On September 27, 2024, raging floodwaters on the Nolichucky River wiped out homes, churches and businesses in the town of Erwin, Tenn. Around 60 people had to be rescued from the roof of Unicoi County Hospital by air.
John Hilemon II, a local hay farmer and volunteer fireman who owns land in Erwin, Unicoi and Jonesborough, lost his livelihood to the flood. When WUOT News first met him last year, he had yet to receive any help from the state and federal government, and worried he would have to take out millions of dollars in loans to begin recovery.
One year later, I met John on his family farm to check on his progress. Here’s his story, in his own words:
Hi, my name is John Hilemon. I'm from Erwin, Tennessee. I own a farm up here.
The day of Helene, I was at work in Kingsport. A lot of friends, they started contacting me, telling me what was going on. It was utter disbelief in that moment. After hearing the news of Helene, I come back to Erwin to see what I could do to help and got to see firsthand the devastation while it was going on.
When I come back from Kingsport, all access to my home was cut off – most importantly, my farm as well. Other than farming and my career, I'm a volunteer fireman, so my first thought process was report into the fire station to see what I could do to help. At that time, you know, we started furthering our evacuation efforts, trying to get to areas where we knew people were to try and get them away from danger zones. Because at that point in time the water had already come up so far, and we didn't really know where the danger zone was anymore.
So we just started a major evacuation. I assisted with the hospital evacuation. The second day before I was able to finally make it home, I took excavators and heavy machinery that I had located on my farm here, and proceeded to dig back out. We cleared two miles of roadway that day. Finally was able to get access back into my home, where my grandparents and my parents naturally were. So that's kind of day one and day two.
In everything that you saw during the flooding and immediately after, what was your reaction to everything? What did you think?
Well, you would have thought you were in a movie. That's the best way that I can sum it up. So, you know, when I left everything was completely natural, normal, nothing out of the ordinary. And then I come back, and the water is almost at the same level as the interstate. That was a big, big change, right there.
As the day went on, when the hospital got surrounded with water, you know, the Black Hawks come in. You know, you're watching Blackhawks fly back and forth. You know what's going on, but you don't know how to help, because nothing like this has ever happened before. Kind of just stuck and didn't really know what to do. It's like watching a movie scene pull together. When I went down the interstate, you know, I was looking over towards my property to see what I could see. And, you know, everything that I knew and everything that I had was underwater. So at that point, I knew what was ruined, but the extent of it I never could have imagined.
So in those following weeks, how did you even start rebuilding?
You know, mom always told me to cry in one hand, and I'll leave the other part out of it, and see which one fills up first. And you know, that's just what we done. We put our boots on, we got to work.
We started down there at the immediate affected areas. You know, the most important thing was to start getting the road back in here, getting that cleaned up. Obviously, you know, we had animals down there. Needed to get them a place where, you know, they weren't trudging through the mud. That was priority number two. After that, we started moving towards, you know, clearing out equipment that was ruined. We started getting what little supplies we could – fence and stuff, things like that – and moving it down there to where we could easily access it.
The very last thing was fixing hay fields, things like that. You know, one thing I did get out of the flood that I didn't have before is I gained a lot of friends. I'm blessed for that opportunity, and blessed for the people that I got to know. It was horrible, what happened. It's horrible for not only the loss of life, the loss of personal equipment, family heirlooms, things like that. But I think this region's really saw how many people do care about us.
We can be called the armpit of the universe, but there are still some people that watch out for us. When you take a week off to go help somebody else, you've taken time away from your family to help somebody else, and that truly means the world to me, and I'll never forget that.
Have you received any assistance from the state or FEMA? How's that been?
Yes, the state did come forth with a lot of grant opportunities. We were blessed with the ability to get on some of those and receive some assistance through those programs. That's kindly the worst part: having to get stuff like that approved. So that comes sometime later. But believe me, it’s a relief when it comes through.
How far have you come in the rebuilding process? Just give me sort of a stock of where you're at right now.
If I was just giving a rough estimation – and just talking rough numbers here – I would say we're 65% of the way back there. Considering we were coming from about 20 to 30% you know, we're doing very good. Hopefully next year, if we talk again, we'll have it 100% and I can tell you that we're back to where we were pre-flood. Which we won't ever be back to where we were pre-flood. But we've got to find the new normal; the new 100%.
The region is kind of having to take a step back and say, ‘well, what is our new normal?’ Even if you weren't outright affected by the flood, although you might not have lost property or may not have even had family that was affected, we went through a time period where the interstate was shut down. All the traffic went through Erwin. We had to find our way through that. We had to find our way through everything.
And, you know, the entire region – we're finding the new normal.
So were y'all able to produce any product this year at all?
Yes, yes. This year, actually, our first cutting of hay was some of the best we've ever had. It was in our top three years of production. As far as numbers-wise, you know, the numbers don't lie, [it was] very good quality hay. Actually, some of it got sent off to the State Fair to be judged for hay quality.
Naturally, I lost out on production on Jonesborough farm. There was no hay done on it this year. The worst part of the flood was it not only affected me, but it also affected the people I supplied. And to be able to see them get to come back and see their trucks coming down the road to pick up a load of hay and stuff like that; that boosts morale a lot. It really does. It really does. You know, we were talking about the new normal just a minute ago. You know, that's getting back to what the old normal was.
What does healing after Helene mean to you?
Healing after Helene, what it means to me, is just finding our way. You know, we had the old normal. We're moving forward on the new normal, and we're just going to have to be open minded and accept what the new normal is. You know, we will never go back. All we can do is look forward. Time always marches on.
This interview and transcript have been lightly edited for clarity.
