Many in Ashe County were already hurting. Then the storm hit

Ashe County was already struggling when the remnants of Hurricane Helene roared through last week, compounding the problem.

Eric Aft, the CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina, says the need for food and other resources in the region was already at historic levels before the storm hit.

He says economic factors including a lack of affordable housing, child care issues and stagnant wages had more than doubled the number of people the agency and its partners served in the last two years.

"And then we layer a hurricane on top of it," he says. "And the fact that people who were already being impacted by economic situations and a lot of other difficulties in life now are dealing with this, but that's where the community rallies." 

He says one of the biggest challenges now is reaching isolated communities cut off by road and bridge outages.

The tiny town of Lansing has recently been a bright spot in Ashe County’s economy. Its commercial district along the picturesque Big Horse Creek was drawing investments and entrepreneurs like Shelby Tramel, who took over the Old Orchard Creek General Store in December.

Tramel says before she knew it there was five feet of water inside her store. She made a desperate rush to turn off all the breakers and save everything she could. Until she realized her efforts were futile.

“The water ended up picking up every single piece of furniture, every piece of commercial-grade equipment and toppling it over on its side,” she says.

The flood took everything. Even the original flooring of the building, more than 100 years old, will have to be ripped out. It will take months to get the business re-opened. Which means she’ll miss out on the busy fall foliage tourist season.

“It’s a terrible time for this to happen for businesses here because fall is a peak season here and a time when we would have made a good chunk of our revenue, so the loss of business is huge,” she says.

The Blue Ridge Parkway, a main draw for fall tourists, remains closed in North Carolina until park officials can asses the storm’s damage, the National Park Service says.