Home Care In Swannanoa, NC

SWANNANOA, N.C. -- The tops of dried, bent cornstalks crunch underfoot. Jill Holtz's gaze is fixed on the ground ahead.

She wanders into the nearby woods and weaves between twisted branches. Then, Holtz spots something and starts to riffle through the withered twigs. To the untrained eye, it's easy to overlook. But for Holtz, it's instantaneous recognition.

Scraggly, white lines give the appearance of shattered glass, but a name can still be made out at the top. It is a sonogram strip - crinkled, abused by the elements, but intact.

In early February, Holtz combed through parts of a flattened cornfield in Swannanoa, North Carolina - a rural area razed by fierce floodwaters from Hurricane Helene a few months earlier. The deluge swept away entire homes, and with it, people's beloved photos, keepsakes and family heirlooms. Many have accepted that they are gone forever.

But lost items remain scattered across the region - tangled in gnarled trees, washed up in deep ravines and buried under mud. That's why Holtz is on a mission: find and reunite those cherished possessions with storm victims who don't have the time or energy to look themselves.

"It's not just trash, and it's not just trees and pieces of metal," Holtz says. "It's their lives. This is their hearts, their homes, the generations of history."

Searching the cornfield

Over the past few months, Holtz has spent much of her free time making the nearly four-hour drive from Raleigh to Swannanoa to search for lost items. She balances her job as a North Carolina National Guard captain and being a mom to two sons - a 10-year-old and a 24-year-old. It's difficult being away, Holtz says, but her kids support her efforts.

Holtz first visited western North Carolina after the storm on duty delivering aid. Then, while helping retrieve lost objects in Swannanoa for Violet Vardiman - a woman Holtz fondly calls "Miss Violet" - Holtz realized how many other missing belongings were out there. So she kept coming back. Holtz posts her finds to Facebook in hopes of finding their owners.

At first, searching for lost belongings was overwhelming because of the sheer volume of objects strewn about, Holtz says. Now, she looks a few feet ahead of her at a time to stay focused.

She's learned other tips and tricks too. Use larger pieces of debris to store missing keepsakes while walking. Put on a hat or your hair will get caught in tree branches. Wear gloves and sturdy boots. And if you see a Dallas Cowboys mat, stomp on it first before picking it up - Holtz, after all, is a Buffalo Bills fan.

After exploring the cornfield and adjacent woods for about 20 minutes, Holtz already has a handful to bring back - an 8-track tape, a teddy bear with golden wings and plenty of photos. Despite some scratches and their sun-bleached tone, the photos are in decent shape for what they've been through.

As Holtz walks back to her truck, she squints and scours the cornstalks for anything she missed. Holtz views each valuable she finds as an opportunity for joy, and if it's left behind, there's no guarantee it will be there next time.

SEE ALSO | Gov. Stein requests $19B in federal funding toward Helene disaster relief: 'More is needed'

Holding onto belongings until the time is right

What Holtz found in the cornfield will join the collection of other lost possessions in her trailer as she tries to find their owners. The spread inside resembles a garage sale.

Photos make up a large chunk of Holtz's collection. Pictures captured from weddings, school and simple slices of life. Just from collecting photos, Holtz says she feels like she knows some people's entire life story without ever meeting them.

To restore photos, she's developed her own cleaning routine: Use cool water and rubbing alcohol, then carefully scrub with a soft toothbrush. It's time-consuming, yet therapeutic.

Holtz sets down a large mud-spattered canvas - a piece that will require the toothbrush treatment - and slowly pours water over it. The gentle stream crackles against the crisp canvas. Faces emerge from the splotchy, brown haze. It's a family portrait, Holtz says.

"I hope I find the owner of that," she says softly.

Since Holtz started posting pictures of the lost possessions on Facebook, she's consistently in contact with about 15 families. She has returned belongings to some and is waiting to connect in-person with others. Some of the families have evacuated the state and haven't returned - but Holtz doesn't mind holding onto their things.

"I'm in no hurry, and I don't expect them to be in a hurry," she says. "They're still getting their lives back together."

SEE ALSO | Kitchen counter was safest option for WNC siblings, cat Pumpkin as Helene destroyed house, property

'Getting back history'

The next day, Holtz sets up her trailer by the cornfield. She had posted her location to social media and patiently waits to see if anyone comes. About a half hour later, a silver SUV pulls over. A woman from Swannanoa, Angie McGee, steps out.

McGee is looking for lost photos. The 42-year-old searched for her family's belongings after Helene washed away her home, but she wasn't successful. Wearing black latex gloves, she rubs caked dirt from the photos and notices familiar faces: her brother, her father and her son.

She even spots her ultrasound photos - the same scroll that Jill had picked up the day before.

She is stunned. McGee can't believe the photos traveled nearly 2 miles downriver from her home - much less that Holtz had somehow found them. After months of anguish over what she had lost, McGee says she is finally "getting history back."

"She done brought back a smile to me, she done brought back life to me. Not just me, my family," McGee says. "Because, you know, there were things we lost that we thought maybe we never get back."

At one point, McGee's gaze settles on football shoulder pads with silver marker writing. The sight brings her to tears. They belong to her 12-year-old son, Link.

Holtz tries to not to cry. Later, the two women embrace before McGee leaves with her things. Giving people back their lost hope is why Holtz says she continues this work. But in these reunifying moments, it gives Holtz a little of her own hope, too.

SEE ALSO | Family finally regains power after 3+ months following Hurricane Helene

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AP National Writer Allen G. Breed contributed to this report.

Hundreds of Swannanoa residents came to the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Whitson Avenue Bridge reopening on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (WLOS)

SWANNANOA, N.C. (WLOS) — The Whitson Avenue Bridge in Swannanoa has reopened after almost five months.

Swannanoa was one of the areas Helene hit the hardest and lost a critical link that connected their community.

On Wednesday, Feb. 26, the link between U.S. 70 and Old 70 was restored.

The bridge is the physical connector between the north and south sides of the area. The bridge reopening sparked a sense of hope from residents.

SWANNANOA BRIDGE TO REOPEN AFTER HELENE, RESTORING A VITAL CONNECTION

Hundreds of residents came to the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday as they watched progress being made in their community.

Deana Lytle is a fifth-generation Swannanoa native.

“When you say, 'Is Swannanoa my home? Swannanoa is in my soul to the core,'” Lytle said.

Lytle said that being able to see the bridge open was a sign of hope and let her know their community will be okay.

“We need joy, we need happiness and that’s what this is all about today,” Lytle said.

Another resident, Tonia Allen, has lived in Beacon Village for the last 22 years.

She became a part of the local effort to start cleaning up and rebuilding immediately after the storm.

“It’s really been a magical thing to witness this grassroots effort grow into what you see today,” Allen said.

Teresa Rhinehart, another Swannanoa Resident, was stuck in her home for days after the storm.

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She said it was a shock when she was finally able to see what had become of their community. This bridge being reopened is the progress they needed to see.

Rhinehart said the only option is to keep moving forward.

“You can’t get depressed over it because it happened there’s nothing we can do, just say a lot of prayer and hope for the best,” Rhinehart said.

As rebuilding efforts continue, Allen said she’s hopeful small communities like theirs will not be forgotten when it comes to funding.

“We were in a severe housing crisis before this happened, a severe affordable housing crisis. We would really like to see recovery funds deployed in a way that addresses that housing crisis,” Allen said.

Five months out since the storm, Lytle said it feels like yesterday and an eternity ago all at once.

Lytle believes that despite this disaster, they will be able to bring forth a lot of good.

“We are going to be better than we ever were,” Lytle said.

SWANNANOA, N.C. (AP) — Emily Russell remembers feeling hopeful after she managed to get an appointment with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) not long after Hurricane Helene ripped though her home in Swannanoa, North Carolina.

But after several assistance requests were denied or left pending, Russell says the agency has been of “no help” to her family after the late September storm. Still reeling in a world turned upside-down by the most damaging storm in state history, she finds herself open to President Donald Trump's suggestion about “getting rid of” FEMA.

That is a common sentiment in the mountains of western North Carolina, where living in a trailer with limited supplies for months can try anyone's patience. Russell, who like many others did not have flood insurance, endured those stresses as she prepared for the birth of her son, but then volunteers stepped up to rebuild her home. Back there now, she can cradle her tiny infant in her arms on her newly constructed front porch — overlooking a heaping pile of rotting debris and two Trump-Vance signs posted to a pole in her yard.

Frustration with stopgap relief efforts has been exacerbated by confusion over where long-term help should come from. FEMA is meant to be a first line, providing temporary housing and funding for repairs while insurance foots most of the bill. It is not the message residents heard initially, when politicians, including then-President Joe Biden, who toured the damaged area, promised residents they would have whatever they needed.

As more time passes, the reality of long-term recovery has gotten complicated.

To Russell and many others, Trump saying he would consider eliminating FEMA made sense. To some experts and officials, however, that could cause more problems than it would solve.

Days after Trump took office on Jan. 20, he surveyed the fallout from wildfires in California and the hurricane in North Carolina and suggested that states primarily manage the response to natural disasters. As a candidate, he had disparaged FEMA's work in the southern states hit by Helene. That criticism, which began almost as soon as the wind stopped blowing, has not stopped.

More recently, FEMA was criticized by Trump adviser Elon Musk over payments to reimburse New York City for hotel costs for migrants. Four FEMA employees were fired, accused of circumventing leadership to make the transactions, which have been standard for years through a program that helps with costs to care for a surge in migration.

North Carolina's government estimated that Helene caused a record $59.6 billion in damages. FEMA has contributed almost $380 million through public assistance grants to the state and local governments, as well as approximately $372 million directly to North Carolinians as of Feb. 11, according to the agency. FEMA's responsibilities include direct financial assistance to individuals and reimbursements to governments for recovery tasks like debris removal and rebuilding roads.

Russell was confused when she was denied on her FEMA application, especially after she said an inspector told her the home was a complete loss. Rushing floodwaters tore off the side of her house, and heavy mud seeped inside, warping the floorboards and rendering most things unsalvageable. She thought the home she grew up in would be bulldozed.

Russell called FEMA and spoke with representatives in-person about her denied request. She said they told her she needed receipts for certain personal items, which she did not have.

“To keep being told it’s pending or not approved, it’s just, it’s just a devastating feeling,” Russell said. “I mean, you just feel lost.”

In Buncombe County, where Russell lives, about 70% of homeowners who registered with FEMA received some level of assistance, according to the agency's data. Approximately 91% of those approved received up to $10,000, while about 3.6% got between $25,000 and a maximum payment that would likely top out at a little over $40,000.

Danny Bailey, a 61-year-old Buncombe County retiree, said he received $42,500 after losing practically everything from flooding, including the trailer he lived in, his sister's double-wide mobile home and a barn. His family had moved to the property in 1968.

Bailey already spent some of his money on necessities, such as propane to make it through the winter. He lives in a donated trailer on his property, now a muddy, rutted expanse, and said FEMA "should’ve done more.”

“If this is the way they are, he ought to do away with them,” Bailey said of Trump, whose win in North Carolina helped propel him to victory in November.

Bailey ran into issues getting the money. A few days after Helene, he said a FEMA inspector came to his property and told him to go online to apply for disaster assistance, but Bailey had no computer or reliable cell service. He traveled almost 100 miles east to Statesville to use his nephew's computer, Bailey said, and then had problems getting clear answers from FEMA on his application status. Eventually, he received his money.

“Their attitude was, you know, this happened to you, but it's up to you to fix it. And I ain't the one who caused it," he said with a laugh.“Their attitude was, you know, this happened to you, but it's up to you to fix it. And I ain't the one who caused it," he said with a laugh.

Complaints about FEMA's application process are common because of the administrative hurdles in place to ensure applicants' eligibility, said Miyuki Hino, a city and regional planning professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. People may also believe FEMA should provide more assistance when its role is mainly to meet immediate needs such as shelter, Hino said.

There always has been an underlying tension on the federal government's role in natural disaster response, but Hino said the agency's increasing politicization could be attributed to the rising frequency of expensive disasters caused by climate change. Dissolving FEMA could create issues when disasters extend beyond state lines or localities need expertise on disasters they are not used to confronting.

Overall, eliminating FEMA would likely slow the recovery process for future disasters, she said.

FEMA's potential eradication worries Dalton George, the mayor pro tempore of Boone, a mountain town in Watauga County that was ravaged by Helene. Despite understandable frustrations, he said the agency moved quickly to help. It has contributed money for home restorations, as well as keeping several families in hotels under its transitory sheltering program, he said.

“It feels like people are more anti-FEMA than they are about actually solving some of these problems,” George said.

Responsibilities would be partly shifted onto local governments, and George said towns such as Boone do not have resources for that. Private organizations would need to step up more than they have, George said, and they already are overextended.

Vickie Revis relies heavily on private entities such as churches to supply almost everything on her property, including the trailer she stays in with her husband along the Swannanoa River. Her home of eight years was completely swept away by the river — something she used to associate with beauty and peace but now ties to “terror.”

“It’s like a friend that came in and robbed you of everything you have,” Revis said.

Her restoration process, however, will largely be funded by FEMA, as Revis said she received more than $40,000. She said she had no issues with how the agency handled her situation.

Instead, Revis talked at length about the grief she still lives with: lost pets; meaningful possessions that disappeared; home expansion plans to accommodate more family members that will not happen. She said she rarely left her trailer until recently because she could not bear to face the devastation.

Now, it is the rebuilding that keeps Revis going. How long will that go on?

“However long it takes,” she said.

Related article: Communities devastated by Helene continue to rebuild

Volunteers are getting muddy under homes to install moisture barriers in the Alan Campos neighborhood. (Photo credit: WLOS Staff)

SWANNANOA, N.C. (WLOS) — An immigrant community in Swannanoa still working to rebuild several mobile homes that were flooded during Helene, continues to get help from an international disaster relief group and volunteers from across the country.

Kirsty Greeno, a staff member with Core, pointed to a volunteer working in the mud who was setting up a moisture barrier underneath one of the homes.

"He's heading under to do some work; it's a bit of a muddy job today," Greeno said.

The Alan Campos community has come a long way since nearly two feet of Helene flood waters inundated every home in the lower part of the neighborhood.

Antonio Garcia, Program Manager for Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE), said they were the first group to make contact with them one week after the storm.

It was pretty sad, no one had been here to help this community.

"People were just in shock just out in the street — basically just with their belongings ruined inside their home," Garcia said.

Crews have been working alongside the blue-collar homeowners putting in the difficult work to repair the place they love and call home.

"We have so many people who also work in the trades that live here and they've been working alongside us," Greeno said. "Especially for the volunteers — it means something a lot more when you're working next to the person that’s going to be living there."

CORE estimated each home needs approximately $30,000 in materials alone, not including the cost of back-breaking work being done for free.

But that’s part of doing disaster relief, sometimes you get really inglorious jobs at inglorious times.

"And you still gotta get it done because the homeowners need it and that’s what’s most important," she said.

Robledo Perez, a homeowner in the community told us how feelings of panic turned into praise.

"We were shocked and sad because we had lost everything and we didn't know how to get everything back," Perez said.

But thanks be to God, God sent angels to this place and so we are going to be okay.

That grateful attitude fuels CORE's final stretch of work, which they said they hope to complete by early March.

"They're running out of time in hotels, and it's just basically our way of saying, 'Hey let's speed things up and let's get it done,'" Garcia said.

For more information about CORE and the work they are doing internationally, visit their website.

FEB. 11, 2025 - Katie McMullen has been running a donation tent site in the front yard of her home on Old US-70 for months since Hurricane Helene hit. (Photo credit: WLOS Staff)

SWANNANOA, N.C. (WLOS) — With heavy rain moving in, the forecast is front and center for many people in Western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.

“A lot of stuff goes through our minds with what we went through,” said Anthony Penland, Swannanoa fire chief. “They’re calling for some flash flooding, some flooding in different parts of the county.”

But in the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 11, the forecast shifted to lower rain forecast amounts, which is welcome news for many still trying to move past Helene's devastation.

“It is a little uneasy,” said Penland on concerns around whether areas with mudslides could see shifts with this week’s rains. “Yes, one of our concerns is the landslides.”

HEAVY RAIN FORECAST PROMPTS FLOOD FEARS, PTSD CONCERNS IN WNC COMMUNITIES

“Everything around here is coated with a thin layer of mud,” said Bradley Jones, a Western North Carolina resident.

Jones has owned his family farm for fifteen years. The acreage suffered extensive flooding, as well as his home, so he is currently living in a camper.

Jones said he is not as concerned about the rain as he is with the freezing temperatures. A few weeks ago, the frigid weather hit him hard while he stayed in his camper in Swannanoa, about a half-mile from his property.

Jones works at Blunt Pretzels, a restaurant that continues to provide free meals for anyone in need in the community each day.

“I was really appreciative of the almost three months of perfect weather we had after Helene,” said Jones.

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Katie McMullen has been running a donation tent site, giving away food and supplies, for months in the front yard of her home on Old US-70.

“Precipitation and I are not on great terms right now,” said McMullen. “There are more people coming than ever.”

McMullen continues to dedicate herself to making sure her free supplies are replenished.

Chief Penland, meanwhile, said he is grateful that Swannanoa Deputy Fire Chief Larry Pierson towed his heavy machinery to the fire department in case it is needed this week.

"We have our staff we can call back on an emergency basis," said Penland. "You have to think about what the people of Western North Carolina have been through and it’s still in the back of their minds. They don’t want to go through it again."