Tears, hugs and stories of grim devastation greeted our confrere, the Most Reverend Michael MARTIN, OFM Conv., Bishop of Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, on Friday, October 4, 2024, as he and a team from Charlotte surveyed damage from Helene firsthand and helped with aid delivery effort.
About 200 people lined up outside St. Margaret Mary Church in the small mountain town of Swannanoa, one of the area’s hardest hit by the September 27 floods. They waited for a visit from Bishop MARTIN – some with smiles, but also many in tears or shocked despair.
They brought the bishop stories of ruined houses, lost possessions and life without electricity or water – and no idea when those things would be returned to them. Many also knew of worse stories from farther up the Swannanoa Valley, where some people went looking for family members or friends and discovered they were missing, their houses washed away.
The bishop comforted people and prayed with them, listened to dramatic and frightening stories of living through the storms, and blessed babies and children.
To get to the church, many had to make a grim drive through downtown Swannanoa, where the town’s namesake river exploded from its banks a week ago and left much of the area looking like a war zone. Houses, trailers and cars were torn apart by the water and flipped upside down. Roads have washed away into jagged small cliffs, water pipes and propane tanks litter the riverbanks, and people’s possessions – bed sheets, clothing, a child’s wading pool, a picnic table – dangled from trees along the river.
“The bishop has lifted a lot of people up by coming here,” said Claudia Graham, secretary at St. Margaret Mary Parish, who has been leading relief efforts as they await the appointment of a new pastor. She announced Bishop Martin’s visit on Thursday afternoon and by Friday morning people had come from all around the area – many taking long circuitous routes because their usual roads were wiped out.
While the bishop greeted people outside, inside the small church some people prayed, seeking a moment of peace against the constant buzz of helicopter blades above the Swannanoa Valley. A fleet of helicopters – Chinooks from the U.S. Army, the Coast Guard search and rescue, the Forest Service and some privately owned ones – crisscrossed the sky overhead, some surveying damage and others transporting supplies and flood survivors.
Directly across from the church, Grovemont Park is serving as a green island of peace in the middle of the flooded valley. For the past week, area residents have met there daily for support and fellowship. Volunteers cook free hot meals and others offer supplies including fresh vegetables, household cleaners and toiletries.
“This is one of the good things that has come out of all of this,” one woman said, gesturing at the crowded park. “People are connecting with each other again.”
Christina Lee Knauss
