Building Back After Hurricane Helene
This past year has tested every ounce of our grit, our creativity, and our faith in community…When the storm came, it did more than tear through the land, it tore through lives, businesses, and the fragile stability of our mountain home…Over 250 thousand dollars worth of erosion damage compromised our bridge (the only way onto our property) our driveway, and our main paddock…The storm took our hay, the horses’ primary food source, and left us staring at devastated land and an uncertain future…
Government help never came…We turned instead to each other and to the Civilian Disaster Response Organization, who stepped in with donated hay so we could keep our horses fed…That partnership became a lifeline, not just for us, but for neighbors and farmers worse off than we were…Together we served a battered Asheville community that went fifty-four days without water…
Hay donation pick-up.
Rising to Meet the Need
Missed Path Sanctuary opened its gates as a place for hot meals, showers, laundry, and, most importantly, connection…People came for horses and left with hope…We worked with World Central Kitchen to bring food into the hardest hit neighborhoods…Yvonne and the CDRO team took supplies into mountain heights so remote, that residents, surrounded by over a million fallen trees, didn’t see outside help for six weeks or more…Farmers lost livestock, stables, coops, fencing, and feed…Many washed their surviving animals in contaminated water, only to watch illness take more…A year later, these rebuilding efforts continue under the weight of broken promises and exhausted resources…
Personal Loss Amid Disaster
While the city slowly healed, our private world was crumbling…The storm, the stress of its aftermath, suicide and old age claimed the lives of dear friends…We said goodbye to Arnie, our loyal dog of 15 and a half years, and Xena, our sweet young cat who’d barely had three years with us…They left us within three days of each other, at the end of a summer already stretched thin by disaster fatigue…Living in a disaster zone for a full year changes you…It tests the edges of your endurance…
Community gathered at one of our “Open Horse” get togethers.
Asheville’s Uneven Recovery
Asheville is looking better on the surface…But of the ten million cubic yards of debris, SIX MILLION yards of debris remain…Entire towns were washed down to bedrock…Rivers and creeks look like bomb sites…Businesses are boarded up…Tourism is half of what it was…Donations, once a steady stream, have slowed to a trickle…For the sanctuary and for many of our neighbors, the math simply doesn’t work…And yet…this is our home…Appalachian strong isn’t a slogan, it’s a commitment…
Leaning In, Not Back
We refused to shrink…We shifted from emergency outreach to wellness programs, sound baths, yoga, art, all in the calming presence of horses…We launched wellness visitations so people could find peace here…We’re building a reading program pairing kids with mini horses, and we’re working toward bringing those minis into nursing homes to celebrate birthdays with cake, flowers, and soft muzzles…
These are the things that heal…The small, profound connections between animals and people…To expand them, to make our land safe again, and to keep this sanctuary alive for both animals and humans, we will need our community’s continued partnership…
We’re still here…We’re still leaning in…And with the same tenacity that carried us through a year of loss, we’ll keep building Missed Path Sanctuary into a place of refuge and renewal…for the horses, for our neighbors, and for every soul who finds hope here…
