BOONE, N.C. — Being out of town when a hurricane hits is both a blessing and a curse. Knowing your neighbor's house was hit by a landslide and not knowing if your home is still there, is a horrible feeling. Returning home only to find it damaged with mold on everything inside is even worse.
Our first floor was full of water, fences knocked down, sink holes opened in the yard, and there was mud so thick it was impossible to open a door. The damage just keeps going, and yet we feel blessed that this was all we had compared to our neighbors. Some homes and lives are lost forever. The spirit of this community brought down low.
As we drove around, we didn't recognize the place we loved. Roads destroyed, homes gone, trees where they didn't belong. The damage was unimaginable.
Our family moved to a hotel in Boone, North Carolina, since half our home needed to be torn down for repairs. This is when we felt the community wrap their arms around us. "Mountain strong" was something we always heard, but until that day I never imagined just how strong that really was.
People showed up with food, water, and one family even let us borrow a generator to pump water out of the basement. Neighbors came together in a way we have never seen. People helped us dig mud from our back door, tore up flooring and sheetrock, carried furniture to the road, cut up trees, filled in sink holes and helped us put our lives back together. People kept coming. No matter the day, no matter the hour, people showed up for us in a way we could never repay.
It's true when they say "it takes a village," because we could have never done this alone. Looking back at the past month is a blur, our lives forever changed from that storm. In a way, it gave us so much more family. Our church, St. Bernadette in Linville, bringing food and diapers right to our door, and my work Spectrum News 1 embracing my family and I through it all.
The mountain counties are not healed yet. We are trying to find some normalcy in this devastating time but we have a long way to go. Our lives will never look the same and the place we love has geographically changed forever. But we are western North Carolina and together we will make it through.