NEWLAND, N.C. — It has been weeks since Hurricane Helene ravaged North Carolina and still many areas remain without power.
In Newland, North Carolina, a community is rebuilding and still waiting for the lights to come back on. The Linville Meadows neighborhood is expected to be out of power for a few more weeks.
Helene flooded the nearby river and surrounding homes.
“We are prepared for a flood but not to this magnitude,” Marshall Sizemore, a Newland resident, said. “We ended up with 9 feet plus right in this spot, enough to knock buildings off their foundations and roll cars down the road.”
“The water was about at the beginning of the second floor, and completely filled up this basement first floor,” Tom Archer, another resident, said. “For us, it was pretty much water damage but for some other houses around they were devasted”
Many homes were gutted out and weeks later nearly 100 households remain in the dark.
“All of our infrastructure for power out here is underground and it pretty much came up and was destroyed when the river came through,” Sizemore said.
With no power, Sizemore and many others can’t return home.
“The nights are quite chilly, so it is hard to stay,” he said.
Meanwhile, the cleanup continues.
“Hundreds of volunteers showed up and completely stripped all of these houses that had mud in them, prepped them for the rebuild, and took the mud out of my garage,” Sizemore said. “So, we are a little more positive now."