Flooding from Hurricane Helene washed away a major portion of the road near the Church of the Transfiguration, Bat Cave. The Rev. Sarah Hurlbert stands in mud inside the Cathedral of All Souls, Asheville, after the church was filled with floodwater. Facebook via ENS
The following article is adapted from “Western North Carolina diocese’s hard-hit areas still recovering nine months after Hurricane Helene,” published by Episcopal News Service on June 30, 2025.
By Melodie Woerman
When Hurricane Helene slammed into the Diocese of Western North Carolina on Sept. 28, 2024, torrential rains sent swollen rivers down the mountains, displacing people from their homes, leveling trees and flooding parts of the city of Asheville.
In the nine months since then, much work remains. So far, thanks to individual donations and grants from Episcopal Relief & Development, the diocese has disbursed $440,000 for emergency needs, including food and housing, to support churches, and to help with community and household recovery efforts.
Bat Cave, an unincorporated community about 20 miles from Asheville, suffered extensive damage as did the hills that surround it. The Rev. John Roberts had been rector of the Church of the Transfiguration in Bat Cave for about nine months when rain swelled the rivers that converge at the bottom of the Hickory Nut Gorge near the church. While the church saw damage—a flooded basement and hundreds of trees on its property torn down—Roberts told Episcopal News Service the real damage has been in the lives of the people who live there.
Of the 60 families who were members before Helene, 12 of them lost everything, including their homes. All the others suffered damage of some kind, even if it was the loss of contents of refrigerators and freezers. A third of the congregation moved away, some to live with children elsewhere.
So far none of his parishioners who lost homes have received any insurance payments. “People are paying mortgages on homes that don’t exist,” he said. “And for a lot of people, their land is gone,” washed away when the riverbed swelled to four times its usual size or racing water eroded areas on steep slopes.
“For some, not only is their home gone, but they don’t even have land they can sell or rebuild.”
Some without insurance have received payments of up to $40,000 from FEMA, but Roberts said those payments seem to be haphazard—some receive them, and others don’t. Beyond the finances, some people in the area, including members of the church, still don’t have water service, leaving them without toilet or bathing facilities.
[T]he church became a center where people began to help rebuild. He said Amish men from Pennsylvania came to mill the fallen trees into lumber that they then used to build sheds. They slept in the church by stringing hammocks from the rafters. Because the church used water from a well, there were usable bathrooms available.
When [after a month] power was restored, the church still couldn’t open for worship because parishioners couldn’t get there—the main road had been badly damaged, with parts of it washed away. Rescue workers were able to navigate a way to the church property, which became a center for recovery efforts. The church’s old rectory, which had been converted to office space, was used to house people, with offices becoming bedrooms again. With water available, the church’s washer and dryer were in frequent use.
The church was able to host in-person services in the church on Thanksgiving and Christmas and finally welcomed parishioners back to weekly Sunday worship on Feb. 23.
Today the former woods is the home of a community relief hub that provides three meals every day, household items and rebuilding supplies, and portable toilets.
One unexpected blessing of all this, Roberts said, is that some people who previously had been unfamiliar with the church now are attending services. Many of them “don’t know what ‘Episcopal’ is,” he said, but they know “that we offered help and shelter and stability, and folks come to church because of it.”
A LONG RECOVERY TIME FOR ASHEVILLE’S CATHEDRAL OF ALL SOULS
One of the notable images from the day Helene hit was of water from the swollen Swannanoa River running through the streets of Asheville and up to the altar of the Cathedral of All Souls. The photo was taken from dry ground a block away by the Very Rev. Sarah Hurlbert, the cathedral’s dean. The parish hall fared even worse—water filled that building to its roof.
Once the water receded, Hurlbert said they began recovering items, including beloved kneelers that had their needlepoint tops removed before mold could begin to grow. But the recovery phase is taking a long time, she said, in part because the building is an historic property and requires extra care at every step.
A remediation company worked to remove all the moisture from the building and clean every surface, but because the church hasn’t seen flooding like this before—the highest water ever got in the past was the top outside step—every step in the recovery is new.
As the only surviving [architect Richard Morris] Hunt-designed church in the world, the cathedral has exercised care in deciding who will tackle the renovations. Finding the right architectural firm took months, [Hurlbert] said.
And while the brick church and parish hall will retain their original shape and materials, the cathedral intends to “build back for ministry capacity,” Hurlbert said. This will include an updated kitchen and Sunday school rooms, “so we can be active and ministering all week long, partnering with feeding ministries and childcare, doing everything we can to be an asset to the community,” Hurlbert said.
But all this will take time. Some items still are impacted by a backlog that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, as she was told it could take 14 months for a new heating and air conditioning system to arrive. Adding to that is that 26 counties in the area were devastated by the hurricane, “and local contractors are up to their eyeballs now.”
Hurlbert [hopes] the congregation can be back in its building by Christmas. In the meantime, the congregation is worshiping at St. George’s Episcopal Church in west Asheville, which houses a Montessori school and Food Connection Asheville, a nonprofit that repurposes leftover food from restaurants to provide meals for people in need.
St. George’s now hosts a Sunday evening gathering, so All Souls members fill the nave on Sunday mornings.
That area of Asheville doesn’t have many progressive Christian churches, she said, and she hopes that when All Souls’ members return to the cathedral, there will be enough new people to reestablish a worshiping community at St. George’s.
WHAT DOES WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA NEED RIGHT NOW?
The diocese decided not to run volunteer-based rebuilding programs, [Bishop José] McLoughlin said in [an April update] video, so they do not need people planning to come and help rebuild. Instead, they want to use resources to hire local skilled laborers, both to ensure the work is done carefully and to help revitalize the local economy.
He said the diocese is committed to helping the most vulnerable people recover, but at a sustainable pace with efforts rooted in “the values of dignity, respect and partnership drawn from our baptismal covenant.”
A new disaster response and relief hub on the diocesan website provides additional information, including a virtual volunteer resource guide.
The Rev. Kelsey Davis, the bishop’s deputy for disaster response and recovery, told ENS that anyone wanting to help can make financial contributions through the diocesan website or through their partnership with Episcopal Relief & Development.
They also need donations of campers, mobile homes or vehicles to go to households in need; those with something to donate can contact the diocese by email in advance. “Please continue to pray for us and follow us on social media,” she added, including on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
Beyond that, people can visit the area and spend money to boost local merchants. The Biltmore estate in Asheville is open, Hurlbert said, and many merchants in Biltmore Village are back in business. “Go down to one of the shops,” she said. “Go down and have lunch and walk by the cathedral.” Some places may not have even cleaned up much—it depends on owners and their insurance—but many are ready for customers.
“We need tourism,” she said. “We need the people coming in, because that’s the engine that funds rebuilding.”
Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.
LEARN MORE
Access the Diocese of Western North Carolina’s volunteer guide and find additional updates here, or follow recovery efforts at diocesewnc.org/helene. Plan a trip with visitnc.com/western-nc-recovery. The site provides county-level updates and assistance with travel plans.
Subscribe to the quarterly Disciple magazine (digital or print) for more stories like this.
