A sign outside the PackRats surplus store on Main Street in Newland reads “29 years 3 floods we are still here.” It comes after Hurricane Helene struck a year ago.
“We had seen some storms, but nothing ever like that,” a smiling Julie Vernable said. “I was standing in waist deep waters, wasn’t expecting that.”
One year ago, the water came. Not a gentle rise of the river, but a vengeful surge of brown, silt-choked fury, sent down from the mountains by the remnants of Hurricane Helene. It poured into the low-lying parts of Newland, Avery County, a place where people lived and worked for generations, trusting the land beneath their feet.
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