Wind and water sculpted and eroded the stone tower that gave this place its name; it took over half a billion years for the tower to form, after which it was heated and propelled upward from deep below the Earth.
In the mountain village of Chimney Rock, North Carolina, humans spent a century and a quarter building. However, in the span of a few minutes, nature destroyed much of it.
With awe, Iraq War veteran Chris Canada remarked, “It feels like I was deployed, like, overnight and woke up in… a combat zone,” as a huge twin-propped Chinook chopper rolled over his new neighborhood. “I still don’t think it really hit me.”
The tiny community of around 140 people living on the Broad River’s banks has been virtually leveled by Hurricane Helene, which made landfall nearly 400 miles away on September 26th at Florida’s Big Bend.
Restaurants and gift shops that had balconies overlooking the river now hang precariously. On Wednesday, almost seven days following the hurricane, the Hickory Nut Brewery—which debuted when Rutherford County became “wet” and began serving alcohol almost ten years ago—collapsed.
Several feet of reddish-brown sludge has encased the still-standing structures across Main Street. “We are open during construction.” is the message shown on the Chimney Sweeps souvenir shop’s sign.
The remaining homes in one part of town dangle precariously over a riverbank that has been eroded. An elderly woman who stubbornly refused to leave the area is believed to have been the sole victim of the town’s current situation.
On Wednesday, when he guided an AP reporter through the dust-covered rubble of Chimney Rock Village, village administrator Stephen Duncan stated, “Literally, this river has moved.” Someone once in a thousand years witnessed this. I am writing about a geological occurrence.
John Payne, a volunteer firefighter from Chimney Rock, spotted water pouring over US 64/74, the main road into town, while responding to a probable gas leak around eight hours after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida. The time was nearing seven in the morning.
He stated that the actual hurricane had not yet made landfall.
Payne, a 32-year-old local who has never left this valley, canceled the call and raced back up the hill to the fire station, which had to be relocated to higher ground after a severe flood in 1996. The last flood’s chief, Joseph “Buck” Meliski, laughed it off.
It’s not going to hit that early, the older man told Payne.
The former chief’s mouth fell when Payne showed him a video he had just captured, which showed water topping the bridge to the Hickory Nut Falls Family Campground.
“We’re going for it, guys,” Meliski informed Payne and the other six or seven people who had showed up.
All of a sudden, the earth beneath them started trembling, much like the temblors that occasionally rock the valley, but with considerably more force. Muddy water had already begun to creep behind the firehouse’s rear wall by this point.
A 30-foot-tall wall of water, which Payne estimated to be racing toward the town, was seen throwing rocks the size of cars as he peered down. The wave seemed to be consuming and expelling dwellings.
“It’s no longer water,” Payne stated. You understand what I mean when I say it’s mud—this thick substance that looks like concrete. And it’s absorbing everything it touches.
The bridge he had been recording from was struck by a home just twenty minutes ago. The bridge “imploded” suddenly. The steel beams were later discovered by Payne to be “bent in horseshoe shapes around boulders.”
Some of the group’s business owners started “crying hysterically” at the firehouse, according to Payne. Silent incredulity, others remained standing.
The storm cut off all communication with the volunteers. It wasn’t until the winds died down around 11 a.m. that the radios started “blowing up with calls,” according to Payne.
In the 1987 summer romance picture “Dirty Dancing,” starring Patrick Swayze, the town of Lake Lure served as a stand-in for a Catskills resort. Now, the remnants of Chimney Rock Village were making their way to the nearby town.
Hickory Nut bartender Tracy Stevens, 55, sought sanctuary at the Lake Lure Inn, where she was employed. As she saw, debris from Chimney Rock and beyond poured into the marina, clearing the way for the floating Town Center Walkway’s metal sections to rise like a map’s folds and displacing boats.
Her description was that of a toilet flushing. The tops of homes and cars were visible to me. You won’t believe it.
A portion of the rubble accumulated into a huge backup between the two bridges that connected the villages; one was a plain concrete structure that carried Memorial Highway over the Broad River, and the other was a beautiful three-arched structure called the Flowering Bridge.
After 85 years of carrying traffic into Chimney Rock, the bridge, which was built in 1925, was transformed into a lush walkway adorned with over 2,000 plant varieties. The bridge is now half down, and what little remains is covered in a web of vines, roots, and branches from nearby trees.
He proclaimed, “This is HOME” despite the town’s diminutive size. I have faith that we can overcome this because everyone pitches in. We will revive, I am certain of it. My only hope is that we can rebuild together so that we can witness it.
