September 22, 2025 • 30 mins
One year ago, Hurricane Helene tore through Western North Carolina. But the storm didn’t take our spirit. Now, Eddie and Amanda Foxx bring you the voices of neighbors, families and businesses who endured…and rebuilt.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
One year after Helene, the voices of Western North Carolina
share their stories. This is Stories After the Storm with
Eddie Fox and Amanda Fox.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Episode one the Storm.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Hey, y'all, welcome to Stories After the Storm, Western North
Carolina one year after Lee. My name is Jeddie Fox
with my wife and co host Amanda, and we're taking
time to look back, one year after the hurricane that
changed our mountains, our towns, and our families.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
When Helene came through, we were not just voices behind
the microphones. We were parents with a toddler at home,
neighbors worried about friends and family, and like so many
of you, we were just trying to hang on and
get through it. The storm brought fear and devastation, but y'all,
it also revealed the resilience, grit, and heart of this community.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
In this series, you were going to hear from folks
who lived through the chaos, neighbors who became heroes, business
owners who fought to rebuild, and families who are still
trying to find their way forward. These are real stories
of struggle, hope, and determination from the voices of Western
North Carolina itself.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Because this isn't just about what we lost. It's about
who we are, how we come together, and how we
rise again.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
This is stories after.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
The storm overnight, tonight and tomorrow morning. As the center
gets closer to us, the rain intensity will pick up.
You could see potentially mud slides to breed cloths and
flash flood emergency.
Speaker 6 (01:28):
This is a massive, massive event, numerous flood warnings right now.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Anywhere from two to four to even six plus inches
of rain has fallen already.
Speaker 7 (01:36):
This isn't even the storm, right.
Speaker 6 (01:37):
We haven't even had a puff of breeze yet, and
we've got thirty ten thousand people without power, six point
three inches of rain the last fifteen hours.
Speaker 7 (01:45):
This isn't one of those it might happen. This is it.
This is happening.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
It's just hard to believe what water can do when
it gets up and gets moving at a rapid past.
Speaker 7 (01:54):
The main show is going to be tonight through early
tomorrow morning.
Speaker 6 (01:57):
If you live in a low lying area, you should
self evaku before the river's crests overnight.
Speaker 8 (02:01):
We're in Black Mountain, were totally cut off and isolated.
Speaker 9 (02:06):
Just wanted to let people know that we're here.
Speaker 7 (02:09):
Mind those barricades. Do not try to drive around them.
You never know how deep that water is going.
Speaker 10 (02:15):
To be, like the gastonia.
Speaker 8 (02:16):
To get gas of water, I've kind of driving dangerously.
Speaker 11 (02:19):
I've got eighty gawns a gas.
Speaker 7 (02:21):
Wrap up your preparations now.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
Our first floors flooded up to about four feet and
we're upstairs.
Speaker 12 (02:27):
We're saying, but my ramp.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
Truck is underwater.
Speaker 13 (02:34):
Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina on September twenty seventh,
twenty twenty four, and by early the next morning, it
was apparent that all outside communications with the iHeartRadio studios
in Ashville had been lost. As he did every morning,
Mark Starling began his broadcast before dawn, but on that
day there was no end in sight. During the storm,
(02:56):
he quickly found himself trapped in the station.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
As the storm got worse, we started to lose the essentials.
We lost electricity. Thankfully, we still had a generator so
we actually had power. We did lose the internet, we
lost cell signal, even water to the station.
Speaker 7 (03:11):
There were trees falling.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
All around the property and that made the road pretty
much impassable, so no one from our team could get
in and we couldn't get out. Thank Spenser and I
kept broadcasting for hours at a time. We really weren't
even sure if people could hear what we were saying. Eventually,
somebody at iHeart did.
Speaker 10 (03:27):
We could not confirm the stations were on the air
remotely as all communications were down.
Speaker 13 (03:33):
That's Ben Brinitzer, iHeartRadio Senior Engineer.
Speaker 10 (03:36):
Our Tiger team was sent in right behind the storm
from Atlanta. We loaded our technical vehicles with water, food, fuel,
and a portable Starlink Internet satellite based system.
Speaker 13 (03:49):
As the Tiger team got closer to Ashville, they realized
this station was providing critical information to communities, but the
studios were cut off from communication and they needed phones
to take the service to the next level. They also
knew fuel would soon be running low in the generators,
that those refuel paths would be heavily blocked, and time
(04:10):
was short to find solutions to keep this vital broadcast
on the air. When help arrived that night, they found
the road blocked by trees. Thousands were without power. There
was no internet, no cable, and no cell service. They
established Internet around midnight, and by two am they had
routed call lines over the starlink and were able to
(04:31):
take listener calls.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
It's Ihear Radio's continuing coverage of rescue and recovery operations
for tropical Storm A Lane ninety nine point nine Kiss
Country and five.
Speaker 7 (04:39):
Seventy WWNC on MJI Fox.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
That's Mark Starling, Tank, Spencer Amanda Fox sit over here.
Speaker 13 (04:45):
The stations had to stay on the air, so the
Tiger team embarked on a ten day marathon to provide
access to mountaintop transmitters. They had to repair and repave
the entire two mile access road up Mount Pisga in
the dark with the help of FEMA and the Forestry Commission,
that allowed for their critical overnight fuel runs to fill
(05:07):
the generator so that it didn't go empty and cut
off the broadcast. This effort kept not only iHeartRadio's broadcasts
on the air, but one local TV station and the
Emergency Management Agency's two way radios working as well. During
the height of the storm, some of the staff had
still not heard from their own families.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Listen.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
If I could figure out a way to get in
my truck and drive home and pick up my wife
and my son and my four dogs and bring the
convintion to come back here, I absolutely would do it.
Speaker 7 (05:38):
To Heartbeat.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
If I could do it in the link of a
commercial break.
Speaker 7 (05:41):
We'll be back in a few How about.
Speaker 13 (05:42):
That they put aside their own emotional distress and kept broadcasting.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I'll tell you what it is, another day of the
three piece that we talk about progress, patience.
Speaker 11 (05:53):
And positive and positivity.
Speaker 7 (05:54):
There you go, There you go.
Speaker 13 (05:56):
For the next week. The staff of iHeartRadio Ashville took
calls from listeners and reconnected people with their loved ones.
Speaker 6 (06:03):
Good evening, Parker, You're on the air with iHeartRadio Ashville.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
How you doing tonight.
Speaker 12 (06:06):
I'm trying to request a wellness check on Richard and
Betty Potter.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
We want to get your phone number and that way
we can get back in touch with you.
Speaker 13 (06:15):
The power of broadcast radio was able to make that
connection and get the kind of critical information that was
so important and so hard to find in the immediate
aftermath of the hurricane.
Speaker 14 (06:26):
We have an update on the last call about Richard
and Betty Potter. The people in the neighborhood have been
taking care of them and they wanted to make sure
that Parker knew that Richard and Betty Potter are good.
Speaker 13 (06:38):
It's just amazing how fast it happens.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
That's what blows me away?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
At what ten twenty at night?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
So I was like, I got this hang on.
Speaker 14 (06:46):
I love that man.
Speaker 6 (06:47):
This mountain community, as widespread and as large as it is,
it is so incredibly close knit when it comes to
taking care of our own. So far, the iHeartRadio Ashville
Minutemen locations team has located one hundred and five families.
It's about three hundred and twenty people that have been
located and their loved ones were contacted.
Speaker 13 (07:06):
It wasn't just listeners benefiting from the reach of broadcast radio.
Even the iHeart team was able to get important personal updates.
Speaker 7 (07:13):
Is that who I think it is? Yes, Brandy?
Speaker 15 (07:17):
Yes?
Speaker 14 (07:23):
Are you okay?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, I'm okay.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
This is my wife.
Speaker 7 (07:27):
For anybody that was just listen.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
If you can get to the radio station, just come here.
Speaker 7 (07:32):
They're cutting a path down our driveway right now.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
Okay, all right, it's so good voice.
Speaker 9 (07:39):
Yeah, hear your voice too.
Speaker 7 (07:41):
Well. We'll see you when you get here.
Speaker 9 (07:42):
Okay, I love you.
Speaker 7 (07:43):
I love you. To take care of it.
Speaker 6 (07:45):
Ye can't you just take the first second?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Got it?
Speaker 13 (07:49):
They connected people in need with those willing to lend
a hand.
Speaker 15 (07:53):
We called in yesterday to get the information for Holly.
Her mom had a tree that was going to fall
in the house and so fuck it. Yes, we went
over there today and we took care of her. We
got lots of people running well watered and passing it
out to people, and the one gas station we had
in town is hand pumping it out.
Speaker 16 (08:09):
I have a major request for an assistant living home.
If you are wanting to help those in need. They
are in need of a generator, fans, drop chords, trash removed,
So if you're trying to come out and help, maybe
that's a good place to go.
Speaker 13 (08:22):
And the calls kept coming.
Speaker 12 (08:24):
If anyone needs help, get to the grocery store, the doctor,
the DNIS, whatever, it does not matter. I can and
I will.
Speaker 9 (08:35):
I'd like to shop local for someone that has a
rake and a blower, maybe a dog to cut up,
a brandge to help me get my yard cleaned up.
Speaker 6 (08:45):
Okay, we can make that happen.
Speaker 15 (08:47):
Give me the list a couple of days, forty eight hours.
I can be back with a couple of pickup truckloads.
I'd like to give out my phone number and get
some text back from some people who would like to
receive whatever they need. Give us that number in my front.
Speaker 7 (09:00):
You're doing great work here.
Speaker 13 (09:01):
Hour after hour, day after day. They remained the most
reliable source of information for victims of the storm. They
brought the community together and connected listeners with local resources
through they're broadcasts.
Speaker 11 (09:14):
Light of Life Baptist Church and Ashville.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
They have supplies available at the church Fellowship hath.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Operation Blue Roof corp of engineers and agents will go
onto individual properties to install the temporary roof for free tom.
Speaker 11 (09:28):
Over at the Carpet Barn.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
They have been buying supplies themselves, taking in donations and
then as they're open, they're giving those out to the
people in Waynesville.
Speaker 15 (09:36):
I'm here representing rentals Baptist Church, reminding our citizens out
there that we're here waiting on them.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Wendy is at First Baptist of Swana Noah. They have
like a mobile clinic there so they have non urgent
needs prescriptions. They even have an obgy in there, so
that's amazing.
Speaker 13 (09:51):
The dedication of the Ashville staff to assist their community
was above and beyond what anyone could have expected or
thought possible given the conditions in the way of Helene,
and the local listeners took.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Notice ninety nine point nine has changed my life.
Speaker 9 (10:05):
Now it's helping to save lives. Man, y'all helping save lives.
Speaker 12 (10:08):
It looks like Joe Pad like fifty thousand people will
tell you thank you, So I'm going to be fifty
thousand and.
Speaker 11 (10:18):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Man.
Speaker 15 (10:19):
We don't need it, you know, we're we're not looking
for that. We are just here to help and that's
the number one priority.
Speaker 12 (10:25):
We know we can get the truth from y'all, and
we thank you for that.
Speaker 7 (10:28):
Hey, listen, Randy, it's it's an audit.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I hope you know how much it means to us
just to be able to do this for you. We
love our job, man, and just folks like you that
we have met and made a part of our family
over the years. It just means everything does so we
couldn't do it without you, and we really love it,
appreciate you.
Speaker 13 (10:44):
Hurricane Helene devastated Ashville, but the community bond has never
been stronger.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Our story began on Friday, September the twenty seventh. We
were I'll never forget it. We were in the kitchen
in front of the French doors there because that was
a only light were really getting because the powers out
on with Mark Starling from five seventy WWNC trying to
update him on what we were seeing, and then the
(11:10):
phone went out.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
We had kind of decided to stay home that day
because of all the warnings and we did not want
to get Ellie out in that at all. And you
at that time, I remember when all of that went out,
you were like, I'm going in. And I'd also at
that point been talking to my brother and my sister
in law who my brother was out and he was
trying to make it home and he was kind of saying,
(11:32):
you know how bad it was. So that's what I
kind of made the decision for you that you were
going to be staying home.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
And there we were at the house, no phone, no internet,
no outside communication, raiding the deep freeze and the garage,
just grilling everything up so we would go to waste.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Yeah, And I know for parents at that time, it
was kind of hard to explain to younger kids why
the lights were off, you know, why she couldn't have
milk because we didn't have milk at that point in time.
And then I also remember her monitor is not working
because it's one that plugs in the wall. Obviously you
need power for that. So I stayed in her room.
I slept on the floor for those nights because I
(12:08):
wanted to make sure that she was okay and I
wouldn't be able to see her on the monitor.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
So after about I guess a day and a half
that Sunday, we decided we're going in because they've got
to need some help at the radio ranch.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Well, in between all of that, my parents had actually
made it to our house. Dad had packed his chainsaw.
He decided he was going to make sure that we
were all okay. We're a family that talks to each
other constantly, so not having that communication was very hard
for all of us. But they had made it, and
they had kind of given us the warnings of it's bad.
This is what we saw in our drive to y'all,
and we've heard on the radio that they say that
(12:43):
the trees are down, that you can't even get to
the station, and so we were like, well, we got
to try to make it.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So the whole family piles into the jeep and we
head in toward the office, and as we get close
to Padden Avenue and downtown, our phones start working and
they start dinging the messages start rolling in, and we
discovered that folks have been trying to get up with
us for a couple of days, but couldn't.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
I mean, we had work HR friends. My best friend
lived out of state, and she was definitely freaking out.
Speaker 8 (13:15):
Oh my gosh, this is not okay. I'm leaving a
voicemail just to represent the nine seven hundred and fifty
two times I've called you a sense of voicemail. I'm
pacing around, I'm about to poke in my pants or
throw up or something. Answer. No, it's not that you're
not answering if you're not getting this. Are you swimming
around somewhere? Are you on top of your roof? Are
(13:38):
you taking in the hat? I don't know, but my
knowing you get those love you.
Speaker 11 (13:43):
Guys by And I think that was the thing too.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
A lot of people outside of this area weren't getting
the images because there was no way for us to
send them, you know. So I don't think that people
outside of this area at that time, like during the
first few days, realized just what I was happening here.
But yeah, like you said, we were getting text messages,
phone calls, all kinds of things that were started to
dig in and then we actually heard on the radio
(14:06):
our co workers talking about, hey, we finally got word
Eddie and Amanda are okay. As I'm trying to call
him and let him know, but my phone still wasn't
making a phone call.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
I know, just from a just from kind of a
personal note for us here at the radio station. We
had not heard anything from our friends Eddie and Amanda.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
Now now we have.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
Oh, Amanda's mom was able to make it up.
Speaker 7 (14:30):
There they're they're doing just fine. Sweet.
Speaker 6 (14:33):
So they're okay you so radio, Yeah, you're late.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I mean people from all over this country. Yeah, I've
been trying to get a hold of you.
Speaker 6 (14:44):
Right, it's uh, We're so glad that you're okay, and
just hang tough.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
I'm here to tell you you You see footage, you
see coverage of of disasters on TV, but nothing prepares
you for seeing it firsthand and seeing where you grew up.
There's nothing that prepares you to see that devastation right
(15:11):
before your eyes. Your mind has a really hard time
processing that.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
And I think it's with that too, it's knowing that
your community, the people you love, the people we talk
to every day during the show are hurting. They've lost
they've lost you know, family members, they've lost homes, they've
lost businesses. All of that was just I think hitting
us at one time of Wow, this is huge. This
(15:37):
is going to take a lot of time to ever
rebuild from. And this is going to have a lot
of people hurting, a lot of people that we love hurting.
So seeing that I got very emotional. I still do
because that's what you realize. Man, my home is completely changed.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
And as we get closer to downtown Ashville and Patton Avenue,
what we saw was like the scene out of some
apocalyptic movie.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Yeah, I mean, all the red lights were out obviously
with the power being out, so cars.
Speaker 11 (16:08):
It was just kind of chaos.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
You saw blue lights, ambulances, people walking down the street
with jugs of water. The businesses on there had generators
or just people cooking food outside, you know. I mean,
it was just it was very scary in that moment
because cars were kind of going everywhere and you could
see the panic on people's faces. And at that point
in time, we still had Ellie with us and we
(16:31):
were trying to get to the station, but we made
the decision to try to make it into my parents'
house to drop her off, even though we knew we'd
be dropping her off with no power, and that was
kind of another scene trying to get to their house.
There were trees down, power lines down everywhere, So it
was just a bunch of trying to figure it out
in that moment, and we did. We got her dropped off,
We got to the station, had to park down the
(16:51):
road and Hiken want.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
To introduce a couple of iHeart Ashville co workers and
family members that we we spent a few days with
in a capacity that we'd never really experienced. Y'all please
welcome Josh Michael and Ariel Ramer. Really appreciate y'all being
on and sharing your story.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
From the storm.
Speaker 11 (17:09):
Well, thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 7 (17:11):
So.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
The first thing I want to do is remove the
broadcast element that the job side of things and talk
to you two is just just folks, just people. Take
us back to that day, how you were feeling, what
you were experiencing.
Speaker 17 (17:27):
Well, genuinely, I was scared because I was here along
with Tank Spencer and Mark Starling and Josh was at home,
and it was a scary moment because when the power
was going out here and kept coming on and flicking off.
It kind of felt like I was in a horror movie.
I had seen lights turn on that I hadn't seen before.
(17:47):
I saw our systems act like I'd never seen before.
So all of that was brand new to me. So
right out the gate, I was already on edge. I
already knew something was happening that I never experienced before.
So for me, I was a little terar fine, I'm
not gonna lie.
Speaker 18 (18:02):
The night before, I saw a lot of the warnings
come from meteorologists that I really trust, and I I
didn't sleep good that night. I was worried about what
was coming. I was at home at the time. I
was on dialysis and I had just had surgery two
days before, so I was doing the show from the house,
so we were separated but connected through the broadcast channels
(18:24):
until we weren't because the power went out of my house.
And even with the power out, I can still broadcast
for a while on battery power, and then we lost
all internet, my phone stopped working, and then even as
a broadcaster, even with someone with a full radio study
in their house, I was instantly just like every other
(18:45):
member of western North Carolina. I was using a little
battery operated radio to listen to you guys and to
Mark and Tank to try to figure out what's going
on because I was completely disconnected.
Speaker 11 (18:56):
Now, Josh, your mom was with you at the time, right, Yeah.
Speaker 18 (18:59):
I had just had that certain so she was helping
take care of me there, which was a blessing. It
was a blessing to have her there because I couldn't
lift a whole lot of the time, and because of
doing dialysis at my home, there's a machine that I use.
The machine obviously doesn't work whenever there's no power and
I don't have a generator, but there's another form of
(19:20):
dialysis that I'm able to do manually, but it includes
a lot of heavy lifting, heavy heavy bags. So my
poor mom, she shouldn't have to stack care of a
forty year old man that way, but she really she's great.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
We were very thankful for being there, and I think
you just hit on something that a lot of people
were probably experiencing that do have these medical issues that
they rely on this equipment that then wasn't working. Luckily
you had that backup, but we know just by getting
calls during that time that there was a lot of
people who had those situations where they didn't know how
they were going to get their medicine, how to get
your machine sure.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Be because if in some situations, if you don't get it,
you die.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
It is live or death. Yeah.
Speaker 18 (19:56):
Once we got here into the studio and I was
on air, I was able to get in touch with
my my doctor team, my dialysis doctor team, and they
of course asked how I was, but then they were like,
you need to remind the dialysis patients of how they
got to do this and how they got to do
this because a lot of people don't do the manual
way very often or if ever they're trained on it.
(20:17):
And Amandy, you and I were on the air together,
and it was something that I kept trying to push
to to because there's a lot of people on diaouts
and more.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
People than people, and it's things people don't think about
unless you're going through it. Like we thought, oh, we
don't have water, we don't have you know, power, But
then there's so many different aspects and that's I think
something that as a group, we all learned that everybody
was going through things at different way.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
We all learned a lot this short short amount of time,
you know, It's also it's a scary place to be
when you cannot communicate, saying symbols on your phone that
you've never seen before, and have an absolutely no communication
in particular with family. And I know you went through
this firsthand to not be able to get a hold
(20:58):
of family.
Speaker 7 (20:59):
You.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I mean, we talk about end this together, right, Can
you speak to that?
Speaker 17 (21:03):
Yeah, it was a scary moment because again I was
here at the radio station, and I was when we
all went simulcast and we were all broadcasting and Mark
in Tank stayed on the air. I was here, but
I was documenting, so I was on my phone. I
was recording the tree snapping and trapping us into the
radio station. So I in my mind thought I was
stuck here. And when all communications went down, I couldn't
(21:25):
communicate with my husband or no one.
Speaker 11 (21:26):
I couldn't communicate with my mom.
Speaker 17 (21:27):
The last I heard from my mom was that Friday
at nine am, and I did not hear from her
until Sunday. Because, as you know, here in Asheville, we
became a little island. She lives in Rosmond, so she
also lives above a river. And that's what I was
terrified of. I knew that she also has a lot
of trees around her home, so that was my first thought.
(21:50):
When I saw our tree snapping in front of the station,
all I could think of was trees maybe falling on
my mom's house. That's all I could think of. And
even in one of the videos, I'm sorry, I don't
mean it to get emotional, but even in one of
the videos that I'm recording right here at a radio station,
I say, all I can think about is my mom
right now, because that's all I can think about. And
(22:11):
then when we were trapped, my husband was able to
come out and get me. He climbed over all those trees,
and that was my first thought. I got to get
to my mom, and I couldn't because we were flooded
in We were trapped. Every day I left the house
to try to go get her, but Airport Road was
flooded Hendersonville, like I had to wait until the water's receded.
(22:35):
And then Sunday, thank goodness, the waters receeated enough I
was able to get out to my mom. And when
I got to her house, she so funny. We had
just missed each other. She put a sign on her
door that said don't have a signal going to find
Aeriel Oh, and she had just gotten to Brevard and
(22:56):
she got all my messages, knew I was coming to
the house, and I saw her coming around the corner,
and it was like out of a movie.
Speaker 11 (23:01):
I swear it was amazing.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
It was. It was so hard, so powerful.
Speaker 17 (23:07):
But it reminded me of how important family is, and
that's all I could think about.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
I think a lot of us experienced true helplessness for
the first time, and it's you know, it's you don't
know how to deal with that. Yeah, And I think
we all tried to navigate that together the best we could,
and I think we learned a lot in a very
short amount of time because we just didn't have any
other option.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
I think the sign on the door, I remember we'd
kind of did the same thing with my brother. We
crossed paths, like he was coming to our house and
we were going to my parents' house, and we came
home to a crayon written note on our door like
we're safe, come over kind of thing that he had
obviously found a crayon in his car from one of
his kids. But it's those little things that we couldn't
text each other.
Speaker 11 (23:50):
And be like, hey, are you okay?
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Like we were literally leaving signs written in crayons or
you know, just hanging on the door to let people
know that that we are okay. And it's it's crazy
to think that that's how we were communicating.
Speaker 18 (23:59):
My my brother and father lived down the mountain in
the Greenville area, and again with no communication, I didn't
have any communication with them. My dad had just had
a stroke a few months before and was alone in
the house, real worried about him. Uh, and I can't
remember what the hey it is. It all comes together
on Saturday or Sunday night, when we were broadcasting, all
(24:20):
of a sudden, I heard Aaron's voice in my headphones.
They had the engineers had connected our Greenville iHeart stations
to us, and Aaron just started talking. I was like,
and on the radio, Aaron said, Dad's okay, how are
you guys? And that's how I got back in touch.
It was because the engineer is how I got back
in touch with family.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Yeah, I think we hear those stories of people like,
you know, because of you, we got to hear that
our family was okay or thank you guys for all
you're doing. But we were going through those moments too,
you know, Josh, that night that we were here, I
was actually about to leave and go home, and remember
Tank was like, I think you want to sit down
and listen to this last call. And it was my
brother calling at the time.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
So it was like we were all getting those.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Calls from our families and finding out that they were okay,
and so so we were all going through it together.
We were here at the time, but I think we
were having those experiences too. One thing that I really remember, Josh,
is the night that we got a phone call. It
was one of the first nights and some I said,
we just want you to know the ingles right down
the road has milk. Yeah, And I was like, good
to know Ellie hasn't had milk in two days. And
the next thing, I know, your mom's walking in with
(25:18):
a gallon of milk for Elly. And just like those
things where it was so chaot it, but you took
time to think of my family too.
Speaker 11 (25:24):
It'd been a lot.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
There were so many beautiful moments like that, and that's
I think good time to lean into the broadcast side
of things and how we dealt with the personal and
the broadcast because we were all thrown into a room together,
a lot of us for the first time ever. So
how did you, Josh Snariol, how did you balance your
(25:46):
personal life with knowing you had to help your neighbors
around western North Carolina.
Speaker 18 (25:52):
I think that for me, it was a blessing to
be on the broadcast. It's what I do, it's how
I could help, and it felt like the spot that
I needed to be. I couldn't get there right away.
Same thing with Aeriel because the roads were between me
(26:12):
and the radio station were underwater, so we had to
wait for them to recede. But we just loaded my
truck up with all the dialysis supplies that I needed
and we would just every three hours we would go
and try it. Every three hours we would go and
try to get it until the water until finally I
saw a truck go through and I was like, that's
a smaller truck than mine.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Let's go. But that that I don't know.
Speaker 18 (26:34):
I don't Eddie, And I mean, I don't know what
it would be like if I was at home the
whole time.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
I really don't know. I don't I don't know how
I would have dealt with it.
Speaker 18 (26:41):
And I really respect those people, our neighbors that that
did have to go through that at least, I don't know.
I feel like my mind was busy.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yeah, we had something, we had something to lay it
into a what about you?
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 17 (26:54):
For for me, it was it was it brought a
whole new meaning to this job because I've I've been
here for about nine years and I had never done
anything like this before. I We're on a top forty
station and I talk about celebrity gossips. So this brought
a whole new meaning to our profession. So my first
(27:14):
instinct was how can I help? And Eddie, like you said,
helping people was a big calling of that. And so
when I came in every day and we were working
our little shifts, just hearing people on the phone and
just communicating and being that dispatcher and sending people to
certain locations, telling people where they can get food, it
did feel like I had a purpose and it felt
(27:36):
like it.
Speaker 11 (27:37):
Brought new meaning to this job.
Speaker 17 (27:39):
And I mean, it's scary. I never want to do
that again. It was an honor, but it really did
open my eyes to what radio is capable of.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
I think we've talked about it personally, but you know,
It was a time when everybody was kind of leaning
into the things that they can do and their skills,
like whether that was the chainsaw brothers picking up chainsaws,
which I don't about job. We can't run chainsaws.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
So did you feel like you weren't doing enough? Did
you feel like you should be doing more? Because we
did every day?
Speaker 18 (28:08):
Yeah, Oh yeah, most definitely, especially especially when I'm still
trapped at the house.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
My gosh, it was. It was so frustrating.
Speaker 18 (28:13):
It was absolutely because I because again I had that
that little battery powered operator. All my friends were here
doing what they could, and I had.
Speaker 11 (28:23):
Not had his kidney yet or his transplant yet.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
We were all worried about everybody, Like I remember, we
were sitting there, like especially, I think one of the
messages that did get through at the time, because you know,
you would get messages here and there.
Speaker 11 (28:33):
You can't really know when they came through or.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Who's sitting them really, but one of them was when
you were unable to find your mom. So we were like,
oh gosh, I hope her mom's okay. Oh gosh, I
hope Josh is okay, because we know that he's at
home going through dialysis. So I think at that time
before we knew that everybody was okay, and we had
no idea that the whole company was looking for us.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Every more, you know, everyone was looking for you.
Speaker 18 (28:54):
I got phone calls from people that I've only seen
names on emails from about you guy.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
It was unreal. We didn't know.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
For two days, we didn't we had no idea.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
Made it to Patton Avenue and my phone started going
ding ding ding, and it was voicemails, messages and again
from people I had never talked to in this company,
like we we just need to do a wellness check.
I think like four days after the hurricane hit, we
were at home right before I came here, and the
Buncombe County where were they like search teams wellness check.
(29:24):
I've been the driveway and my friend that lived in
California at the time had sent them to my house
because she hadn't heard from me.
Speaker 11 (29:30):
I mean, it was just like such a surreal, surreal time.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
I don't know if we've if we've had a chance
to formally thank you guys for everything you did and
working with you. It was a nod, so thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Save me here you guys, whatever said I.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Knew this was going to get emotional damage.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
This is real, this is unscripted, it's a it's a
lot to unpack.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
And as we approached the one year mark, I just
get a lot comes back. But you guys are prose.
It was an honor.
Speaker 11 (30:04):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I love you guys very much.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Thank y'all for listening to Stories after the Storm. One
year later, we're still learning, we're still rebuilding and still
standing strong together.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
As we move forward, we do it as neighbors, as family,
and as Western North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
One year after Helene, the voices of Western North Carolina
share their stories. This is Stories after the Storm with
Eddie Fox and Amanda Fox
One year after Helene, the voices of Western North Carolina
share their stories. This is Stories After the Storm with
Eddie Fox and Amanda Fox.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Episode one the Storm.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Hey, y'all, welcome to Stories After the Storm, Western North
Carolina one year after Lee. My name is Jeddie Fox
with my wife and co host Amanda, and we're taking
time to look back, one year after the hurricane that
changed our mountains, our towns, and our families.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
When Helene came through, we were not just voices behind
the microphones. We were parents with a toddler at home,
neighbors worried about friends and family, and like so many
of you, we were just trying to hang on and
get through it. The storm brought fear and devastation, but y'all,
it also revealed the resilience, grit, and heart of this community.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
In this series, you were going to hear from folks
who lived through the chaos, neighbors who became heroes, business
owners who fought to rebuild, and families who are still
trying to find their way forward. These are real stories
of struggle, hope, and determination from the voices of Western
North Carolina itself.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Because this isn't just about what we lost. It's about
who we are, how we come together, and how we
rise again.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
This is stories after.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
The storm overnight, tonight and tomorrow morning. As the center
gets closer to us, the rain intensity will pick up.
You could see potentially mud slides to breed cloths and
flash flood emergency.
Speaker 6 (01:28):
This is a massive, massive event, numerous flood warnings right now.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Anywhere from two to four to even six plus inches
of rain has fallen already.
Speaker 7 (01:36):
This isn't even the storm, right.
Speaker 6 (01:37):
We haven't even had a puff of breeze yet, and
we've got thirty ten thousand people without power, six point
three inches of rain the last fifteen hours.
Speaker 7 (01:45):
This isn't one of those it might happen. This is it.
This is happening.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
It's just hard to believe what water can do when
it gets up and gets moving at a rapid past.
Speaker 7 (01:54):
The main show is going to be tonight through early
tomorrow morning.
Speaker 6 (01:57):
If you live in a low lying area, you should
self evaku before the river's crests overnight.
Speaker 8 (02:01):
We're in Black Mountain, were totally cut off and isolated.
Speaker 9 (02:06):
Just wanted to let people know that we're here.
Speaker 7 (02:09):
Mind those barricades. Do not try to drive around them.
You never know how deep that water is going.
Speaker 10 (02:15):
To be, like the gastonia.
Speaker 8 (02:16):
To get gas of water, I've kind of driving dangerously.
Speaker 11 (02:19):
I've got eighty gawns a gas.
Speaker 7 (02:21):
Wrap up your preparations now.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
Our first floors flooded up to about four feet and
we're upstairs.
Speaker 12 (02:27):
We're saying, but my ramp.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
Truck is underwater.
Speaker 13 (02:34):
Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina on September twenty seventh,
twenty twenty four, and by early the next morning, it
was apparent that all outside communications with the iHeartRadio studios
in Ashville had been lost. As he did every morning,
Mark Starling began his broadcast before dawn, but on that
day there was no end in sight. During the storm,
(02:56):
he quickly found himself trapped in the station.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
As the storm got worse, we started to lose the essentials.
We lost electricity. Thankfully, we still had a generator so
we actually had power. We did lose the internet, we
lost cell signal, even water to the station.
Speaker 7 (03:11):
There were trees falling.
Speaker 6 (03:12):
All around the property and that made the road pretty
much impassable, so no one from our team could get
in and we couldn't get out. Thank Spenser and I
kept broadcasting for hours at a time. We really weren't
even sure if people could hear what we were saying. Eventually,
somebody at iHeart did.
Speaker 10 (03:27):
We could not confirm the stations were on the air
remotely as all communications were down.
Speaker 13 (03:33):
That's Ben Brinitzer, iHeartRadio Senior Engineer.
Speaker 10 (03:36):
Our Tiger team was sent in right behind the storm
from Atlanta. We loaded our technical vehicles with water, food, fuel,
and a portable Starlink Internet satellite based system.
Speaker 13 (03:49):
As the Tiger team got closer to Ashville, they realized
this station was providing critical information to communities, but the
studios were cut off from communication and they needed phones
to take the service to the next level. They also
knew fuel would soon be running low in the generators,
that those refuel paths would be heavily blocked, and time
(04:10):
was short to find solutions to keep this vital broadcast
on the air. When help arrived that night, they found
the road blocked by trees. Thousands were without power. There
was no internet, no cable, and no cell service. They
established Internet around midnight, and by two am they had
routed call lines over the starlink and were able to
(04:31):
take listener calls.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
It's Ihear Radio's continuing coverage of rescue and recovery operations
for tropical Storm A Lane ninety nine point nine Kiss
Country and five.
Speaker 7 (04:39):
Seventy WWNC on MJI Fox.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
That's Mark Starling, Tank, Spencer Amanda Fox sit over here.
Speaker 13 (04:45):
The stations had to stay on the air, so the
Tiger team embarked on a ten day marathon to provide
access to mountaintop transmitters. They had to repair and repave
the entire two mile access road up Mount Pisga in
the dark with the help of FEMA and the Forestry Commission,
that allowed for their critical overnight fuel runs to fill
(05:07):
the generator so that it didn't go empty and cut
off the broadcast. This effort kept not only iHeartRadio's broadcasts
on the air, but one local TV station and the
Emergency Management Agency's two way radios working as well. During
the height of the storm, some of the staff had
still not heard from their own families.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Listen.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
If I could figure out a way to get in
my truck and drive home and pick up my wife
and my son and my four dogs and bring the
convintion to come back here, I absolutely would do it.
Speaker 7 (05:38):
To Heartbeat.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
If I could do it in the link of a
commercial break.
Speaker 7 (05:41):
We'll be back in a few How about.
Speaker 13 (05:42):
That they put aside their own emotional distress and kept broadcasting.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
I'll tell you what it is, another day of the
three piece that we talk about progress, patience.
Speaker 11 (05:53):
And positive and positivity.
Speaker 7 (05:54):
There you go, There you go.
Speaker 13 (05:56):
For the next week. The staff of iHeartRadio Ashville took
calls from listeners and reconnected people with their loved ones.
Speaker 6 (06:03):
Good evening, Parker, You're on the air with iHeartRadio Ashville.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
How you doing tonight.
Speaker 12 (06:06):
I'm trying to request a wellness check on Richard and
Betty Potter.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
We want to get your phone number and that way
we can get back in touch with you.
Speaker 13 (06:15):
The power of broadcast radio was able to make that
connection and get the kind of critical information that was
so important and so hard to find in the immediate
aftermath of the hurricane.
Speaker 14 (06:26):
We have an update on the last call about Richard
and Betty Potter. The people in the neighborhood have been
taking care of them and they wanted to make sure
that Parker knew that Richard and Betty Potter are good.
Speaker 13 (06:38):
It's just amazing how fast it happens.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
That's what blows me away?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
At what ten twenty at night?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
So I was like, I got this hang on.
Speaker 14 (06:46):
I love that man.
Speaker 6 (06:47):
This mountain community, as widespread and as large as it is,
it is so incredibly close knit when it comes to
taking care of our own. So far, the iHeartRadio Ashville
Minutemen locations team has located one hundred and five families.
It's about three hundred and twenty people that have been
located and their loved ones were contacted.
Speaker 13 (07:06):
It wasn't just listeners benefiting from the reach of broadcast radio.
Even the iHeart team was able to get important personal updates.
Speaker 7 (07:13):
Is that who I think it is? Yes, Brandy?
Speaker 15 (07:17):
Yes?
Speaker 14 (07:23):
Are you okay?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, I'm okay.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
This is my wife.
Speaker 7 (07:27):
For anybody that was just listen.
Speaker 6 (07:29):
If you can get to the radio station, just come here.
Speaker 7 (07:32):
They're cutting a path down our driveway right now.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
Okay, all right, it's so good voice.
Speaker 9 (07:39):
Yeah, hear your voice too.
Speaker 7 (07:41):
Well. We'll see you when you get here.
Speaker 9 (07:42):
Okay, I love you.
Speaker 7 (07:43):
I love you. To take care of it.
Speaker 6 (07:45):
Ye can't you just take the first second?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Got it?
Speaker 13 (07:49):
They connected people in need with those willing to lend
a hand.
Speaker 15 (07:53):
We called in yesterday to get the information for Holly.
Her mom had a tree that was going to fall
in the house and so fuck it. Yes, we went
over there today and we took care of her. We
got lots of people running well watered and passing it
out to people, and the one gas station we had
in town is hand pumping it out.
Speaker 16 (08:09):
I have a major request for an assistant living home.
If you are wanting to help those in need. They
are in need of a generator, fans, drop chords, trash removed,
So if you're trying to come out and help, maybe
that's a good place to go.
Speaker 13 (08:22):
And the calls kept coming.
Speaker 12 (08:24):
If anyone needs help, get to the grocery store, the doctor,
the DNIS, whatever, it does not matter. I can and
I will.
Speaker 9 (08:35):
I'd like to shop local for someone that has a
rake and a blower, maybe a dog to cut up,
a brandge to help me get my yard cleaned up.
Speaker 6 (08:45):
Okay, we can make that happen.
Speaker 15 (08:47):
Give me the list a couple of days, forty eight hours.
I can be back with a couple of pickup truckloads.
I'd like to give out my phone number and get
some text back from some people who would like to
receive whatever they need. Give us that number in my front.
Speaker 7 (09:00):
You're doing great work here.
Speaker 13 (09:01):
Hour after hour, day after day. They remained the most
reliable source of information for victims of the storm. They
brought the community together and connected listeners with local resources
through they're broadcasts.
Speaker 11 (09:14):
Light of Life Baptist Church and Ashville.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
They have supplies available at the church Fellowship hath.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Operation Blue Roof corp of engineers and agents will go
onto individual properties to install the temporary roof for free tom.
Speaker 11 (09:28):
Over at the Carpet Barn.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
They have been buying supplies themselves, taking in donations and
then as they're open, they're giving those out to the
people in Waynesville.
Speaker 15 (09:36):
I'm here representing rentals Baptist Church, reminding our citizens out
there that we're here waiting on them.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Wendy is at First Baptist of Swana Noah. They have
like a mobile clinic there so they have non urgent
needs prescriptions. They even have an obgy in there, so
that's amazing.
Speaker 13 (09:51):
The dedication of the Ashville staff to assist their community
was above and beyond what anyone could have expected or
thought possible given the conditions in the way of Helene,
and the local listeners took.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Notice ninety nine point nine has changed my life.
Speaker 9 (10:05):
Now it's helping to save lives. Man, y'all helping save lives.
Speaker 12 (10:08):
It looks like Joe Pad like fifty thousand people will
tell you thank you, So I'm going to be fifty
thousand and.
Speaker 11 (10:18):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Man.
Speaker 15 (10:19):
We don't need it, you know, we're we're not looking
for that. We are just here to help and that's
the number one priority.
Speaker 12 (10:25):
We know we can get the truth from y'all, and
we thank you for that.
Speaker 7 (10:28):
Hey, listen, Randy, it's it's an audit.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I hope you know how much it means to us
just to be able to do this for you. We
love our job, man, and just folks like you that
we have met and made a part of our family
over the years. It just means everything does so we
couldn't do it without you, and we really love it,
appreciate you.
Speaker 13 (10:44):
Hurricane Helene devastated Ashville, but the community bond has never
been stronger.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Our story began on Friday, September the twenty seventh. We
were I'll never forget it. We were in the kitchen
in front of the French doors there because that was
a only light were really getting because the powers out
on with Mark Starling from five seventy WWNC trying to
update him on what we were seeing, and then the
(11:10):
phone went out.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
We had kind of decided to stay home that day
because of all the warnings and we did not want
to get Ellie out in that at all. And you
at that time, I remember when all of that went out,
you were like, I'm going in. And I'd also at
that point been talking to my brother and my sister
in law who my brother was out and he was
trying to make it home and he was kind of saying,
(11:32):
you know how bad it was. So that's what I
kind of made the decision for you that you were
going to be staying home.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
And there we were at the house, no phone, no internet,
no outside communication, raiding the deep freeze and the garage,
just grilling everything up so we would go to waste.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Yeah, And I know for parents at that time, it
was kind of hard to explain to younger kids why
the lights were off, you know, why she couldn't have
milk because we didn't have milk at that point in time.
And then I also remember her monitor is not working
because it's one that plugs in the wall. Obviously you
need power for that. So I stayed in her room.
I slept on the floor for those nights because I
(12:08):
wanted to make sure that she was okay and I
wouldn't be able to see her on the monitor.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
So after about I guess a day and a half
that Sunday, we decided we're going in because they've got
to need some help at the radio ranch.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Well, in between all of that, my parents had actually
made it to our house. Dad had packed his chainsaw.
He decided he was going to make sure that we
were all okay. We're a family that talks to each
other constantly, so not having that communication was very hard
for all of us. But they had made it, and
they had kind of given us the warnings of it's bad.
This is what we saw in our drive to y'all,
and we've heard on the radio that they say that
(12:43):
the trees are down, that you can't even get to
the station, and so we were like, well, we got
to try to make it.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So the whole family piles into the jeep and we
head in toward the office, and as we get close
to Padden Avenue and downtown, our phones start working and
they start dinging the messages start rolling in, and we
discovered that folks have been trying to get up with
us for a couple of days, but couldn't.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
I mean, we had work HR friends. My best friend
lived out of state, and she was definitely freaking out.
Speaker 8 (13:15):
Oh my gosh, this is not okay. I'm leaving a
voicemail just to represent the nine seven hundred and fifty
two times I've called you a sense of voicemail. I'm
pacing around, I'm about to poke in my pants or
throw up or something. Answer. No, it's not that you're
not answering if you're not getting this. Are you swimming
around somewhere? Are you on top of your roof? Are
(13:38):
you taking in the hat? I don't know, but my
knowing you get those love you.
Speaker 11 (13:43):
Guys by And I think that was the thing too.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
A lot of people outside of this area weren't getting
the images because there was no way for us to
send them, you know. So I don't think that people
outside of this area at that time, like during the
first few days, realized just what I was happening here.
But yeah, like you said, we were getting text messages,
phone calls, all kinds of things that were started to
dig in and then we actually heard on the radio
(14:06):
our co workers talking about, hey, we finally got word
Eddie and Amanda are okay. As I'm trying to call
him and let him know, but my phone still wasn't
making a phone call.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
I know, just from a just from kind of a
personal note for us here at the radio station. We
had not heard anything from our friends Eddie and Amanda.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
Now now we have.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
Oh, Amanda's mom was able to make it up.
Speaker 7 (14:30):
There they're they're doing just fine. Sweet.
Speaker 6 (14:33):
So they're okay you so radio, Yeah, you're late.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I mean people from all over this country. Yeah, I've
been trying to get a hold of you.
Speaker 6 (14:44):
Right, it's uh, We're so glad that you're okay, and
just hang tough.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
I'm here to tell you you You see footage, you
see coverage of of disasters on TV, but nothing prepares
you for seeing it firsthand and seeing where you grew up.
There's nothing that prepares you to see that devastation right
(15:11):
before your eyes. Your mind has a really hard time
processing that.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
And I think it's with that too, it's knowing that
your community, the people you love, the people we talk
to every day during the show are hurting. They've lost
they've lost you know, family members, they've lost homes, they've
lost businesses. All of that was just I think hitting
us at one time of Wow, this is huge. This
(15:37):
is going to take a lot of time to ever
rebuild from. And this is going to have a lot
of people hurting, a lot of people that we love hurting.
So seeing that I got very emotional. I still do
because that's what you realize. Man, my home is completely changed.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
And as we get closer to downtown Ashville and Patton Avenue,
what we saw was like the scene out of some
apocalyptic movie.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Yeah, I mean, all the red lights were out obviously
with the power being out, so cars.
Speaker 11 (16:08):
It was just kind of chaos.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
You saw blue lights, ambulances, people walking down the street
with jugs of water. The businesses on there had generators
or just people cooking food outside, you know. I mean,
it was just it was very scary in that moment
because cars were kind of going everywhere and you could
see the panic on people's faces. And at that point
in time, we still had Ellie with us and we
(16:31):
were trying to get to the station, but we made
the decision to try to make it into my parents'
house to drop her off, even though we knew we'd
be dropping her off with no power, and that was
kind of another scene trying to get to their house.
There were trees down, power lines down everywhere, So it
was just a bunch of trying to figure it out
in that moment, and we did. We got her dropped off,
We got to the station, had to park down the
(16:51):
road and Hiken want.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
To introduce a couple of iHeart Ashville co workers and
family members that we we spent a few days with
in a capacity that we'd never really experienced. Y'all please
welcome Josh Michael and Ariel Ramer. Really appreciate y'all being
on and sharing your story.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
From the storm.
Speaker 11 (17:09):
Well, thank you for having us.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Thank you.
Speaker 7 (17:11):
So.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
The first thing I want to do is remove the
broadcast element that the job side of things and talk
to you two is just just folks, just people. Take
us back to that day, how you were feeling, what
you were experiencing.
Speaker 17 (17:27):
Well, genuinely, I was scared because I was here along
with Tank Spencer and Mark Starling and Josh was at home,
and it was a scary moment because when the power
was going out here and kept coming on and flicking off.
It kind of felt like I was in a horror movie.
I had seen lights turn on that I hadn't seen before.
(17:47):
I saw our systems act like I'd never seen before.
So all of that was brand new to me. So
right out the gate, I was already on edge. I
already knew something was happening that I never experienced before.
So for me, I was a little terar fine, I'm
not gonna lie.
Speaker 18 (18:02):
The night before, I saw a lot of the warnings
come from meteorologists that I really trust, and I I
didn't sleep good that night. I was worried about what
was coming. I was at home at the time. I
was on dialysis and I had just had surgery two
days before, so I was doing the show from the house,
so we were separated but connected through the broadcast channels
(18:24):
until we weren't because the power went out of my house.
And even with the power out, I can still broadcast
for a while on battery power, and then we lost
all internet, my phone stopped working, and then even as
a broadcaster, even with someone with a full radio study
in their house, I was instantly just like every other
(18:45):
member of western North Carolina. I was using a little
battery operated radio to listen to you guys and to
Mark and Tank to try to figure out what's going
on because I was completely disconnected.
Speaker 11 (18:56):
Now, Josh, your mom was with you at the time, right, Yeah.
Speaker 18 (18:59):
I had just had that certain so she was helping
take care of me there, which was a blessing. It
was a blessing to have her there because I couldn't
lift a whole lot of the time, and because of
doing dialysis at my home, there's a machine that I use.
The machine obviously doesn't work whenever there's no power and
I don't have a generator, but there's another form of
(19:20):
dialysis that I'm able to do manually, but it includes
a lot of heavy lifting, heavy heavy bags. So my
poor mom, she shouldn't have to stack care of a
forty year old man that way, but she really she's great.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
We were very thankful for being there, and I think
you just hit on something that a lot of people
were probably experiencing that do have these medical issues that
they rely on this equipment that then wasn't working. Luckily
you had that backup, but we know just by getting
calls during that time that there was a lot of
people who had those situations where they didn't know how
they were going to get their medicine, how to get
your machine sure.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Be because if in some situations, if you don't get it,
you die.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
It is live or death. Yeah.
Speaker 18 (19:56):
Once we got here into the studio and I was
on air, I was able to get in touch with
my my doctor team, my dialysis doctor team, and they
of course asked how I was, but then they were like,
you need to remind the dialysis patients of how they
got to do this and how they got to do
this because a lot of people don't do the manual
way very often or if ever they're trained on it.
(20:17):
And Amandy, you and I were on the air together,
and it was something that I kept trying to push
to to because there's a lot of people on diaouts
and more.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
People than people, and it's things people don't think about
unless you're going through it. Like we thought, oh, we
don't have water, we don't have you know, power, But
then there's so many different aspects and that's I think
something that as a group, we all learned that everybody
was going through things at different way.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
We all learned a lot this short short amount of time,
you know, It's also it's a scary place to be
when you cannot communicate, saying symbols on your phone that
you've never seen before, and have an absolutely no communication
in particular with family. And I know you went through
this firsthand to not be able to get a hold
(20:58):
of family.
Speaker 7 (20:59):
You.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I mean, we talk about end this together, right, Can
you speak to that?
Speaker 17 (21:03):
Yeah, it was a scary moment because again I was
here at the radio station, and I was when we
all went simulcast and we were all broadcasting and Mark
in Tank stayed on the air. I was here, but
I was documenting, so I was on my phone. I
was recording the tree snapping and trapping us into the
radio station. So I in my mind thought I was
stuck here. And when all communications went down, I couldn't
(21:25):
communicate with my husband or no one.
Speaker 11 (21:26):
I couldn't communicate with my mom.
Speaker 17 (21:27):
The last I heard from my mom was that Friday
at nine am, and I did not hear from her
until Sunday. Because, as you know, here in Asheville, we
became a little island. She lives in Rosmond, so she
also lives above a river. And that's what I was
terrified of. I knew that she also has a lot
of trees around her home, so that was my first thought.
(21:50):
When I saw our tree snapping in front of the station,
all I could think of was trees maybe falling on
my mom's house. That's all I could think of. And
even in one of the videos, I'm sorry, I don't
mean it to get emotional, but even in one of
the videos that I'm recording right here at a radio station,
I say, all I can think about is my mom
right now, because that's all I can think about. And
(22:11):
then when we were trapped, my husband was able to
come out and get me. He climbed over all those trees,
and that was my first thought. I got to get
to my mom, and I couldn't because we were flooded
in We were trapped. Every day I left the house
to try to go get her, but Airport Road was
flooded Hendersonville, like I had to wait until the water's receded.
(22:35):
And then Sunday, thank goodness, the waters receeated enough I
was able to get out to my mom. And when
I got to her house, she so funny. We had
just missed each other. She put a sign on her
door that said don't have a signal going to find
Aeriel Oh, and she had just gotten to Brevard and
(22:56):
she got all my messages, knew I was coming to
the house, and I saw her coming around the corner,
and it was like out of a movie.
Speaker 11 (23:01):
I swear it was amazing.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
It was. It was so hard, so powerful.
Speaker 17 (23:07):
But it reminded me of how important family is, and
that's all I could think about.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
I think a lot of us experienced true helplessness for
the first time, and it's you know, it's you don't
know how to deal with that. Yeah, And I think
we all tried to navigate that together the best we could,
and I think we learned a lot in a very
short amount of time because we just didn't have any
other option.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
I think the sign on the door, I remember we'd
kind of did the same thing with my brother. We
crossed paths, like he was coming to our house and
we were going to my parents' house, and we came
home to a crayon written note on our door like
we're safe, come over kind of thing that he had
obviously found a crayon in his car from one of
his kids. But it's those little things that we couldn't
text each other.
Speaker 11 (23:50):
And be like, hey, are you okay?
Speaker 4 (23:51):
Like we were literally leaving signs written in crayons or
you know, just hanging on the door to let people
know that that we are okay. And it's it's crazy
to think that that's how we were communicating.
Speaker 18 (23:59):
My my brother and father lived down the mountain in
the Greenville area, and again with no communication, I didn't
have any communication with them. My dad had just had
a stroke a few months before and was alone in
the house, real worried about him. Uh, and I can't
remember what the hey it is. It all comes together
on Saturday or Sunday night, when we were broadcasting, all
(24:20):
of a sudden, I heard Aaron's voice in my headphones.
They had the engineers had connected our Greenville iHeart stations
to us, and Aaron just started talking. I was like,
and on the radio, Aaron said, Dad's okay, how are
you guys? And that's how I got back in touch.
It was because the engineer is how I got back
in touch with family.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Yeah, I think we hear those stories of people like,
you know, because of you, we got to hear that
our family was okay or thank you guys for all
you're doing. But we were going through those moments too,
you know, Josh, that night that we were here, I
was actually about to leave and go home, and remember
Tank was like, I think you want to sit down
and listen to this last call. And it was my
brother calling at the time.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
So it was like we were all getting those.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Calls from our families and finding out that they were okay,
and so so we were all going through it together.
We were here at the time, but I think we
were having those experiences too. One thing that I really remember, Josh,
is the night that we got a phone call. It
was one of the first nights and some I said,
we just want you to know the ingles right down
the road has milk. Yeah, And I was like, good
to know Ellie hasn't had milk in two days. And
the next thing, I know, your mom's walking in with
(25:18):
a gallon of milk for Elly. And just like those
things where it was so chaot it, but you took
time to think of my family too.
Speaker 11 (25:24):
It'd been a lot.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
There were so many beautiful moments like that, and that's
I think good time to lean into the broadcast side
of things and how we dealt with the personal and
the broadcast because we were all thrown into a room together,
a lot of us for the first time ever. So
how did you, Josh Snariol, how did you balance your
(25:46):
personal life with knowing you had to help your neighbors
around western North Carolina.
Speaker 18 (25:52):
I think that for me, it was a blessing to
be on the broadcast. It's what I do, it's how
I could help, and it felt like the spot that
I needed to be. I couldn't get there right away.
Same thing with Aeriel because the roads were between me
(26:12):
and the radio station were underwater, so we had to
wait for them to recede. But we just loaded my
truck up with all the dialysis supplies that I needed
and we would just every three hours we would go
and try it. Every three hours we would go and
try to get it until the water until finally I
saw a truck go through and I was like, that's
a smaller truck than mine.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Let's go. But that that I don't know.
Speaker 18 (26:34):
I don't Eddie, And I mean, I don't know what
it would be like if I was at home the
whole time.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
I really don't know. I don't I don't know how
I would have dealt with it.
Speaker 18 (26:41):
And I really respect those people, our neighbors that that
did have to go through that at least, I don't know.
I feel like my mind was busy.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yeah, we had something, we had something to lay it
into a what about you?
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 17 (26:54):
For for me, it was it was it brought a
whole new meaning to this job because I've I've been
here for about nine years and I had never done
anything like this before. I We're on a top forty
station and I talk about celebrity gossips. So this brought
a whole new meaning to our profession. So my first
(27:14):
instinct was how can I help? And Eddie, like you said,
helping people was a big calling of that. And so
when I came in every day and we were working
our little shifts, just hearing people on the phone and
just communicating and being that dispatcher and sending people to
certain locations, telling people where they can get food, it
did feel like I had a purpose and it felt
(27:36):
like it.
Speaker 11 (27:37):
Brought new meaning to this job.
Speaker 17 (27:39):
And I mean, it's scary. I never want to do
that again. It was an honor, but it really did
open my eyes to what radio is capable of.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
I think we've talked about it personally, but you know,
It was a time when everybody was kind of leaning
into the things that they can do and their skills,
like whether that was the chainsaw brothers picking up chainsaws,
which I don't about job. We can't run chainsaws.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
So did you feel like you weren't doing enough? Did
you feel like you should be doing more? Because we
did every day?
Speaker 18 (28:08):
Yeah, Oh yeah, most definitely, especially especially when I'm still
trapped at the house.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
My gosh, it was. It was so frustrating.
Speaker 18 (28:13):
It was absolutely because I because again I had that
that little battery powered operator. All my friends were here
doing what they could, and I had.
Speaker 11 (28:23):
Not had his kidney yet or his transplant yet.
Speaker 4 (28:25):
We were all worried about everybody, Like I remember, we
were sitting there, like especially, I think one of the
messages that did get through at the time, because you know,
you would get messages here and there.
Speaker 11 (28:33):
You can't really know when they came through or.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Who's sitting them really, but one of them was when
you were unable to find your mom. So we were like,
oh gosh, I hope her mom's okay. Oh gosh, I
hope Josh is okay, because we know that he's at
home going through dialysis. So I think at that time
before we knew that everybody was okay, and we had
no idea that the whole company was looking for us.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Every more, you know, everyone was looking for you.
Speaker 18 (28:54):
I got phone calls from people that I've only seen
names on emails from about you guy.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
It was unreal. We didn't know.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
For two days, we didn't we had no idea.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
Made it to Patton Avenue and my phone started going
ding ding ding, and it was voicemails, messages and again
from people I had never talked to in this company,
like we we just need to do a wellness check.
I think like four days after the hurricane hit, we
were at home right before I came here, and the
Buncombe County where were they like search teams wellness check.
(29:24):
I've been the driveway and my friend that lived in
California at the time had sent them to my house
because she hadn't heard from me.
Speaker 11 (29:30):
I mean, it was just like such a surreal, surreal time.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
I don't know if we've if we've had a chance
to formally thank you guys for everything you did and
working with you. It was a nod, so thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Save me here you guys, whatever said I.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Knew this was going to get emotional damage.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
This is real, this is unscripted, it's a it's a
lot to unpack.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
And as we approached the one year mark, I just
get a lot comes back. But you guys are prose.
It was an honor.
Speaker 11 (30:04):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
I love you guys very much.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Thank y'all for listening to Stories after the Storm. One
year later, we're still learning, we're still rebuilding and still
standing strong together.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
As we move forward, we do it as neighbors, as family,
and as Western North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
One year after Helene, the voices of Western North Carolina
share their stories. This is Stories after the Storm with
Eddie Fox and Amanda Fox
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