A Craftsman Story of Survival

by Bruce Johnson

November 10th, 2024

Well, Leigh Ann and I have just yesterday been re-connected via the internet with the rest of the world. As I understand it, there has been a World Series, fall football, Halloween, and an election since Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on western North Carolina.

To recap, during the early morning hours of Friday, September 27, we endured the dual combination of over twenty inches of rain and a deadly tornado. The rain caused every placid creek and lazy river near Asheville to become a deadly torrent of cascading debris, from hundred year old trees to entire homes crushed and swept off their foundations. Over 100 people died in their beds and basements as hillsides collapsed and tons of mud came crashing down upon them.

 

 

We were among the fortunate here in our narrow valley of Fairview. Our 16-acre farm is bordered by Cane Creek, a beloved trout stream typically two feet deep and twenty feet wide. As dawn broke on that Friday, it was a quarter mile wide, nearly ten feet deep, and running fast and furious. Overhead, 80-mph winds rolled down the valley, knocking down ancient oak, pine, and sycamore trees like gigantic bowling pins.

Our house, perched atop a wooded knoll, escaped the swath of the tornado by sixty feet. It took two days of chain sawing, however, just to be able to walk down our 800-foot long driveway without having to crawl under or climb over one of the 24-inch diameter trees laying like matchsticks across it.

At the bottom of our drive, in the level pasture land bordering Cane Creek, our three horses stood in our barn with water over their knees and fast approaching their bellies. They trusted us completely, however, as Leigh Ann and I slipped halters over their heads and lead them through the rushing water to the highest point on our driveway we could climb until we met the first downed tree. A nearly-drowned groundhog joined us, as we and the horses stood in the pouring rain and howling wind until four that afternoon, when suddenly it all stopped.

Nearly every power pole and cell tower in our valley had either been snapped off, swept away, or bent over by the flood or the wind, so we had lost electricity, telephone, television, and internet. We also had lost twenty years of horse fences and shelters we had constructed. What we gained were more trees and their gigantic roots balls than I could count strewn around our farm and wrapped around those trees which somehow had stayed rooted in the ground.

 

 

Today is now Day 45 of recovery. The weather has been unseasonably warm and dry, so that has made working from first light until dark at least a little more comfortable. Sundays are not an exception, as a crew of ten men and some gigantic machinery will be returning today to continue dragging trees out of the creek, off our fields, and down our driveway, cutting them up into haulable lengths to be taken away.

There has been a tremendous out pouring of support and assistance from government agencies, churches, non-profits, neighbors, and strangers from as far away as Colorado, Quebec, Arkansas, and upstate New York – and those are just the ones I met here on our farm.

In short, Leigh Ann, our horses, and I are fine. Electricity and internet have now been restored. We write daily lists of things which have to be done, make trips to Home Depot (our Lowes in Asheville was completely destroyed), and just do it. Simple as that. Compared to neighbors who have had to arrange for funerals, we have nothing to complain about.

And so, we give thanks, we rebuild, and we look out for those whom we can help.

Thank you for your thoughts, your concerns for our safety, and your wishes for a speedy recovery. Please share this with anyone who has asked about us and our area.

 

– Bruce Johnson