Recap: DAY TWO, Part 4 - Delivering Supplies UP THE MOUNTAIN

 Thursday 10/17/2024 - Part 4

It was a little after 5pm when we left Swannanoa and headed toward Green Mountain. We saw quite a bit of destruction on that last leg of our route.

When we turned onto Toe River Rd, that's when things got interesting! 

The road seemed more narrow than a typical road - which is probably because there were a lot of areas where the east side of the road was washed into the North Toe River. 

The sun set at 6:50pm that day and we recorded the above video at 6:39pm. Our drive on Toe River Rd. was only about 1 mile in distance but it was a fairly slow go, so that mile took us about 30 minutes to get to our destination high on the mountainside. The sun had fully set by the time we arrived. The farther we got up the mountain, the larger and farther down the river was to our right. 

We saw this along the way, and it caught the attention of everyone in our convoy.

Over the walkie-talkie, Kathy (from our group) asked "How does that even happen?". Colt (from the Mountain Rescue NC group) replied "It got washed down the river.". We all noticed the red "X" on the side of that yellow car, too. It can't be seen well in the photos, but it was there and jumped out at all of us. Colt explained that a red "X" meant the car had been cleared - it was checked and was empty. If the spray paint was a number, that number would signify how many bodies were found in the vehicle.  

I looked back at a Google street view from before the hurricane - and this is what it looked like in April 2024, just 6 months before:

That is the view standing at the end of the driveway we were at that night.

We didn't think to take a photo, specifically of the river, while we were there - there were quite a few other things on our mind. We did get a couple that give a general idea of what it looked like though.

The water level was down a lot! Simply from standing on the road above, we felt the water was about 20'+ down from the roadway. (For reference, in the photo I took from Google street view back in April, the level looked to be about 5'-10' below the roadway). The home we were visiting was probably about 10' above the roadway.

The view as we were standing near the top of the driveway

During the hurricane, the water from the North Toe River rose high enough to flood halfway up the home's first floor. Imagine that - the river was running approximately 20'+ below the level of their home - and it rose high enough to flood their entire basement and half of their first floor. Their neighbors, whose home was a bit south of theirs were found, deceased, farther down the mountain. They likely saw how the water was rising and tried to get to higher ground, possibly even to seek shelter with this couple. It's absolutely tragic.

That also helps to explain how that yellow car ended up where it did. 

The man and his wife, whom we were visiting on that last stop of the night, had a generator and were temporarily living in a camper on their property. They didn't need some of the typical supplies one would think of, in the aftermath of a hurricane that ravaged their home and property. The man is a veteran & retired police officer and his wife is battling cancer. Our original mission at their home was to do home and yard clean up. As it turned out, Samaritan's Purse had been there the day before and spent many many hours doing all of that. That worked out well, as we had gotten a bit behind schedule and weren't getting to their home until after dark. This couple lost everything in their home. They even have fish swimming in their basement. One thing the man really wished he had was a Carhartt coat. We had taken some new Carhartt coats to donate - our ice melt vendor gives us a couple each winter, with our ice melt order. So this man now has a brand new black Carhartt with the Dragon Melt logo - delivered with love from southeast Michigan. We gave his wife a couple of handmade quilts, too, that had been donated by some amazing people. We may not have delivered "necessary supplies", in the general sense of the term - but we feel like we delivered a little hope and love and sometimes that's what people need the most.

We were also able to spend some time chatting with this sweet couple - because Jim and Kathy had pulled their truck and enclosed trailer into the driveway, before realizing that it might not be very easy to back out.

That looked a little like this:

And once we had Jim's truck back on the road...the unnerving part started. We couldn't get the convoy turned around to go back down the hill the same way we came up, it just wasn't a possibility with the river drop off on one side of the road and ditches, hills, and water saturated earth on the other side. Oh, and two of the vehicles in our convoy pulling enclosed trailers. We had no choice but to take a different route off the mountain. We were informed, by a police officer, of the many obstacles we'd face. The drivers all listened intently and the passengers crossed their fingers and, in some cases, closed their eyes. Keegan's truck happened to be the lead in the convoy at that point (it had previously been Jennifer, with Mountain Rescue, who knew the route and the terrain better, but things had gotten turned around when we arrived at that last house). 

Keegan's truck was facing the wrong direction...so he did a 342-point turn to get facing the right way. Thankfully, that was caught on video. 

The drive back down the mountain was definitely nerve-wracking. Alex was keeping his eyes peeled as Keegan's passenger - which was good because Keegan was busy watching the road for damage and missed some down power lines. Alex caught them just before we drove into them and was able to radio to the other vehicles to hold up as Keegan backed up to go around them. 

It was as an adventure, to say the least. There were 5 vehicles in our convoy, 2 pulling enclosed trailers, it was dark, and the road conditions were very poor (to put it mildly). We worked as a team, going slowly and communicating regularly on the walkie-talkies the whole way. 

Once we were safely off the mountain we pulled over and decided where we were heading for a very late dinner and to debrief about our day! 

Dinner & Debriefing was so needed and so therapeutic. I'll share that soon!