Asheville, North Carolina
CNN
—

No electricity. No food. And there are no functioning roads to safely leave the homes where they are stranded.

These are the conditions some North Carolinians are facing amid the worst flooding from Tropical Depression Helene.

Jennifer Replogle, a pregnant mother of two young children, is “completely trapped” in her home above Boone in Tater Hill, North Carolina, at an elevation of 4,200 feet, where severe flooding from tropical storms is not the norm.

“We weren’t prepared for this,” she said via text message early Saturday morning. “The streets have disappeared, almost completely disappeared.”

The power has been out since early Friday, she said. According to poweroutage.us, she was among 700,000 North Carolinians without power Saturday morning, including 19,226 in Watauga County, where Tater Hill is located.

Replogle said she was out of food and water.

The few narrow, winding roads from the mountain to Boone are impassable, she said.

“Our basement was flooded yesterday. If they don’t bring someone in soon, I really don’t know what I’m going to do,” Replogle said.

She is worried about the plumbing and water supply company that she and her husband own. They’ve seen a photo of the company’s flooded parking lot and fear “we’ve lost almost everything.”

Your employees are also trapped at home or with friends, Replogle said.

Watauga County Authorities According to a post on the county emergency services Facebook page, a curfew is in effect from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. The post mentioned “dangerous conditions,” “compromised roads,” and “ongoing emergency operations.”

And the city of Boone issued a boil water warning Friday due to “multiple water interruptions,” according to the city’s Facebook page.

Helene made landfall for the first time in Florida on Thursday evening as a Category 4 hurricane, destroying homes and buildings and knocking out power across the Southeast. The storm killed at least 59 people in five states.

Helene “is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of North Carolina,” Gov. Roy Cooper said. More than 2 feet of rain fell in the mountainous region of the state from Wednesday morning through Friday morning, with 29.58 inches of rain falling in just 48 hours in Busick, a small unincorporated area in Yancey County on Tennessee’s western border.

More than 400 roads in western North Carolina remain closed, the state Department of Transportation said Saturday morning. “All roads in Western NC should be considered closed,” the post on X reads.

The storm has put other North Carolina residents in life-threatening situations.

Sofia Grace Kunst, an 18-year-old who was on a mission trip in Black Mountain, told CNN that a landslide broke through a window Friday morning and poured into her dining room.

“It wasn’t just like it was trickling down… like it had momentum! It worked! Maybe between five and six feet,” Kunst said of the mud.

Kunst was playing the card game Uno with six of her friends in a small room in the dining room when the landslide broke the window.

“When you look back, you just see it pouring into the room and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I was there two seconds ago,'” Kunst told CNN.

She ran into the main dining room to find that the wall had also completely collapsed.

Kunst and her friends eventually decided to hike through the floodwaters to get to a higher parking lot where their vans were parked. She was so afraid for her life that she texted her parents, she said.

“I actually sent a text saying, ‘Hey, so this storm isn’t fun anymore.’ “I love you,” said Kunst. “Of course you can’t regret anything when you’re dead, but I would regret it if I didn’t say anything.”

Eventually, Kunst and her friends managed to cross a body of water, holding on to a rope as they crossed from one end to the other. At this point, Kunst was still barefoot.

Asheville resident Matt Lewis described the “pure chaos” left behind by the storm.

He told CNN he saw a semi-truck floating down the French Broad River on Friday, which he described as “pretty wild.”

Lewis said he had no power or cell service. He relies on radio as his only source of updates about the devastation.

He said he saw about 400 people in line when he went to the grocery store.

“I think they let 15 to 20 people in at a time,” Lewis said.

Another North Carolina resident, Patrick McNamara, the owner of a small milk distribution business in Asheville, told CNN his business was devastated by flooding when the storm hit.

As day dawned on Saturday, McNamara got his first glimpse of the destruction Helene had left in her wake. “The floodwaters were four feet above the dock,” McNamara told CNN. “So the entire building was destroyed.”

The plant’s machinery was scattered throughout the camp, the milk was spoiled, and the floor was covered in inches of mud. He estimates he has thousands of gallons of milk to get rid of. “Here’s our cooler, this is the rest of the inventory that’s not in the middle of the road out there,” McNamara said as he walked through the warehouse.

He says his biggest problem is cleaning up the mud that has flooded into the camp. “It was two to three inches solid,” he said, taking a shovel and starting to push mud across the ground. “You know, it’s not an easy cleanup job.”

Flood water burst over the five-foot loading dock and inundated the building with an estimated four feet of water, McNamara said. It is unknown when resources such as water and electricity will be available again. McNamara said they may need to consider temporarily relocating the business to another facility.

“We’re looking at some locations in Asheville. We’re here to stay, but it’s a tough and unique business,” McNamara said. “So not everyone has the facilities that meet our needs.”

Rainfall amounts of up to 1 inch are expected for some parts of western North Carolina, including Asheville, over the weekend. The governor said in a post on X Saturday morning that “there is still significant danger from this storm.”

In McDowell County, which borders Yancey, more than 20 air rescues have been performed since early Saturday morning, according to local authorities.

McDowell County’s 911 center is inundated with calls every hour, many of them involving patients “suffering from severe trauma and running out of oxygen or vital medical supplies,” the agency said.

“In many areas, emergency responders are unable to reach those in need due to massive landslides, downed trees, power lines and severely flooded roads,” the agency added.