“Hard to comprehend”

Blue smoke rises from smoldering heaps of rubble in a tiny neighborhood about 12 miles southeast of Asheville, N.C. Workmen are burning fallen trees and mounds of tangled debris.

This is Craigtown—or what remains of it. On Sept. 27, Hurricane Helene’s heavy rainfall triggered a landslide that crushed a cluster of homes on land owned by the Craig family since the mid-1900s. The disaster claimed the lives of 13 people. Now, a jagged scar in the earth splits the landscape as far as the eye can see.

Bryan Craig, 53, stands on the edge of the precipice with squared shoulders and a set jaw. Craig, a P.E. teacher and football coach at nearby A.C. Reynolds High School, lost his parents and nine other family members in the mudslide.

Craig is a man of few words under normal circumstances. For this unthinkable scenario, he has none. But he’s still standing, and he’s still here, determined to help his remaining family members move toward healing and stability.

Debris and items from homes swept away by a mudslide in Craigtown. Photo by Grace Snell

Across Western North Carolina, residents face a long, grueling road toward lasting recovery. Helene’s fury left at least 103 people dead in North Carolina and destroyed an estimated 126,000 homes across the state. Asheville locals only regained potable drinking water on Nov. 18, nearly two months after the hurricane.

Growing up here in the 1970s and ’80s, Craig spent his time fishing in the stream and playing with cousins who are like brothers to him. Back then, Craigtown was the kind of place where kids often went in to eat at whichever house was closest when dinnertime came. Craig moved to nearby Fletcher a few years after college but still came back to visit often.

Before Helene, Craig said no one imagined something like this could happen. In his two decades living in Craigtown, he’d never even seen their little stream flood its banks. Plus, the community had weathered its share of blizzards and hurricanes before. Craig said his worst fear as Helene raced up from Florida was that a tree might fall on his parents’ house.

The morning the storm hit, Craig was one of about 1.5 million people in Western North Carolina who lost power. He didn’t have cell service, either. He tried driving up to Craigtown to make sure everyone was OK, but severe flooding forced him back. “Cane Creek looked like the Ohio River,” he recalled.

Workers make piles of debris ready to burn as they clean up the damage in Craigtown. Photo by Grace Snell

A scene of utter devastation met Craig when he made it to Craigtown the following day. “Whatever you think bad is—it’s worse,” he said. “It’s just hard to comprehend.” An old oak tree was the only thing still standing on his parents’ property. Their home, along with several others, was “totally gone.”

Gone, too, were the people who lived in them: Craig’s parents, his aunt and uncle, his great-aunt and -uncle, and five cousins. Two in the group died trying to rescue another person. Surviving family members tried desperately to contact Craig after watching the slide sweep away their loved ones.

Together, the surviving Craigs started picking through the rubble, searching for the bodies of their loved ones. Crews from Vermont and Alabama pitched in, and cadaver dogs sniffed through the wreckage. It took about 10 days, but eventually, they were able to find all the missing people’s remains.

Those who survived the landslide now face complicated decisions about what to do next. Craig said most of his family members will leave. One of his cousins, who lost his home, has already moved to nearby Mills River where he bought a house and now has to start paying off a mortgage all over again.

But at least one cousin has decided to stay. He lost his parents in the landslide, but couldn’t bear to leave the home his dad built.

Standard homeowners insurance doesn’t cover landslides, so the Craigs have started raising recovery funds through a GoFundMe campaign. Craig said he also hopes to set up some kind of Craigtown disaster relief bank account to help his family members get back on their feet.

Craig said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) told him he isn’t eligible for any reimbursement for his parents’ house. That means any inheritance Craig would have received from his parents is completely gone.

“That’s really hard,” Craig said, thinking of his own children. “I’m a father, and when I leave this world, I want to leave them something. And my parents, I know, felt the same way.”

Both Craig’s parents turned 73 this year. His dad, Jimmy Souther, loved working on cars but downgraded to repairing lawn mowers and weed eaters in his later years. His mom, Lois, was an avid hummingbird watcher and loved seeing the tiny birds flit among her collection of feeders.

Craig’s parents especially loved A.C. Reynolds, where he coaches, and regularly attended his students’ baseball and football games. The end of the football season won’t feel the same without them sitting in the bleachers.

Most Craigtown residents are still in survival mode—they haven’t had the time or energy to think much further than their next right steps. Craig hasn’t decided what he’ll do with his family’s 20 acres of land. But there is one promise he’s determined to make good on. “I told one of my cousins, we’re gonna make this place look beautiful again,” Craig said. “Somehow.”