Shari Cummings / Provided
CV NEWS FEED // Recovery from Helene continues in North Carolina 11 weeks after the tropical storm brought catastrophic flooding to the western region of the state, claiming lives, homes, and businesses.
Despite losing almost everything in the flood, Shari Cummings, who lives in Chimney Rock Village, says she’s one of the lucky ones.
For 27 years, Cummings had never seen water enter her residence or business in the quaint but popular mountain town. That all changed Sept. 27 when the roaring rapids of a 35-foot storm surge gushed past her shop and home below, ripping away all her belongings and decades of hard work.
Cummings, her husband, Robert, and Max Gonzalez, their business partner, own The Hickory Nut, a gift shop that faces Main Street in Chimney Rock Village. Their home under the shop looks out onto the Rocky Broad River — what many consider the epicenter of Helene devastation in North Carolina.
“We’re a very small town, but I would say almost everyone has damage, and anybody on the river side is pretty much not there anymore or in really sad shape,” Cummings told CatholicVote in a recent interview. “[Nearby] Lake Lure has damage too, but we were basically ground zero.”
The shop owners stayed awake the night of Sept. 26 checking for water but eventually fell asleep. At 8:30 a.m. the next day, Cummings awoke to find water dribbling into the kitchen, which is a few feet lower than the rest of the house. They began to take items and their cat, Soffee, upstairs before conditions worsened.
“Then we started watching the flood and filming,” Cummings recalled. “I was filming straight out, and a house was coming down the river and then I looked down and that’s why the phone went down. Our refrigerator floated out from below … it floated out of the kitchen and went downstream. I looked down and said, ‘That’s our fridge!’”
That’s when the owners decided to get out of the building. They left with Soffee at 10 a.m. and sat in their car. Just 15 minutes later, the building collapsed.
“We were very, very lucky,” Cummings said of their narrow escape.
Tropical Storm Helene’s waters roar past The Hickory Nut gift shop and its owners’ home Sept. 27 in Chimney Rock Village, North Carolina. Videos provided to CatholicVote by Shari Cummings
She then explained how four bridges gave way under the pressure of the water, contributing to the catastrophic storm surge.
“The first one let go, the second one let go, the third one let go, and then all the debris was pushing against the fourth bridge, which is a steel girder bridge that went the whole length of the river. That caused the dam and when that let go, we had probably had a 35-foot surge,” Cummings recalled. “It gutted the bottom of the house and it took out all the supports on the top.”
The building was condemned and later demolished. Cummings said Spokes of Hope completed the job for free Dec. 7. She added that the organization has been “working nonstop for months cleaning up the homes and businesses that could be saved.”
Cummings noted her gratitude for being alive and for the clothes and financial donations she has received from neighbors and shop patrons, including some supporters outside the state. Trying to rebuild her home and business has been extremely difficult.
Like others in Chimney Rock, the co-owners of The Hickory Nut have been waiting nearly three months after the storm for any substantial assistance from the federal government and an answer on their flood insurance claim. They have held a policy since they bought the property in 1997.
So far, Cummings said she has received $750 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and that the agency initially informed them there is “no more money.” She added that they are still filing paperwork with FEMA and the Small Business Administration (SBA).
In November, Chimney Rock Mayor Peter O’Leary joined a western North Carolina delegation in Washington, D.C., where they met with President Joe Biden and took part in a roundtable with federal agency representatives.
“The western NC delegation suggested ways to streamline FEMA, encouraged increasing aid for private roads/bridges, extending deadlines from six months to one year or more, removing restrictions on SBA funding and loans for small businesses, additional assistance with debris removal, and discussed other issues slowing down recovery,” O’Leary wrote in a statement shared on the town’s Facebook page.
Friends and neighbors continue to help the owners of The Hickory Nut. They received a grant from the Chimney Rock Disaster Relief Fund to create a new garden and replace some of their inventory.
Marietta Melendez, an employee of The Hickory Nut, set up a GoFundMe page for the shop owners, who are now living in a one-room cabin on land they own in Hendersonville where they had been growing flowers and herbs to sell at the shop.
“This was a family owned business where the owners, Max Gonzalez and Shari and Robert Cummings, were 100% hands on every single day of the week,” Melendez wrote on the webpage. “It was their love, pride and joy. A place where they were reminded daily, by returning patrons, how fantastic the store was and how much they looked forward to coming each year they visited Lake Lure.”
‘Operation Shelter’ provides safety, warmth through RVs to vulnerable in Western North Carolina
