BUNCOMBE COUNTY, N.C. — A church in Buncombe County is mourning the loss of a couple who died in the aftermath of Helene, while also helping others suffering in the community.
Randy Gregg, pastor of Victory Baptist Church in Black Mountain, has stayed busy in the month since Helene devastated the mountains, despite his own loss.
It’s personal for the pastor and his nephew. The couple, James and Judy Dockery, were members of their own family.
Mourning and motivation
Their deaths were among at least 42 confirmed deaths in Buncombe County, according to local officials, and at least 96 deaths in the state, according to the State Department of Health and Human Services.
“We just turned this into this! A big warehouse,” he said, describing the food and other supplies covering tables in the church’s fellowship hall.
Church members have collected and distributed supplies and prepared meals for people in the community. They’ve even taken supplies to other hard-hit areas, such as Yancey County.
‘We’re doing it all. Trying to,” Gregg said. “Some of the hard to get to places. They’re not getting a lot and when they do, it just goes.”
Every action he takes for others is fueled by thoughts of sister Judy Dockery.
“If she was here now, she’d be here, all in this. She loved people,” Gregg said.
Judy and her husband James Dockery were killed when a landslide destroyed their home in Swannanoa’s Grovemont community during Helene’s passage through the mountains.
“We figure she was pretty much killed instantly,” Gregg said.
Their deaths came just a couple of weeks before their 44th wedding anniversary.
“For them to go together, it was a Godsend. That’s how much they loved each other,” he said.
Many at the church knew them by “Aunt Judy” and “Uncle James.” Their loss hit the congregation hard.
“Sunday morning, I got to have my moment of grief with my church. I just kind of broke down, because we haven’t got to,” Gregg said.
James Dockery was also a preacher at the church. He gave his last message just weeks before he died.
“The last message he preached in the church was, ‘You better get ready,’” Gregg said.
The church now seems ready for a renewed mission.
“Been a lot of people told me, said, ‘This has changed me.’ I know it has me. I now see what the church is. It’s not just a meeting place, it’s the people who give from the heart,” Gregg said.
The pastor is motivated by his grief.
“I think that helps me stay where I need to be, because I know that’s where she would be. That’s what she would be doing. That’s what she’d want me to do. She sure wouldn’t want me siting somewhere - she’d say, ‘Get up from there,’” Gregg said.
Gregg added he’s doing just that — getting up, moving himself and supplies to help others in need.
“We’ve made up our mind. All these folks that have been so generous to us. Now, when disaster hits somewhere else, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to load up trucks and trailers and we’re going to go,” Gregg said.
Couple leaves behind one son
Now that Bruce Dockery’s parents have passed away, Gregg’s nephew and fellow church member is left without any immediate family. He was James and Judy Dockery’s only child.
“As long as I can go into pure logic and I can talk about things and go into logic mode, I’m alright. It’s when I get into the other side that things get a little rough,” Bruce Dockery said.
Looking at the site where Dockery grew up and where his parents lived and died is hard to take in, though.
Their mobile home sat partway up a hill in Swannanoa’s Grovemont community. Bruce Dockery mentioned that their home was established there in 1984, and the family has had a mobile home on the site since 1966.
He found their home in pieces spread across the hill and on a couple of roads. The force of the landslide also pushed another house into another home.
Bruce Dockery mentioned the feeling of seeing the remnants of James and Judy’s home in the days after was difficult.
“I’ll admit, when I saw their headboard and their mattress, I just had to hit my knees and cry,” Bruce Dockery said.
Son describes agonizing moments trying to get to his parents
Seeing the destruction is emotionally difficult, but Bruce added the physical difficulty of getting to the family’s home in the hours immediately after the storm — and the unknown — was agonizing.
During that time, cellphone communication was severely impacted.
“Phone systems were just down and my phone started blowing up,” Bruce Dockery said. “My uncle from South Carolina called me and told me about my dad. Said they’d found my dad and the house place was gone.”
He was able to leave work in Ridgecrest near Black Mountain, but struggled to get to the family home in Swannanoa, which normally would take about 10 minutes or so.
“I said I gotta go, and they said you do what you gotta do, and I couldn’t get back to Swannanoa,” he said. “All we knew is that my dad hadn’t made it and we couldn’t find my mom. There were literally entire trailer parks sitting in the road.”
He said he finally managed to get on the interstate, but then continued to struggle with other roads.
“There was absolutely no way to get in,” Dockery said. “Every back road had a small bridge, and every bridge was destroyed.”
“I finally parked at one of the destroyed gas stations and I climbed a tree and went across one of the wrecked bridges and was walking through the woods when I heard that my mom hadn’t made it either,” he said.
In that moment, he said he sat on a log and cried and prayed.
Neighbors help piece together what happened
Over time, Dockery has learned details about what happened to his parents and how others helped.
Jesse Bryant, a Dockery family friend and neighbor, found James Dockery and pulled him from the debris.
“I spent every last second with James. We did try. We really tried,” Bryant told Dockery as they reconnected at the landslide a little more than a week after the storm.
“All of this was so rubbled up, there was no way in or out either way aside from just carry him. We found a piece of board up here and we put him on that and four other guys. We put him on our back and we carried him out of here. That was a very long hike. A very long hike,” Bryant said.
Dockery said Bryant and the others were able to get his father to the women’s prison, which is about two miles away.
“He held all the way in, until about the end of the road,” Bryant said. “I feel like I got a good solid ‘yes’ that Judy was out here and that’s about all we could get out of him. And so, then that’s why I didn’t give up looking for Judy. I knew she was out here somewhere.”
He found Judy Dockery hours later and stayed with her until help arrived.
The Dockerys died just approximately two weeks shy of their 44th wedding anniversary.
“I don’t believe that Judy felt a thing. I think that impact .. just… and they went on to Heaven together. And they’re together. They didn’t have to spend a day on this crazy earth without each other,” Bryant said.
Bruce Dockery and his parents shared a deep faith, which has helped him in the days and weeks since the storm.
“I think I would’ve went mad if it wasn’t for knowing God’s promise and just feeling the peace because my parents lived their faith,” he said. “I know where they’re at. I know my parents are safe. I’ve been joking, they’re sitting there eating fried chicken with Saint Peter.”
Now, as the small creek that swelled into a destructive force of nature just trickles through the family’s homeplace, Dockery is left with just memories and the few items he, and even strangers, are finding.
One woman found a photo of a Dockery family relative and gave it to Bruce Dockery. Another man he met near the home found his father’s guitar. He also found a chalk drawing his parents had showing a cross and a road leading toward the sky.
“Totally unhurt. Through all this rain and water. ‘Road to Heaven.’ I mean, it’s got a little damage, but to be in the mud, and the rain and the flood, and it’s a chalk drawing,” he said.
It’s a tangible sign of his parents’ faith and journey.
“From now on, it’s just a new beginning,” he said.
Dockery said he’s planning a December funeral around his father’s birthday.