With Grace and Grit: Replacing Helene-damaged bridges became a calling for volunteers

This is part two of "With Grace and Grit: A mountain community responds to Helene." Listen to part one here. 

Six months after Helene struck North Carolina, there are still hundreds of small private bridges out, cutting off access to resources, jobs and families. In Ashe County, there's a volunteer effort to replace them.

The waters of Buffalo Creek had burst its banks and were headed for Mae and John Medley’s home the morning Helene hit. She wants to show just how close it got.

"If you can see where the cat tracks is, it was up there, got up around that little building," she says. "But when you’re standing here it looks like it’s coming right towards you.”

Medley says she thought about escaping the rising flood waters. But there were two problems.

One, the only place septuagenarian Medley could go was up the side of a mountain, slick with rainwater cascading down its rocky surface. And two, fleeing would have meant leaving behind her husband, who has a disability.

"So if it kept a-raining, we'd have just went down the creek with it. John can't walk out of here, and I'm not leaving him," she says. "That’s exactly what I said.”

So they rode the storm out. Together. About a half hour later it stopped raining.

The Medleys live in Stikes Hollow, a generations-old homestead and one of Ashe County’s most iconic spots, famed for its rustic look recalling a bygone era. Mae lives in a small house a short way down from where many of the original wooden buildings stand, now weathered by time. 

Mae’s brother, Fred Stikes, still lives in a house in the hollow without electricity.

The family survived the flood. But the bridge they used to cross the creek to get to Highway 88 was destroyed, leaving them without access to supplies and medical care.

Replacing it was one of the first jobs of Lansing’s Bridge to Recovery, a nonprofit launched post-Helene to help restore vital spans that are not maintained by the state.

Steven Howell was part of that Stikes Hollow crew. 

"I was passing through after the hurricane, and saw the bridge here had been about halfway washed out," he says. "All the boards were missing on the top of the bridge, and decided to stop and help ‘em."

Working with other volunteers, Howell was able to restore the bridge in about a week at no cost to the family. He estimates that without the donated materials and labor, the replacement of the roughly 30-foot bridge would have cost at least $25,000.

Mae Medley says she doesn’t know what she and her husband would have done had Howell not noticed the damaged structure.

"God sent an angel when he come," she says.

The private bridge situation was so bad in the immediate wake of the storm that rescue workers had to bring in pack animals.

Mark Nettles, chair of the Lansing Volunteer Fire Department, coordinated emergency efforts on the town's main street five days after the flood. He directed the horses brought in to ford creeks. Teams of mules also helped.

"We’ve got hundreds of citizens who live over creeks whose access is blocked, and that have medical needs, oxygen needs that we’re trying to deal with and do welfare checks and whatever,” he says.

Months later, many are still desperately trying to get help, Howell says.

"I've seen people hitchhiking, try to get a ride to town, go get groceries, and it's affecting a lot of people," he says. "They can't go back to work because they don't have a means of transportation for work."

Aimee Fink is executive director of Lansing’s Bridge to Recovery. She says the organization has restored more than 50 private crossings. But there are still more than 200 to go. 

For some, the repairs are relatively small. But others are so far gone it would take more than $100,000 to rebuild them, she says.

"We've deemed 19 of them to be urgent, where there are elderly medical conditions involved," she says. "We do have some that are still high priority but not urgent, where there's medical needs or they're they're not able to even live in their home."

There are many challenges in getting the work done. Most of the volunteers have full-time jobs so finding time can be difficult. Also, there are shortages of supplies, especially concrete.

But Fink says she’s pleased that people have come forward with both time and donations.

“The generosity for our nonprofit is also been just mind blowing," she says. "People are still giving and still sending in checks, and wanting to help. So it's really been amazing.”

Although care and upkeep of the private bridges have typically been left to the landowners, there are state and federal relief efforts being worked out that would provide assistance. Rebuilding also helps get people back in their Western North Carolina communities, which helps the economy recover.

Some state estimates put the number of bridges damaged by Helene at about 8,000.

"With Grace and Grit: A mountain community responds to Helene" concludes on Friday, March 28, during Morning Edition and All Things Considered.