LAKE LURE, N.C. — When you first enter Lake Lure, things seem relatively normal, but Patrick Bryant, who calls this town home, says looks can be deceiving.
“People come in like, oh, there's a little bit of mud going, a little bit of this and that, but you don't get to see the full gravity of it till you get to downtown center,” Bryant said.
What You Need To Know
Lake Lure was hit by Helene on Sept. 27
The town lowered the lake by 3 feet before the storm hit in preparation, but they still had unprecedented flooding
Patrick Bryant says it's the worst flooding he's seen in the area
The town continues to rebuild and clear piles of debris after the storm
Bryant has lived in Lake Lure since 2007.
“I was going to wait tables for a summer when I moved up here,” Bryant said.
Now, he’s a town commissioner. Over the past 17 years, he’s been involved in almost everything with the town, good and bad.
“The Party Rock Fire in 2016 definitely tested my fortitude to rally around your community when I was in charge of catering for two weeks for that, in conjunction with Ingles markets,” Bryant said. “Breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's a lot. But this was a totally different ballgame.”
Before Helene rolled in, Bryant says the town did what it could to prepare.
“We lowered the lake,” Bryant said. “Friday morning, I got up at 7:30 and I knew the town manager had been at the town hall the night before. So I just left a note for my partner. I said, ‘Hey, I'm going to town hall, I don't have access. I'll see you at 10:00 and then we'll see what's happening.’ Like, just another big weather event. No big deal.”
But in a matter of minutes, Bryant says this became a nightmare.
“From 8:55 to 9:20, that's when everything changed,” Bryant said. “It felt like a matter of eight minutes. It went from the rivers really raging to Morse Park was flooded. Get your cars and run as fast as possible from the water from the river.”
A surge of water, mixed with debris from Chimney Rock Village, roared down the river and into Lake Lure. Picking up even more debris and trees along the way.
“It was absolutely one of the most frightening moments of my life,” Bryant said.
Bryant says he found a safe spot to wait out the storm, but the aftermath was unlike anything he has ever seen.
“I was crawling across the debris field on Friday afternoon at like 2:00, and it was about 30 feet high and at least 100 feet deep on the main bridge,” Bryant recalled. “I had to get home to my family.”
Since the storm, Bryant has been out nearly every day meeting with neighbors and business owners to see how they are holding up and to find out what they might need.
But even with all the progress they have made, Bryant says the destruction from the storm is hard to fully comprehend. From Chimney Rock Village to the damage to historic sites around the town of Lake Lure, including the famous Flowering Bridge, it's a sight that's not only difficult for visitors to see, but for Bryant it was heartbreaking.
“This is my first time seeing it from right here,” Bryant said. “This is a tough one, honestly.”
But through all of this, Bryant says he knows that mountain people are strong.
“There's a strong sense of resilience, of this self-starter mentality,” Bryant said.
And just like those who planned the greatness of Lake Lure after World War I, Bryant is confident the town of Lake Lure and the Village of Chimney Rock will rebuild.
“That's what this town was built on. I mean, this is a fully planned, structured town from the 20s, just prior to the Great Depression,” Bryant said. “This was the ingenuity of invention, for folks who wanted to create a beautiful life here and enjoy all this. The cathedral of the mountains.”
And he believes it will be better than ever before.
“So we don our hard hats and the strength to the spirit and make it happen,” Bryant said. “That's our end goal.”
While the Town of Lake Lure and the Village of Chimney Rock continue to rebuild, the Tryon Equestrian Center has opened it’s doors to the artisans and business owners of the area to offer a space they are calling "Western N.C. Main Street." The hope is for business owners to continue to sell their goods as they rebuild.