In North Carolina, reconstruction begins after the devastation caused by 'Helene'

Photo: Mario Tama Getty Images via Agence France-Presse The town of Swannanoa

Ulysse Bellier – Agence France-Presse in Swannanoa

Published at 3:09 p.m. Updated at 4:49 p.m.

• United States

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Last Friday, just before dawn, when Hurricane Helene slammed into the mountains, the water came “right up to the mailbox,” Shelby Holzhauser points from the doorstep of her small white house, set high above the river.

For several days, she walked through the rubble, across the bridge and the river that swept away everything in its path, to find water and food with a backpack. “There's no water, no electricity,” she said Thursday, with her son Carter, 4, clinging to her legs.

Before her eyes, on this bridge in the town of Swannanoa and like everywhere else in these mountains of North Carolina (southeast), dozens of workers are working to repair the broken roads, burst pipes and power lines torn off by the hurricane, which has left death and devastation in its path.

“We're up high, we thought we were going to be safe, but [the water] came so close that I took my son, we left the house, I was afraid we were going to get stuck,” said the kindergarten teacher, aged 4, 23 years old.

In total, at least 201 people were killed by Hurricane Helene,from Florida in the south to these mountains of North Carolina, including 61 in the county that includes Swannanoa and the neighboring city of Asheville, which was flown over Wednesday by the American president, Joe Biden.

Helene is thus the second deadliest hurricane to have hit the United States in more than half a century, after Katrina in 2005. Scientists have linked its intensity to the warming of the seas caused by climate change.

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If Thursday morning, almost a week after these devastating floods, the weather is beautiful and the carcasses of cars and debris of all kinds have been cleared from the main roads, life is far from returning to normal.

To flush the toilet, Shelby has to go fill a large bucket at the river. While she speaks, her husband plugs in the generator provided by his employer, which allows them to cook. A little further on, a few men are running a stand with basic necessities under the roof of a disused gas station.

“Everyone helps each other, sticks together,” says Shelby proudly, dressed in a small red t-shirt and leather boots.

“Great” help

Usually, “work, work, work, it’s all you can do to survive, work to make money and pay your bills,” says the woman who has always lived in this region of the southern Appalachian Mountains. “But since the disaster, I’ve gotten closer to my neighbors. They’ve come down to check on us, make sure we have what we need.”

In the parking lot of a closed fast food restaurant, veterinarians offer free emergency care for pets. Audrey Pace, a veterinary clinic technician, has come to lend a hand.

“It’s really hard right now,” she says. In all the destruction, “pets are an unconditional support for people,” she says, just before going to greet a car that arrives with a dog in the passenger seat.

In the field next door, helicopters are landing in a chain with a deafening noise.

A little further on, an area with mobile homes used as dwellings, typical of poor rural areas in the United States, has been completely swept away, the dwellings displaced, their windows smashed. From one of them sticks out through the ripped-open partition a red Christmas garland and a child’s garment with the “Star Wars” logo. There is no one left.

Photo: Melissa Sue Gerrits Getty Images via Agence France-Presse Car wrecks and debris of all kinds have been cleared from the main roads.

President Biden has sent an additional 1,000 troops to help rebuild, after being criticized by Donald Trump for allegedly delaying federal aid.

In Swannanoa, the aid “has been great,” Shelby Holzhauser says without hesitation. 20 yards from her house, new water lines are being installed, while a backhoe reinforces a potholed road.

The schoolteacher, looking at the army of technicians, has no illusions: “It’s going to be a while before we get back up.”