Hurricane knocks down trees, damages roads, knocks out power
The Town of Highlands is working to get back in working order after Hurricane Helene swept across the area, causing power outages and destruction of varying kinds across Western North Carolina last week.
By Tuesday, power had mostly been restored in the main business district of Highlands, though many businesses were still closed. Traffic lights were all down as of Monday, but by Tuesday morning had been turned back on.
Efforts to clear the roads coming up and down the mountain was ongoing, and by Monday cars were able to travel safely on the main roads without threat of fallen branches or flooding. On Tuesday there were large trucks full of branches and debris carrying them off the roads in an attempt to return everything to working order.
The Town of Highlands Fire & Rescue posted a message that they were making “great progress” as of Monday night, and praised crews for “working very long and hard hours” on getting things back to normal.
Mayor Patrick Taylor said the town was coordinating efforts to reach residents in outlying neighborhoods who were still without electric and internet service as of Tuesday.
“Our problem is in the outlying neighborhoods where multiple power poles are snapped and down. It takes a long time, even a day, to erect and setup one pole. We have crews from Connecticut arriving tomorrow to help set up the electrical grid,” Taylor said.
According to Sarah Holbrooks, principal at Highlands School, Highlands School was scheduled to be closed to students both Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 2. No decision was made as of press time regarding the statu of the school beyond Oct. 2.
Police Chief Andrea Holland said she and three other Highlands police officers had buckled down last Thursday and Friday in town to prepare to respond to emergencies when the storm hit on Friday.
“A lady loaned us her home for the night,” Holland said.
She said things had been mostly stable over the weekend, with flooding washing out roads and “trees hanging” in the road.
“We’ve been doing a lot of welfare checks,” she said. “We’re trying to assist the county in checks outside the city, but in close proximity. For the most part, we’re faring pretty well.”
A safe haven
On Monday, Sept. 30 with power and internet still out all across the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau, crowds of people huddled in the rain around Highlands town hall and the fire station and inside the Rec Center, trying to get WiFi to keep in touch with loved ones and stay up to date on things.
“We were cut off from the outside world,” resident Chelsea Moses said at the Rec Center Monday afternoon as she lounged on the gymnasium bleachers checking her phone. “We had no power, no internet.”
Moses and her family tried to leave town to find a hotel in nearby Andrews to ride out the disorder with power and hot water, but no luck:
“Everything was completely booked,” she said, likely by others also fleeing the worst of the storm.
Moses said she’d heard from friends in Asheville who’d suffered more severe damage from the storm.
“They lost everything, it floated away in the flooding,” she said.
The rec center served as a de facto community center for a wide net of basic needs and services. It stayed open 24/7 all weekend while basic services were down, and let people take showers if needed while offering free coffee and WiFi.
“This place is non-stop, it’s awesome,” said local resident and rec center employee Sabrina Cashion. She called it a “safe haven” for people in town over the long, stormy weekend.
On Monday afternoon, there were people all over the rec center sitting in chairs on the gym floor or by the big windows near the sliding front doors. People approached the front desk to ask where to go to take a shower. Others talked among themselves about the state of other towns in the path of the storm, asking questions and sharing tips on how to keep safe while traveling in western North Carolina. Some families played basketball and volleyball and others just sat down to get out of the blustery weather outside that was still ongoing.
Recreation Director Lester Norris said on Tuesday that the rec center would be back at its normal hours later in the week, operating between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. daily, as power was coming back on and services were returning to normal.
Cashion just shrugged when asked how they’d fared through the storm and what she thought would happen next.
“We’re locals,” she said. “We just go with the flow. We just bounce along. Everything is fine. We just bounce back, we take care of each other.”
Cashiers continues cleanup
In Cashiers the story was much the same as it was in Highlands during the storm, with many trees coming down and knocking out power across Southern Jackson County.
As electric crews worked throughout the days Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to get power restored to the crossroads area and then outward from there, several organizations stepped up to help those in need after the storm.
“Overall, we have been very blessed given the circumstances,” Cashiers Fire Chief Randy Dillard said. “We have a command center set up at the firehouse and every organization in Jackson County, and many from outside our area, have been here to help. We have additional police officers from Winston-Salem, additional firefighters from down east, and electric crews from all over the country. Locally, our county emergency management staff helped us set up a command center right before the storm and we have been able to run every single call we’ve received.”
Dillard also thanked the staff at the Glenville-Cashiers Rescue Squad for their help and hard work during and after Helene.
“The EMS folks have been amazing… We basically split our district in half with them, they took the north side of Blue Ridge and we took the south,” Dillard said. “We’ve run over 100 calls since Friday and I’m sure they’ve run that many or close to it.”
A military helicopter dropped off pallets worth of supplies on Monday and Dillard noted that the network of local people and organizations working to help their neighbors has been remarkable.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve never been in a situation where a big chinook helicopter landed in our parking lot with MRE’s, water, and other supplies,” Dillard said. “Our local Ingles has been supplying our staff and all out help with food and we’ve had some local ladies here at the firehouse cooking for us for four, going on five, days now.”
A dam failure in Sapphire led to a partial washout of US64. The road was closed Friday through Sunday, and eventually reopened one lane on Monday afternoon. Fortunately, the storm didn’t cause any more widespread damage to homes or businesses.
“We haven’t reported any deaths or even any serious injuries as a result of the storm,” Dillard said. “We have had some homes damaged by fallen trees, and of course numerous power lines down due to trees falling, but overall we have gotten by okay. I don’t think there is another county in North Carolina that has done a better job than Jackson County, and our emergency management folks, all things considered.”
Cashiers Baptist Church was set up as an aid station on Monday, offering residents who still do not have electricity a place to charge their devices, take showers, and get a hot meal. The Jackson County Rec Center in Cullowhee and the Cashiers Rec Center on Frank Allen Road were also open as of Monday morning to allow residents to take shelter if needed in a place with electricity and showers available.