After Helene, a small North Carolina town starts recovery, one shovel of mud at a time

MARSHALL, N.C. - Dennis and Susan Rector's family sorted through their third-generation family department store along Main Street here on Tuesday, going through muddied family photos, old knick knacks and shoveling pounds and pounds and pounds of the sludge-like mud that has caked the town since the floods from Tropical Storm Helene receded.

"As bad as it looks, it feels like home now," Ryan Rector, Dennis and Susan's son, said of the Penland and Sons Department Store. "Sixteen years of my life before I got my driver's license I was in the store. Pretty much any day we were in the store."

The multi-generational Rector family — including Jackson Massey, 15, who was celebrating his birthday — were all at the store, shoveling mud, hacking at shelves and starting their first efforts at restoring the building.

In many ways, family coming together might be the best way of describing the current status of clean-up in Marshall, North Carolina.

While the destruction and detritus spread across the historic western North Carolina town may be part of Marshall's story after Tropical Storm Helene, the clean-up effort is entirely rooted in a community of residents and small business owners as they work to salvage and dig out of the totally washed-out town of roughly 800. Right now, with around 100 volunteers, Marshall is doing its recovery effort pretty much on its own.

As messages were spread on social media by the local government and the town fire department that a volunteer clean-up event was beginning, Matt Yeakley, the owner of Red Shed Woodworks and Construction, brought in his construction equipment at 7 a.m. on Monday.

By the next day, Yeakley was surveying the whole town and directing volunteers to chase water lines, shovel out mud and make way for heavey machinery. Aside from county-supplied fuel, a lot of equipment is just donated from the community, Yeakley said. As they've started cleaning, residents have set up numerous pop-up aid stations and cooking sites, where Krispy Kreme donuts and grilled food was being passed out to volunteers and passing residents.

Yeakley's role in the clean-up, which one volunteer, Madison County resident Van Hutchins, called "instrumental," was pretty informal. He just decided that it needed to start.

"Nobody appointed me to this position," Yeakley said. "You know, if somebody doesn't gain control of it, it's going to sit here for days.

As of Wednesday evening, Hurricane Helene and its aftermath had killed at least 162 across the southeastern United States and that toll was expected to mount as search and rescue efforts continue.

Yeakley said the flooding in downtown Marshall was "apocalyptic." Hot spots like Ponders Auto, where some noted getting their annual inspections done, and the Marshall Depot, a popular music venue in the town, are entirely gone. The buildings beside them are gone as well.

"Talked to the county manager. Asked if there was a plan — maybe there wasn't — and I took charge," he said. Yeakley said they needed more diesel, gloves and shovels.

Their goal right now is to get rid of the mud, he said.

Other buildings, like Marshall Town Hall — a building that also served as the headquarters for the Marshall Police Department — were decimated in the flood and unrecoverable. Amid the wreckage of the Town Hall, Ryan and Magon Hof were working to clear the rubble as they wanted to aid Chief of Police Kenny Brown as evidence and weapons were still in the building.

"I've seen war zones with less destruction," Ryan Hof said.

Strangers, friends help pick up the pieces

At the intersection of Main Street and Bailey's Branch Road, volunteers shovel, plow and scoop up the mud to the beat of music provided by local alternative radio DJ Chad Adamowski (also known as "Mr.Wilderness") and the beeping of dump trucks backing up.

Adamowski called his tattoo business on the corner his "entire autobiographical box" as friends Darci and Silvan DeWulf chipped in by helping him haul refrigerators, antique furniture and various knick knacks from the shop, Natural Canvas Tattoo, as they race against mold and bacteria forming.

In one room, the flood destroyed shelves, trinkets, and tattoo equipment. However, model planes and different science fiction memorabilia still remain. Considering the floods have taken lives in the area, Adamowski just expressed appreciation to be there and to still have a home standing in Marshall.

"To have four walls and a roof is like survivors' guilt," Adamowski said, noting that he feels the community has "trauma bonded" in the experience. He hoped the community could be provided more resources and cash as they sought to rebuild.

For the DeWulfs, as much as the buildings may make up Marshall, the people are the town. They've come out to support each other, friends.

"It's not like this anonymous destruction. These are people that you've known for a long time," Darci DeWulf, a Marshall resident said.

Another business owner impacted by the flood is Josh Copus, who is one of the three owners of the Old Marshall Jail, which now functions as a restaurant and hotel. He said the only time the recovery effort has been difficult so far has been when he has stepped away from it.

"This is our life. This is our world and it's hard to not be here in it," he said.

Inside the building, the wreckage can only be described as mucky devastation. Water damage stretched to the ceiling of the building, where paint flecked off as mud covered the walls and floors of the building. Copus had first returned to his business on Saturday, Sept. 28, when the water was still up to his waist, to begin the effort by saving numerous historical documents related to the storied 1905 jail.

The only relief was that Copus had help in the form of extensive community support. Friends, family and strangers shoveled what could have been a ton of mud out of the building.

"I mean, people that I did not know came here and shoveled mud for 12 hours," Copus said. "If there's anything to takeaway from this so far is that we are so thankful for our friends, neighbors and community."

'Climate change is real'

Another worry was about whether the future of the town might be tied to more frequent flooding events and climate change. Though the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration only measured the Marshall flooding at 20.08 feet, the old jail has a large measuring stick attached to it to regularly measure floods in the town that has experienced partial floods from time to time.

Copus pointed out that the water line on the measuring stick was not at 20 feet. It was at 27, above the windows of the Old Marshall Jail, far above the record 1916 of 22 feet.

"You know, climate change is real," Copus said. "This goes to show the level of destruction here that is completely unprecedented."

Though Susan Rector described the first experience of seeing her department store devastated as leaving her "numb," the family is hopeful with the back of the community.

"Everybody is helping everybody," Dennis Rector said.

His son, Ryan Rector agreed, but the community still needs more resources.

"If you're an able-bodied person, go to Marshall. I know there's a lot of other areas that need help too. Go to those places if you're close to them," he said. "I know we need water. We need gloves. We need equipment."

Will Hofmann is the Growth and Development Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Reach him at [email protected] and consider supporting this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.