Note: These stories are a series of profiles accompanying “Helene: What We Lost, What We Found,” a powerful investigative documentary examining the devastation and resilience that followed Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. Watch the documentary everywhere you stream WRAL.
By the time the evacuation notice came, Michael Burgin said it was already too late.
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“The water was like halfway up the car. So it didn't seem like leaving was an option,” said Burgin.
Burgin lives in Swannanoa’s Beacon Village. When Helene hit, he considered leaving, but decided to stay put, believing the chances of the Swannanoa River reaching the home he shares with his wife and son were slim.
Instead, the family had to slowly watch as the water crept up their driveway and through the front door.
“Once it got to our waist, we decided we'd try to go to the attic,” said Burgin.
But the water kept rising. Burgin said after the family tried and failed to hammer their way through the roof, they decided they had no choice but to swim for it.
“We actually swam down from the attic through our kitchen into our, what we called the mud room,” said Burgin. “We swam into that room and eventually got a window open and swam out onto the roof. And we were kayaked out of here eventually.”
A year later, the Beacon Village community shows just how uneven recovery can be post-Helene. Across the street from Burgin’s house, there’s still a scar where Burgin’s neighbors had to be cut out of their attic by rescuers. The front wall is still marked with spray paint from first responders who checked the building for bodies.
By contrast, Burgin has already moved back in to a fully restored home.
“I mean it's all new, all new walls, all new siding," he said.
Like the vast majority of people across western North Carolina, Burgin had no flood insurance. But that did open the door to more than $42,000 in federal disaster aid through FEMA, the maximum payout.
“You do have to stay on FEMA,” said Burgin. “I'd be on hold for like six hours to have a 20-minute conversation.”
Contrast that with Katey Bender, who lives just a few doors up the street.
“I think everyone thought like, 'Oh, you have flood insurance. You'll be set now.' We found that that is not exactly the truth,” said Bender.
Bender wasn’t home when the storm hit. Instead, she came back to find her house shattered.
In the months that followed, her insurer decided she was entitled to a $300,000 payout. But because she has a mortgage, that money went to her lender, not to her.
“They want me to make sure that I have my fair share of paying out-of-pocket costs before they give me my money. When I've asked for direction of like, well how much is that, there's no direction. They don't have a policy and procedure,” said Bender.
Bender said that so far, she’s been able to access about 30% of that money. It’s been enough to get a new frame up and new walls.
But there’s still a long way to go to normal, if normal is ever possible in the path of Helene again.
"Obviously, moving back in right at the beginning of hurricane season is a little ominous," Burgin said. "We're definitely going to pay attention to the weather more closely and take any evacuation order, even suggestion, seriously."