Residents across Southwest Virginia begin long process of recovery after Helene

Emergency officials are still assessing the full extent of the damage to southwest Virginia from tropical storm Helene. Many communities are without water and power, and residents evacuated across seven counties.

83-year-old Elizabeth King has lived along the New River in Wythe County most of her life, one of the areas most impacted by last week’s flooding.

Her husband is buried in a water-proof casket beside the home they shared on the bank of the river for decades. She says she didn’t want to leave, but her daughters made her.

She sits on her daughter Kathy’s couch, holding her small brown dog, Bandit, with tears in her eyes.

“Everything’s gone,” King said.

“What I tell you? It’s just memories,” said her daughter Kathy King. “Our main concern was you.”

“I know,” said King, nodding.

A few miles away, her home stands surrounded by mud. High water pushed her wooden front porch away from the house. A peach tree her husband planted is broken. Inside the house, everything is damaged.

Her husband’s grave, however, is still intact, and her daughter Kathy says she’s grateful the water didn’t take him away. Plastic flowers still stick in the mud surrounding his grave.

“We promised our daddy on his dying bed we’d take care of her, and that’s what we intend to do,” King said.

“Yes. That was his biggest fear,” said her sister, Susan Lane.

“Her being took care of,” King said.

“Them two were like two peas in a pod,” Lane said.

They’re working to find out if their mother’s home insurance will help her rebuild. For now, she is staying with them.

Downriver a few miles in Pulaski County, dozens of people are starting the long process of clearing out mud and trash from their homes.

Many here in the community of Allisonia couldn’t drive down this road to their homes until Sunday, when the water began to recede.

Motorcycles, boats, clothes, even a mobile home were scattered in the road and yards when the water went down.

A friend hugs Brian Sale, as they stand in muck boots, overlooking the damage to Sale’s home.

Friends and family have come out to help Sale and his wife clean.

“I think I’m still in shock,” Sale said. “We watched all our stuff wash out of the house.” He added that he’s grateful that this community didn’t lose any lives, like in other areas further south.

“This is material stuff. It can be fixed,” Sale said.

Many of the people who were displaced have been staying these past few days with friends and family. Others have been sleeping wherever they can find a place to rest.

“A couple out of one of the houses, they actually slept in their van over here outside the fire department a couple of nights,” said Jamie Arnold, the volunteer fire chief in the Allisonia community.

Some temporary shelters have been set up in communities across southwest Virginia.

Local organizations are setting up donation centers to collect for flood victims here in the Commonwealth, and further south in the Carolinas. One drop off location is in Dublin, at the Pulaski County Free Store, where Heather Short is a volunteer.

“I know I’ve heard multiple times, people have just lost everything. We currently are accepting things like blankets, tents, sleeping bags, tarps,” Short said.

Water is another need across all of the impacted communities throughout the southeast.

Volunteers are also collecting donations in Giles County at the Newport Community Center and in Blacksburg.

State officials are still assessing the damage and trying to determine how many people in Virginia are in need of housing, as a result of last week’s storms.

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.