Two weeks without running water: This is life in Western North Carolina after Helene

Hurricane Helene swept across the Southeast, causing major flooding and destruction throughout North Carolina. Here is ongoing coverage from The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer about Hurricane Helene and the aftermath, particularly in Western North Carolina. 

 Around the mountain town of Banner Elk, neighbors have endured two weeks without running water — a harsh and dirty reality that has hundreds living in the 19th century, toting buckets to the river, collecting trickles from a spring, answering nature’s call behind a bush.

 Hurricane Helene carried off the town’s water and sewer system, and since then volunteers established a relief station that rivals the local Walmart, stocking enough bottled water to fill a reservoir, drawing from a tanker truck parked behind Town Hall. 

 But that only covers thirst. Consider bathing. “Wet Wipes are a great way to wash yourself,” said Kimberly Tufts, a retired teacher who went a week without showering. “My husband’s not a fan. He says they leave a residue.”

 Or flushing toilets. “We carry buckets from a retention pond,” said Tufts. “We get three flushes out of a bucket.” Or almost anything else. 

“It’s been hell,” said Nancy Owen, the town’s tourism director. “You can’t brush your teeth. You can’t wash your hands. I can’t fill up the dog’s bowl. I can’t take a shower. I can’t mop my floors. “But it’s fun. I don’t need the basic comforts,” she said sarcastically. 

After two weeks, it’s impossible to know how many people remain without water in North Carolina’s 25 most western countries – the sprawling territory wrecked by Helene on Sept. 27.

 But U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards, who represents much of North Carolina’s west, reported that Asheville, Black Mountain, Woodfin, Spruce Pine, and Burnsville water systems were unable to deliver water to some or all of their customers.

 When they talk about a timetable for bringing it back, officials there use phrases like “yet to be determined,” and residents brace for months without water at the least. 

Gov. Roy Cooper visited the North Fork Reservoir, which provides water to Asheville, Thursday with Sen. Thom Tillis, Congressman Chuck Edwards, and Michael Regan, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, along with state and local officials.

 During a press conference with the murky lake as a backdrop, Asheville water resources director David Melton said the city will increase the amount of aluminum sulfate it uses in the reservoir. The chemical helps particulates clump together so they can drop to the bottom, making it possible for the water to pass through the plant’s filtration system. 

The group also announced that workers had finished repairing a 36-inch distribution line in the system around 1 a.m. Thursday, which they described as a critical repair, but said it still could be weeks before the water is flowing to all customers.

 In Banner Elk, the town warns that washed-out water and sewer lines must be replaced, disinfected and thoroughly tested. NC Sen. Ralph Hise told WRAL this week that replacing Mitchell County’s water plant is a “four-year process.”

 “If at any time you find that you have water for even a brief moment,” wrote Town Manager Rick Owen in a town-wide message, “it should not be considered safe to drink.” 

A volunteer run, Hurricane Helene relief distribution center has been set up at the Harley Davidson dealership on Tuesday, October 8, 2024 in Swannanoa, N.C. Helicopters shuttle supplies in and back out to remote regions in the area cut off by the storm. 

In Asheville alone, that list represents tens of thousands of people – perhaps half of its nearly 40,000 households. 

Workers there scramble to rebuild a distribution system blown apart by flooding that scoured out lines buried more than 20 feet underground, some encased in concrete engineers believed would protect them from devastating storms. 

Before Helene, Asheville claimed some of the most pristine drinking water in the world. Now, city officials describe the North Fork Reservoir as looking like chocolate milk from silt churned off the bottom and now refusing to settle. 

Meanwhile, across all of the Western North Carolina region, including rural areas where people rely on well water but don’t have power to the pumps that would deliver it, residents persist in a world more like 1824 than 2024. 

“You kind of just have to get used to being unkempt,” said Paige Carter, a 17-year-old senior at T.C. Roberson High School in Buncombe County, waiting for a turn at the shower in a YMCA. 

Evan Bloemendaal, 17, washes dishes with his brother Paul, 13, with water from a two gallon container in their home in Banner Elk, N.C., Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. The Bloemendaal’s power has been restored but there is no estimate on when they will get water back. Ethan Hyman ehyman@newsobserver.com 

‘EIGHT DAYS WITHOUT A SHOWER’ 

In Banner Elk, the city celebrated the arrival of laundry machines set up inside of a tractor-trailer, and the hundreds still remaining in town rejoiced that the Best Western opened its showers in four rooms to all comers. 

“I went eight days without a shower,” said Dylan Joslin, drying his hair with a towel outside room 108. “It was pretty miserable. I’ve been doing a lot of chain-saw work in the mud, with the dust flying everywhere. Wet Wipes are your friend.”

 Even more welcome in Banner Elk are the dozens of portable toilets set up at Town Hall, at the Lowe’s hardware store or in bank parking lots. Still, the convenience only reaches so far

. “Everyone is trying to pee outside as much as they can,” said Nola Bloemendaal, mother of four. “But not everybody is comfortable with that. My kid stepped in people poop. Those porta-potties took a while to get here.”

 Piper Parker, of Old Fort, N.C., without power in her home since Hurricane Helene hit on September 27, uses a free, portable laundry unit at the First Baptist Church on Tuesday, October 8, 2024 in Old Fort, N.C.

Outside the town of 1,000, where the elevation reaches 4,000 feet and the woods crawl with wildlife, the line between human and nature is easily blurred.

 “It’s like camping inside your house,” said Jarrett Koski, preschool teacher. “The novelty wears off when you go to use the potty and the deer is on one side and the bear is on the other.” 

With four kids, Bloemendaal initially found life without electricity to be hardest. Her oldest son, Blake, has Down syndrome and uses a breathing machine that was impossible to charge. Her second-oldest, Evan, has both autism and epilepsy, and he became very agitated about dwindling battery levels. But when the lights flicked back on, the water problems were waiting.

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