, Sept. 27, following a week of rain, Helene’s floodwaters hit the Cullasaja community the hardest, flooding several houses and campgrounds. Winds, mostly after the rains subsided midday Friday, significantly impacted the Town of Highlands.
According to the National Weather Service, rainfall totals peaked at 14.86 inches in Highlands. Official rainfall gauges from the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) had the area near the Georgia border receiving nearly 10 inches of rain, while another southeast of Franklin had between 9-10 inches. Rainfall amounts are believed to be lesser in the western part of the county. Amounts further east were much higher, with Hendersonville receiving 21.96 inches. The town of Busick in Yancey County received 30.78 inches, the highest total reported in Western North Carolina.
“The majority of Macon County was actually spared a lot of flooding damage,” Macon County Emergency Services Director Warren Cabe said Monday. “The Town of Highlands is still severely impacted by power outages. We do not anticipate any significant improvement for probably at least a week or longer.”
Power was restored to the main business district of Highlands Monday evening. Cabe asked people to avoid traveling to Highlands because of the ongoing utility outages, some of which are expected to last the rest of the week.
Numerous swift water rescues took place in the Cullasaja community, the exact number of which is unknown due to communication outages. As of Monday, there were no known fatalities in that community.
“We’ve not even been able to slow the responders down long enough to get good data from them on how many folks they did rescue,” Cabe said.
A Macon County Sheriff’s Deputy, Jim Lau, was found deceased Saturday after his truck was submerged off Fulton Road on Friday. (See related story.)
Cabe said Tuesday at least four residential structures experienced “severe damage,” but stressed there’s still a lot to uncover. Cabe said the houses yet to be inspected are unoccupied vacation homes in Highlands.
“We’ve had several that have had moderate flood damage and we have multiple ones that we’re just now starting to uncover that have experienced some damage, whether that be roof damage from a fallen tree, electrical service entrance damage, anything similar to that,” Cabe said Monday. “This is the third day our damage assessment teams have been working and they’re still uncovering stuff as we go along.”
Outages and road closures
Duke Energy outages dropped on Tuesday to around 1,500 in Macon County from a peak of around 8,000 on Friday. Haywood EMC, which serves Highlands, Scaly Mountain and part of Otto, had around 1,400 outages on Tuesday, down from 1,500 on Monday. Cabe said some of those with outages won’t be remedied until Friday, Oct. 4.
Highway 106 through Scaly Mountain was closed Thursday due to a washout prior to Helene hitting the area. Cabe said the N.C. Department of Transportation is trying to reopen one lane of Highway 106, but wasn’t sure when that would take place. Highlands Road through the Cullasaja Gorge was closed by law enforcement during the storm, but reopened Sunday. Cabe said due to communication issues, it was hard to tell if smaller local roads, especially in the Highlands area, were passable.
“We’re still going to have issues with trees in the roadways. We’ve got our contract folks, our chainsaw crews are working in the Ellijay community, in the Mountain Grove community today trying to open up some roadways, so there will be hazards that will affect the roadway for a significant period of time,” Cabe said Monday.
Cabe said NCDOT resources have been pulled to areas east of Macon County, where entire roads and bridges were gone. Comparably, Macon County made out much better than many of the mountain areas.
During the torrential rains and the rising water levels, the Town of Franklin experienced two sanitary sewer overflows from manholes. One was at the intersection of Lakeside Drive and East Main Street and the other was at the Wastewater Treatment Plant.
“The total spill amount is estimated at 100,000 gallons,” stated Franklin Town Manager Amie Owens. “Neither of the discharges impacted water lines or drinking water sources.”
Cell, internet service
Exact information about storm damage and people impacted remains hard to come by due to the lack of cellular service in the area. Communication for many Macon County citizens was impossible from midday Friday onward, with some services returning over the weekend.
This was caused by multiple incidents impacting fiber-optic lines across Western North Carolina.
Cabe said Macon County’s 911 system backup connection through South Carolina and Rabun County was also impacted, meaning 911 calls were routed through Guilford Metro 911 in Guilford County, more than 200 miles away, through the weekend.
“Those folks are transferring the information back to our telecommunicators, so we’re still processing 911 voice and text calls, and to our knowledge, we never lost that capability,” Cabe said Monday. “It’s not everywhere, and we’ve been in touch with our technical folks that are working with the fiber connections that supply our center with 911 service, and they don’t know yet when some of those repairs are going to begin because of damage.”
On Tuesday, Cabe said Verizon was back online, as was Frontier. AT&T crews in Highlands were trying to restore service, but with varying success. He also said there has been some fiber optic line restoration, meaning there’s slight network improvements.
Service providers brought multiple temporary cell sites to WNC, including in Franklin and Highlands. The Town of Franklin’s free public WiFi was available. Over the weekend and into the early week, many cars were parked along Main Street as people attempted to contact loved ones.
The lack of communication and destruction seen in the Asheville/Buncombe area had friends and family of Macon County residents frantically trying to reach them and asking for welfare checks. Cabe said if it’s just a communication issue, they can’t tie up first responder resources checking on those and are prioritizing those with medical conditions.
“We just want the public to realize, especially the public out of our area, just because you can’t reach somebody here right now, it’s probably not because there’s a problem with them,” Cabe said.
The Town of Franklin on Monday requested that neighbors check on neighbors to make sure they are safe due to welfare checks being resource intensive.
Welfare requests can be called into 828-349-2064, and those messages will be relayed to the community fire departments.
With the cell service recovering, Cabe stressed patience as the county tries to discover the full scope of what happened.
“Be patient, no kidding, be very patient,” Cabe said. “And honestly, we don’t have some of the answers.”
Cash only
Due to internet outages, many local stores lost their ability to accept credit or debit cards. Across Franklin, signs big and small, scribbled or printed read “Cash Only” to customers.
The Ingles locations in Franklin all had “Cash Only” signs up and were unsure of when normal service would return. The Ingles at Holly Springs was able to accept some cards but as a credit transaction. The same Ingles also had spotty WiFi service at its in-store Starbucks. The Franklin Food Lion resumed accepting cards on Tuesday, although noting it was internet dependent.
With the “cash only” operations at many local businesses and restaurants, some banks were seeing long lines of customers waiting to get cash. With internet service down, ATM machines were not functional.
Customers lined down Main Street Monday as Wells Fargo was limiting the number of customers in the lobby. A bank representative said they were doing things “the old-school way” to ensure their customers had access to their money. After services come back online the transactions will be entered in the computer systems. Another representative said even with the wait line the “customers were very friendly” and understanding of the situation. They said customers had to show proof of account ownership and identification to make withdrawals and they were accepting deposits as well.
Dogwood State Bank (Community First Bank) on Porter Street was operating pretty much as usual Monday afternoon as they had internet service. One of the tellers said there had been a steady business at the ATM throughout the day as people were getting cash.
Greg Proffitt, CEO of Nantahala Bank, said they were also open with regular hours on Monday. “Things are going as smoothly as I guess we could hope,” he said. “We are fully functional today and anticipate that going forward unless we have other issues I’m not aware of.”
Friday was another story though. Proffitt said they had delayed opening until about 10:30 a.m. and then had to close early after they lost connectivity around noon.
On Tuesday, Cabe said the partial restoration of fiber optic lines should help local banks be able to process payments.
Grocery supply
Local Ingles management said Tuesday that due to their supply coming from the Asheville area, they have not received any food supply trucks since the storm and weren’t sure when they would be coming in. A fuel truck arrived for the Ingles gas stations on Tuesday.
Food Lion in Franklin started receiving food supply trucks again on Monday but didn’t know if it would be back on a regular schedule. Management expressed concern about a surge in demand there if there’s a lack of supply at other stores.
WNC closed
Despite Western North Carolina being under a “Do Not Travel” advisory, Cabe said many people from neighboring counties where their normal resources are wiped out are driving into Macon to find fuel and groceries, leading to increased traffic and backups at service stations. The increased demand is drying up local fuel tanks and with many highways leading into Macon County impassable, fuel trucks are having a tough time getting to the area.
“We would encourage folks, just because you’re worried about a fuel shortage, don’t go out and fill your vehicle up,” Cabe said. “Only fill it up when it’s necessary. Give the system time to catch up because there are some supply chain issues.”