Hope shines through the devastation of Helene as North Carolina communities rebuild

The owner of a small business in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, shares her story of heartache and hope in the aftermath of Helene.

Transcript

00:00Nearly a month has passed since the cries from the Appalachian Mountains

00:03were heard around the world as Hurricane Helene brought catastrophic flooding

00:08and damage to the Appalachian Mountains. There's been stories of sorrow, stories

00:13of devastation, but through all of these tragedies brings a lot of hope and

00:19that's exactly what we've been seeing here in Spruce Pine, North Carolina where

00:23one business in particular had their first reopening day yesterday giving the

00:28folks here some sense of normality. Well, we certainly weren't expecting what

00:32happened. I don't think anybody was. Ironically, I moved up here from Florida.

00:39I mentioned something the week before about a storm being down in the Gulf. I

00:42said, I'm so glad I don't have to worry about these storms. We're not living in

00:46Florida and then I went on a little trip to drive up to see my sister in New

00:50Jersey and Thursday night we talked on the phone and Hance said, you know, I'll

00:54call you in the morning, let you know how things are going and I said okay and

00:57that was the last I heard from him. Honestly, the only thing that way that I

01:03knew what was going on here in Spruce Pine was the Let's Talk Spruce Pine

01:08Facebook page because people, I guess there were people who weren't, there were

01:13some people here who could communicate and some people that weren't here and

01:17anyway they were posting pictures of the flood so I knew that like the whole

01:21lower street had been flooded where our business is and we have several really

01:25large trees in front of our house and so I was super worried that one had come

01:29down on the house when I couldn't get in touch with Hance and I managed to get

01:33back two days later. Absolutely bizarre driving back in and dodging power lines

01:40and trees and big huge chunks of road gone that you had to drive around the

01:45edge of and just the riverway looking at how different everything looked and

01:51how destroyed everything was. It was crazy. We were without power for I think

01:56almost 30 days at home and a little less than that here and ironically we have

02:02only been open two and a half months before this happened so it's kind of a

02:07unique little shop where you can come and get a beer or a glass of wine or a

02:11mixed drink and look at hats and buy hats and talk about hats. Yeah, three

02:18weeks without income, without electricity, without knowing you know what and we're

02:23still sort of on pins and needles it's like is anybody gonna come you know and

02:28and buy anything or are we gonna be okay but it's all gonna be great I think we

02:33have such a good community and everybody's been pulling together and

02:36we're just excited to be able to have some of our regulars come back in and

02:42give them hugs and see and talk about everything and share our stories. Now

02:46this beautiful little mining town might not look like what it once did but the

02:51memories and the scars will be there but the community will come closer together

02:55and be bonded through this sense of tragedy for the rest of their lives. For

03:00AccuWeather, I'm Aaron Rigsby.