Mountain Projects Community Action Agency has received a $30,000 investment grant from Nantahala Health Foundation to increase home safety for underserved populations in Jackson County.

Grant investment funds from the Foundation will be used for Housing Rehabilitation projects in Jackson County. “We have a long waiting list for these services, and it will feel good to give these people some relief,” says Mountain Projects Rehabilitation and Weatherization Program Manager, Vivian Bumgarner.

The Weatherization and Rehabilitation program manages urgent repairs for low income homeowners. Oftentimes, clients need accessibility modifications to their homes and other urgent repairs to prevent imminent displacement. Accessibility projects include ramp building and making bathrooms safe and usable, while other projects might include replacement of doors and windows or other weatherization measures that keep the household warm and reduce costly heating bills.

“These funds are essential in our effort to support the wellbeing of underserved households in Jackson County and will assist with the independence and self-sufficiency of local seniors,” says Mountain Projects Executive Director Patsy Davis. “This project would not have been possible without this support from Nantahala Health Foundation.” 

About Mountain Projects

Mountain Projects is a non-profit Community Action Agency founded in 1965. We offer programs and services that improve life in Haywood and Jackson Counties, and our 145 employees serve more than 15,000 people each year. Our programs and partnerships help provide assistance with health and wellness, housing, education, transportation and much more.

We serve seniors, households with economic need, the disabled and individuals and families experiencing emergencies. If we cannot provide needed services, we connect clients to those who can.

For more information about Mountain Projects and how you can support this community effort, please call Patsy Davis at 828-452-1447 or visit our website at www.MountainProjects.org.

About Nantahala Health Foundation

Working as a catalyst for innovation and collaboration, Nantahala Health Foundation seeks to partner with nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies in Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Macon, and Swain counties and the Qualla Boundary to achieve better health and wellness outcomes for all. By working to address the upstream, root causes of health inequities and by removing barriers to positive social determinants of health, NHF’s success is seen best in partnerships with regional change-makers. Since its establishment in 2019, NHF has awarded nearly $3.13 million in support to some 148 programs throughout the region. Visit NHF’s website to join their Healthy Future Movement.

Need help health insurance through the ACA? Counselors will be on hand to answer your questions, including: 1. Can I be denied certain benefits because of preexisting conditions? 2. Will my current health issues affect insurance rates? 3. How much do insurance plans cost? 4. What do insurance plans cover?

A tiny lady with sturdy boots and a neat grey bun walks between high heaps of gnarled and tangled debris. Identifiable items poke out at odd angles: an axle with wheels here, an auger bit there. A hula hoop. Now and then the breeze carries a whiff of rot.

The Pigeon River slips by, just a stone’s toss away.

There’s a sense of sadness and confidence about her – a good-natured person who’s having a rough time. Bending down, she captures a windblown leaf, studies it, and remembers a nursery rhyme.

“A wise old owl lived in an oak,” she recites, pointing with her leaf. “The more he saw, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Now, wasn’t he a wise old bird?”

Sherrie McArthur hasn’t heard too much lately, but she’s waiting.

Her 51-year-old family business in Cruso, Laurel Bank Campground, was utterly destroyed in August during floods wrought by the remnants of Tropical Storm Fred. Some guests died, others were traumatized, and her campground is unrecognizable.

Like many hardy residents of the valley, she’s buckled down and done her best. She hasn’t asked for much, and she’s accepted with grace the help that came her way. But now she’s grappling with the fact that she just doesn’t know what’s next.

The campground won’t reopen, at least in anything like its current form. “You can’t sow grass on rocks,” says McArthur, “the water washed away all the dirt.”

Not to mention that if the river came up that high once, it is likely to do it again. Massive erosion on the back side of the property during the flood exposed smooth river stone – a sign that the river once flowed there and might return – and heavy storms are becoming more commonplace.

Sherrie’s living space, a tidy A-frame, survived, but just barely. Volunteers are helping her make it livable again.

Other volunteers have bulldozed the broad, deep fields of rubbish into high mounds. But what does she do with it now? She doesn’t know who to ask, or really what the ask might be. Like many of her neighbors, she’s not used to being a squeaky wheel.

“People tell me to ‘be patient,’” she says. “They say the government moves slowly, but it moves. I guess in the meantime I’ll just keep living right here in the middle of it.”

Sherrie has always been an innkeeper of sorts. She’s spent her entire life, year after year, welcoming guests to a place that represents happiness for them.

When she and her brother Doug were little, before the business opened, the land was their family farm and they’d pitch a tent by the river to camp. It gave their father, Harold Crawford, an idea. Shovel in hand, day-by-day, he built the campground.

Soon she and her brother were campground kids, being teased at school for smelling like woodsmoke, and eventually she’d raise her own sons there.

“It’s always been the sweetest place,” she says. “It was kind of magical. When I opened each May, guests would be hugging each other like they were home. They’d be hugging my neck.”

Sherrie feels the weight of responsibility and loss. Many of the 95 campsites were held by seasonal campers with an average age of 70 or so. Most of them lost everything.

On the day of the flood, Sherrie had an inkling. No warnings were posted, but the rain pounded down and things didn’t feel right.

She talked to Cruso Fire Chief Tim Henson, who was hopeful that things wouldn’t worsen, but who urged caution.“I trusted my gut,” says Sherrie, who knew her guests would be hard to motivate on a mere hunch.

“I decided ‘I’m gonna tell a little white lie and say officials told us to move to higher ground,’” she says, and she began ushering campers to a pavilion, which was the agreed upon high water “safe spot.”

As it turned out, there was barely time. A violent landslide across the valley showed that things were getting worse fast. A pounding deluge high up the valley had come after two days of hard rain, and the river level rose abruptly.

“It was too much,” says Sherrie, “That was the angriest water I’ve ever seen in my life. Nobody had seen the river like that, even the old, old, old people.”

One camper tried to flee the campground in her car, despite warnings, and was swept away. Another died when he stepped out of his truck into waist-deep water and was caught in the current.

Most campers had gathered at the pavilion, but soon it was clear that it wasn’t high enough. Two at a time, Sherrie moved guests along a fenceline that climbed the hill behind, holding the hog wire as they pulled themselves to safety. Gathered at Sherrie’s son’s house up the hill, stunned and silent, they waited for the water to recede.

Almost three months later, Sherrie walks along at the upper end of the property.

A few hundred yards across the tranquil river, a man slowly creeps the shoreline with a backhoe. He lost a load of steel beams to the flood when his trailer washed away, and he’s searching the riverbed to find them – one piece at a time.

“It’s affected everybody in Cruso,” says Sherrie. “We all got walloped.”

“I thought I was prepared after Ivan,” she says, “but this was way more than a 100-year flood.” Hurricane Ivan, in 2004, caused serious, but not catastrophic damage to the campground, and she’d made some infrastructure changes since. Also, she was insured then, but insurance covered very little of the damage. This year she wasn’t insured, and said that she couldn’t have afforded it even if she’d found a willing underwriter.

As she strolls back home, she points out a destroyed building – the camp laundry – and the remains of an ice machine. Hospitality folks know the value of those machines, they are expensive and much-valued.

“I thought I’d bought the last ice machine I’d ever need,” Sherrie says, “and evidently it was. I just didn’t need it for as long as I expected to.”

Opening the door to her house, she sees that volunteer carpenters from Baptists on Mission have been by. They’re helping with the replacement of damaged cabinets and flooring.

“Look at this,” Sherrie says, stepping into her kitchen, “I got a new threshold!”

“They’ve taken care of me and so many in this little community,” she adds. “We’re all astonished, amazed and grateful and humbled. It’s wonderful work. Quality work. We can’t thank them enough.”

“Believe me, I say my thank you prayers,” she says, “and I need to say more.”

___

Flood disaster recovery efforts continue to unfold, with recent news of 20 million dollars in state funds allocated to rebuild or elevate homes in the Pigeon River Valley. Rapid Rehousing efforts, managed by Baptists on Mission Disaster Relief Ministry and funded by contributors to Mountain Projects and United Way of Haywood County, will enable assistance to nearly 50 homeowners. A generous $500,000 donation by the Dogwood Health Trust will help up to 28 additional homeowners, for a total of more than 75 homeowners assisted by the initiative.

If you know someone who owns their home and needs Rapid Rehousing assistance, or if you’d like to volunteer to help with ongoing housing rehabilitations, please contact Bill Martin at 336-408-8393.

If you’d like to contribute to ongoing emergency needs and relief efforts, please call or email Mountain Projects Executive Director, Patsy Davis, at (828) 492-4124 or [email protected].

“We expect the recovery from this flood to take several years,” said Davis

 

A little over a year ago Victor de Mancia and his wife Crystal moved to Cruso from Wisconsin, mostly because they were charmed by the beauty of the mountains, but also because they felt oppressed by weather. They were sick of Wisconsin snow.

On August 17 they got a flood instead. Record-breaking levels of water roared down the valley at Cruso, brought on by heavy and prolonged rains high on Cold Mountain. The de Mancia’s home was nearly destroyed, and their property strewn with vehicles, outbuildings and all manner of assorted debris.

What came next, though, was what they consider a flood of blessings. In two short months they’ve experienced extraordinary kindness, shared some of their own, and reached an enormous personal milestone all at once.

“It was a total catastrophe,” Crystal says, “but it brought people to us that will be forever friends – people we never would’ve met otherwise. And right in the middle of it all Victor was called for his immigration exam.”

Victor came to the United States from El Salvador 20 years ago, and he and Crystal, a native Minnesotan, have been married for 12. Just as they tackled this flood recovery – with their heads swirling from all there was to do – they made an unexpected trip to Charlotte, where Victor took the test, passed, and became an American citizen.

—

The de Mancias fell in love with the mountains a couple of years ago on vacation and decided to work out the details for a move south. Eventually they found their house in Cruso: a sturdy mid century rancher with blonde brickwork, a nice yard, a pavilion for picnics, and the river nearby.

Crystal and Victor spent the first six months working on the property and home, making it their own. They looked forward to settling in and sharing it with friends. Crystal took a job at Haywood County Animal Services and Victor, a mechanic and handyman, took work in apartment complex maintenance.

They were both at work when the river came up. Unable to reach home, they spent the night on the floor of Victor’s work office in Canton, terrified for their house and pets: four birds, two dogs and a cat.

They had reason to be concerned: when the Pigeon left its banks along their stretch of the river, water crashed into the garage end of their house and swirled down an open stairwell into the basement. When the basement was full, the water burst through a wall at the far end of the house and continued on its way.

The de Mancias made their way home the next day to find their pets rattled but safe and their house a mess. The basement was an awful quagmire, and two walls – one on each end of the house – were badly damaged.

At first, their home was “red-tagged” by the county as a total loss, but they were able to find an engineer, Preston Gregg, of Waynesville, to complete an assessment and cost breakdown so that they could obtain a restoration permit and stay put.

“We’ve been blessed to remain home when so many neighbors were displaced,” Crystal said. “And we were also blessed to have so much help.”

A local couple, Pam and Craig Carter, came by way of New Covenant Church. They were on the scene almost immediately and organized volunteers to help both the de Mancias and their neighbors begin the cleanup.

After the downstairs had been laboriously mucked out, more volunteers from Baptists on Mission Disaster Ministry and Samaritan’s Purse helped remove the ruined furnace and ductwork, power washed the basement, and treated the space for mold. Even more help came from members of the de Mancia’s church, Barberville Baptist, and from old Minnesota friends Doug and Susan Mueller, now in Asheville, who contributed a heat pump and rallied more help from their neighbors.

Victor had the skills to pitch in with the neighbors’ houses as well as his. Among other things he’s a dowser, and he used his talent to help find the wellhead of the elderly couple next door, buried under a few feet of silt.

The couple’s challenges didn’t end within the walls of their home. Because their property is in a particular section of the Pigeon, with level woodland lying inside the curve of the river, it collected an extraordinary amount of flood-borne debris – along with a deceased victim.

Emergency personnel searched their land for days afterward, and when they were gone, the debris remained, including a Toyota pickup wrapped around a tree by the force of the water, outbuildings at odd angles, a recreational vehicle, and countless smaller pieces of furniture, appliances and rubbish. The couple was a bit mystified about what they were supposed to do with all the junk.

But Baptists on Mission came to the rescue once again, helping clear debris with bobcats so that county contractors could haul it away.

There’s still plenty of work to do, and while Haywood County Animal Services held Crystal’s job, Victor was let go when he couldn’t return immediately to work. He’ll soon be looking again.

Still, the de Mancia’s have been amazed by how their new community pulled together in the face of crisis.

“What was also wonderful is that nobody was asking if you were left or right, blue or red, or what color your skin was,” Crystal said. “Instead they asked us what our needs were and how they could help meet them. It was absolutely wonderful.”

—

There’s still a lot of work to accomplish to get Haywood residents back on their feet. More than 65 individuals continue to live in the shelter. 114 homes were completely destroyed and more than 700 homes were damaged by flooding.

Well before the floods, our community was facing an affordable housing shortage. Since August 17th, the issue has become mission critical. Through a partnership between Baptists on Mission, the United Way and Mountain Projects, funds have been raised to support more rehab for 52 homes.

Currently, there are seven rapid house rehabilitation jobs that are complete, 26 more that are in process and 16 initial participants that opted for other solutions. If you know a homeowner affected by flooding that needs home rehabilitation, or can refer skilled tradesmen to assist with this work, please contact Bill Martin of Baptist on Mission, 336-408-8393.