Macon artists rescued from North Carolina via helicopter

When you are on top of a mountain, some 3,300 feet above sea level, you don’t expect a hurricane to know where to find you, then track you down.

But Kathy Myers, Deb Eidam and Sherry Sims were there when Helene’s fury blew across the Blue Ridge along Pompey’s Knob, about 35 miles northeast of Asheville, North Carolina.

They saw her, heard her, felt her and will never forget her.

It was the first week of fall. After three days, Army Blackhawk helicopters rescued them or else they still might be up there. They had to leave behind some of their belongings, even their cars.

All three Macon women are now safely home. Their hearts are a tandem of sorrow and gratitude.

They were in a group of more than a dozen local
artists who were attending “Sacred Spaces” at the Wildacres Retreat in Little Switzerland, North Carolina.

The beauty and serenity of what was supposed to be a full week of creativity and connection were transformed by resilience and resourcefulness.

They checked in at Wildacres on Monday, Sept. 23, the day after the first official day of fall. They were prepared for cooler days and nights and the shifting weather patterns in the mountains, where blue skies are often quickly followed by rolling rain and tumbling fog. That’s why they call them the Smokies.

“We’ve been up there before when there has been a lot of wind and rain,’’ Eidam said. “But it usually just blows out of there. It doesn’t last.’’

As they left  Macon, the city was bracing for a tropical storm  gathering strength in the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the tracking models showed Middle Georgia in the direct path of the storm, which was projected to race up I-75 toward Atlanta as if it had a Peach Pass on its dashboard.

All three women had experienced the unpredictability of hurricane season, having lived through Tropical Storm Alberto’s catastrophic impact on Macon 30 years ago. They expected some fallout from Helene as it made landfall, but only a light brushstroke in the corner of their mountain canvas.

“We knew a hurricane was coming … we just didn’t know it was coming up there,’’ Sims said.

By midweek, they were monitoring the course of the storm. Only it fooled them, along with everyone else. 

It was supposed to zig … and it zagged.

Trees began snapping like toothpicks. They lost power at 4:15 a.m. Friday. 

They could get EMA weather alerts on their phones, but they had limited cell service and WiFi.

With little or no means of communication with the outside world, it was a helpless feeling … like hydroplaning on a mountain road in the dark.

 The helicopters came to rescue them Sunday morning. Sims heard them before she saw them.

 “When I got to the pasture and saw the helicopters and the military, I started crying,’’ she said. “I had hope.’’

They had been told to pack light to evacuate, leaving behind everything from clothes to art supplies. They were carefully transported down the mountain in golf carts, then airlifted to a safe zone at a Pepsi-Cola distribution center in Marion, North Carolina. 

 Flying above the ridges and valleys, they were shocked at the devastation. Mudslides had wiped out roads. Houses and country stores they had driven past on their way up were piles of rubble. 

Some people lost everything. Some even lost their lives.

“I have been up in the Appalachian Mountains a lot,’’ Eidam said. “It’s a poor area. Their homes are gone. Their livelihoods are gone. It’s going to take a while. It’s going to take a lot of engineering to get those roads and bridges back.’’

Myers was particularly saddened when she heard about the wholesale destruction in the village of Chimney Rock, at nearby Lake Lure. She and her late husband honeymooned there 50 years ago this past August. 

The local artists found their way home riding in church vans and school buses. They made stops at senior centers that had been transitioned to emergency shelters. A local pastor invited one group to his home. 

 Because of the closed roads, the return trip was filled with jagged detours. Eidam was re-routed through Augusta and Dublin, two cities in Georgia that were particularly hammered by the storm.

 Sims and Eidam have no idea when they will be able to return to Wildacres to retrieve their cars. It could be months. Many of the routes have been deemed impassable. Winter will be moving in, and the winding mountain roads will be closed because of treacherous
conditions.

Myers said the trauma of the past week didn’t fully hit her until Tuesday morning. 

 “I guess I’ve been running on adrenaline,’’ she said. “I don’t think I was afraid. It was just the sorrow. It was sad.’’