On the morning of September 27, Deanna Wolfe was in her mobile home, a house that she loved, when Helene hit Damascus. “It had been raining a couple days. And I just happened to look out the window. And I said, there’s water, brown water rushing in.”
Wolfe was on the phone with a friend from church. “She said, ‘well where’s it coming from?’ And I said, ‘well it’s coming from the other side of the park.’ And I said, ‘it’s really coming fast.’ And she said, ‘grab what you can. We’ll be right there.’”
Meanwhile, up the mountain in a nearby community called Taylor’s Valley, Linda and Carl McMurray ran upstairs, as floodwaters swept into the first floor of their home.
“Carl looked over at me and he said, ‘We’re floating.’ And our whole house was moving,” Linda McMurray recalled.
And then their house split in two. Linda was tossed into her sewing room, while Carl fell into the raging water below.
“I went under the water and that’s the time I thought I was gonna drown. Before I got up to the surface and got some air. And I guess that cold water kept me from passing out. From there I swam as hard as I could and still almost didn’t make it,” said Carl McMurray.
In this episode, we hear how the McMurray's survived the flood, and how rescuers saved an 11-year-old boy in Marion. He was pulled into several culverts and traveled 1000 feet downstream.
Residents and first responders explain that they were surprised by the magnitude of this storm.
“I think it’s unprecedented for our generation. Even with strong storms, we don’t see storms that have quite that impact,” said Rusty Hamm, chief at Marion Fire and EMS at Marion Virginia, whose team helped rescue the boy.
Also in this episode, we follow survivors in the days after the flood, as they began assessing the damage.
83-year-old Elizabeth King had lived most of her life along the New River in Wythe County. At first, she resisted leaving, in part because her husband is buried next to her house in a waterproof casket. But as water began pouring into her home, her daughters persuaded her to evacuate.
She moved in with her daughter Kathy.
“Everything’s gone,” King said.
When her daughters returned to assess the damage, they discovered that their father’s grave hadn’t been touched by the flood.
“We promised our daddy on his dying bed we’d take care of her, and that’s what we intend to do,” Kathy King said.
Though her daughters were more than willing to keep her with them, Elizabeth King was determined to go back to her own home. But rebuilding was not, and never is, immediate, and it would be 11 months until she could move back home.
For others, it was impossible to go back. In Damascus, a friend took Deanna Wolfe to look at what was left at the mobile home park where she’d been living for 14 years. Her home was the only one still standing, but the land beneath it had washed away, and most of her belongings were destroyed.
She said she didn’t just lose her home, but also her community. She had close-knit neighbors that felt like family.
“I never dreamed anything like that would ever happen,” Wolfe said. “And it just completely destroyed the park. All the houses that were in there were swept down. They were all wrapped around the trees, down on the other end where all the trees were. And everything was washed away.”
It wasn’t clear how long it would take for federal assistance to become available.
“People said, ‘well what are you gonna do?’ I said, ‘I have no idea,’” Wolfe recalled.
Damascus town leadership and volunteers began holding meetings. All the buildings in downtown Damascus had been damaged in the flood, so they hosted meetings in the town park.
This section of town had actually flooded during a previous flood in 1977, but because of mitigation work the town, and the Army Corps of Engineers, did to repair the streambank, the park was untouched by Helene.
Damascus town manager Chris Bell recalls that at one of those first town meetings, a group of organizers from White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia came to share their experience of helping each other after their community was flooded in 2016.
“And literally passed out a spreadsheet, a how-to guide, of what exactly they did,” Bell described. “And that was very powerful. And several local residents kind of took that to heart and said hey we can do that.”
Inspired by what worked in West Virginia, residents in Damascus created a non-profit, called Trails to Recovery. Local faith groups joined with the Mennonite Disaster Service, and began raising money to help survivors repair and rebuild their homes.
They raised nearly $1.7 million in private donations and rebuilt 91 homes in Washington County. Including one for Linda and Carl McMurray, the couple in Taylor’s Valley who were separated during the flood.
“These houses are rated for a category 4 hurricane,” said Carl McMurray. “And it’s a solid. Just all you need. It doesn’t have a lot of frills. But it’s a good house. And they built it in three months.”
The McMurray’s received assistance from FEMA. But this funding doesn’t cover all the costs, points out Damascus town manager Chris Bell. “And a non-profit can work outside those restrictions and move in an expeditious manner,” Bell said.
So the newly formed non-profit, Trails to Recovery, was able to cover the gaps and move quickly. Volunteers did all the labor, says Carl McMurray.
“Help came from everywhere,” said McMurray. “It didn’t matter what school you went to, what political party. Or what church. Everybody pitched in and helped. And that just shows you the goodness in the country, even though we dwell on a lot of the negatives.”
One of the volunteers was 73-year-old Mary Gale in Damascus. Like many, she spent months mucking out buildings and rebuilding homes.
“The Lord blessed me with being small enough and agile enough, that I could get underneath the houses and pull out all the old insulation and the duckwork and the sticks and everything,” Gale said. “And I wore my mud well,” she added, laughing.
In addition to cleaning out wet insulation from flooded homes, Gale also helped drive Amish and Mennonite volunteers when they needed groceries or supplies.
“They loved the mountains. They loved hiking. They would take off as soon as they finished their meal, as quickly as they finished their meal. That was after working all day,” Gale said. “I could be in a horrible mood. And I could join them and within an hour I was at total peace.”
Helene didn’t only destroy homes. The entire water system that supplied Damascus needed to be rebuilt. Bridges were washed out. Hundreds of roads in Virginia were damaged or destroyed.
The tourism industry also took an enormous hit from Helene.
Most of the small businesses in Damascus rely on bike riders from the Virginia Creeper Trail, which was severely damaged in the storm. After Helene, some business owners weren’t sure if they could reopen.
David Phillips works at Adventure Damascus Bicycles, one of several bike rental businesses in town that used to bring tourists to the top of the mountain to ride down into Damascus.
“And at the end of the week, Michael, our owner, he called everybody in and laid everybody off,” Phillips recalled. “He’s like, ‘guys I think that’s it. This is just completely done.’ 27 years. We were all rather surprised. I’m even choked up about it.”
The damaged section was through the top half of the Creeper trail, which is the most popular. On this stretch, you can ride downhill through the national forest. On the bottom half, between Abingdon and Damascus, you have to peddle a little harder. That part of the trail did reopen, and Adventure Damascus began shuttling bikers to Abingdon.
“And it was like a glimmer of hope,” said Phillips. “Though, we still didn’t know what the new normal was gonna be like. It’s just, so many people ride the upper half of the trail.”
After the flood, Scott Little and his wife’s small shop, Green Cove Collective, closed. They had been set up along the Creeper Trail, at the Green Cove stop between the top of Whitetop Mountain and Damascus.
“And we were basically a general supply for all the bicyclists that came down the trail,” Little described. “So, coffee, hot chocolate, had a wood burning stove. People could warm up, get snacks, take a break.”
They did some brainstorming. And eventually decided to move their business down to Damascus, at least until the Creeper Trail is fully repaired.
“We’ve had to pivot and shift the way we think about retail here in this location because the customer needs are different,” Little said. “So we have to adjust accordingly. And we also have to adjust our expectations. We go from 250,000 people a year riding this trail to a fraction of that post Helene.”
They sell different things now too. More clothing, some vintage camping and hiking gear, since Damascus attracts hikers from the Appalachian Trail, which runs through town. Little said he hopes businesses here can stay open, but it’s been tough.
“And it is quiet and sleepy right now, and there are days when some of these shops make a hundred bucks and they barely make enough to pay rent,” Little said. “That’s gonna be what it’s gonna be for awhile, until the trail’s back.”
Their shop isn’t the only new business in Damascus. Angie Wood is co-owner of Bad Bagels Pet Emporium. She said after Helene, the town’s coffee and ice cream shop invited them to share their space. Both businesses help pay expenses and are hoping they can help each other get through the economic slump.
“And so, it’s really fun,” Wood said. “We can come in, you can shop for your pet, but you can also grab some amazing deserts, ice creams, coffees, that are all made in house. We hope that in the next two years, when the Creeper Trail is back, the entire town will come back in full force. But for now, we’re having to get creative. This is one example of how as a town, we’re trying to stay alive."
A few weeks ago, a new fly fishing shop opened in Damascus. The town has started organizing new events this year to promote the area’s draw as a trout fishing destination.
Congress allocated money to rebuild the Creeper Trail, and the forest service estimates the project will take hundreds of millions of dollars. It may fully reopen in fall of 2026, but with the extent of the damage, the work could stretch into 2027.
There is still a lot of work ahead, but Bell and others in Damascus say they feel more hopeful now about the town’s future.
Music in this episode is by Trevor McKenzie, Justin Faircloth, and Buddy Holler Studios in Lansing, NC. Other music was by Mark Handy, Ethan Grillo, Ivy Shephard and the South Carolina Broadcasters and Monplaisir.
