One year ago, Hurricane Helene devastated the communities of Neva, Butler and Trade in Johnson County. Many families lost their homes and all of their belongings to raging floodwaters that pooled in the valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Allyson Felty is a young mother of two kids living in Trade. When Helene swept through, it destroyed her childhood home that she and her family were living in. One year later, she’s eager to move into a new home, and to be able to provide for her family once again.
Here is Allyson’s story, in her own words:
My name is Allyson Felty. I am a native here in Johnson County. A little bit about me: I went to Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, met my husband. We lived in Maryville, which is outside of Knoxville, for five or six years and moved back here because this was an area that we both loved. We knew this was where we wanted to raise our kids, and this was the area that we wanted to influence the way that they became humans.
The day of the hurricane, we were actually getting ready to celebrate my son's third birthday. His birthday was the 28th of September, so we were in full birthday party mode. We woke up that morning because the power went out. So of course, with two small kids, everybody's awake when the power goes out. We ended up going back to sleep because everything was fine. You know, there's a little bit of rain. Didn't think anything about it.
And then we woke up about an hour later. The creek in front of our house had crested the bank, and so we were, you know, starting to be a little concerned, because that doesn't happen all that often. And about an hour after that, the water was up into the yard, almost to our deck. Our house sat about 50 yards off the creek. And my husband looked at me, and he said, ‘get the kids, get the dog, let's get in the car, we’re going to town.’
My parents lived here in town, so we knew we had somewhere to go. And by the time we got kids in the car – maybe 20 minutes later – the water was calf-deep in the driveway as we were putting kids in the car. I grew up in that house, and I'd never seen water like that. I remember the fear. I'd never seen anything like that before, and knew that this was different.
So we came to town. A sheriff's deputy stopped us and said they're not letting anybody back into town due to trees that were coming down on the highway. My husband looked at him and said, ‘I'm really sorry.’ Like, ‘we can't go back. We have kids. We're not going back.’ And so basically he told us, ‘well, I advise you not to go, but I can't stop you. I won't stop you,’ which we were very grateful for that.
So we managed to get behind a couple vehicles coming into town along the highway, and my husband got out of the vehicle, helped them cut and move trees. Every time they moved one, two more fell. It took us almost an hour to get less than 10 miles down the road to town, and I remember looking out the window at the destruction, already, before the waters had really become deadly.
It was terror. It was terror. And mostly because of the unknown. I never would have expected anything to that magnitude.
And so we made it to town. We just kind of hunkered down at my parents and my husband and my dad and my husband's dad went out the next day to see if they could go look at the house. By that point, the road was gone at Antioch, and they walked two or three miles back uphill along the highway to see the house.
When my husband came back, he looked at me and he said, ‘I've never experienced anything like that.’ He goes, ‘it's like a bomb went off.’ He goes, ‘everything was so quiet.’ He did a really good job of shielding me from the damage of the home that I grew up in. But seeing pictures, it was devastating.
Nothing can prepare you for the destruction, and not just our house, but, you know, other homes that I have grown up seeing my whole life that were gone or damaged. And people displaced. And you know, water got between six-and-a-half-feet in the house. Water had never been in that house before, and water hit from at least two directions.
So where did you go in those days and weeks after the flood? I mean, did you stay with your parents?
We are living with my parents. We’ve been with my parents for almost a year. We have two small kids. They’ll be four and two at the end of this month. And it’s been a long year. We definitely feel nothing but gratitude that my parents were in a position to be able to take us in.
It’s been very humbling. But also, I can’t – even with all the destruction – I can’t feel anything but gratitude for the people in our immediate area, for people outside of our area and for people across the country that want to help.
You know, God is so good. And he has provided. He has provided to us more than I could have ever imagined.
I imagine that with your home being flooded, you lost most – if not all – of your belongings. Is that right?
We lost most everything. My son had some things upstairs that we were able to save. We were able to save a few things that were handed down from my husband's side of the family – very grateful for that. But we lost a couple of vehicles. My husband lost two work trucks.
But it's all stuff. We didn't lose people. You know, I woke up the next day and I still had both my kids. And I had my husband, and I had my parents, and I had my sisters, and they had their families. And the rest is just things.
So, in the months following, where did you get support? What groups were helpful?
The community has been so great. And anything that we've needed, we have been able to find a resource for – either through the Long Term Recovery Group or First Christian Church. We have some friends in the community that own businesses that were able to start some fundraisers for us and really help us get back on our feet and get the things that the kids needed.
We've had tons of neighbors that showed up and left bags of clothes for my kids. Their kids had just outgrown those sizes and said, ‘here,’ you know, ‘take.’ And there really hasn't been a time that we have said, ‘oh my gosh, how are we going to do this,’ you know, ‘how are we going to get X, Y and Z for the kids, for us?’ And I feel very blessed for that.
Where are you at now? I hear you’re about to get a new home.
We are, yeah. So we bought a Clayton back in January. It was delivered to the property at the beginning of July, and so we've been finishing up getting our water and our septic and all of those other things that we need to be able to move in. But we're so close, and I know that once we get into our new house, it's gonna solidify this. We made it, you know, and I know that there are a lot of other people that are still working on that journey, and so I feel very grateful that just a year out we've been able to get there and provide that normal back for our family.
What does healing after Helene mean to you?
Healing after Helene means to me feeling comfortable in where I live, feeling safe and seeing my community come together to support each other. And continuing to do that even after the detrimental impacts of this disaster.
This interview and transcript were lightly edited for clarity.
