'Get out of here or die': Asheville man describes being trapped under bridge during Helene

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — David Jagielski was camping under the Amboy Bridge when the water started rising. He was sheltered there, hoping for it to stop as the rain came down in sheets.

The bridge connects West Asheville to the River Arts District across the French Broad River. Soon, parts of both districts would be underwater.

Jagielski woke the morning of Sept. 26 surrounded by water. He sat through the day and night, waiting for the water to recede, still it rose. Outside his concrete alcove, a once-in-a-generation storm raged.

By the next morning — hours before the river crested at record 24.67 feet — it seemed clear the water wasn't stopping.

“Finally, I just had to make myself a decision: Get out of here or die in here," Jagielski told the Asheville Citizen-Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. "And I’m not dying out here for nothing.”

Tropical Storm Helene brought historic flooding and catastrophic devastation to Western North Carolina, where thousands are still without power and water. Buncombe County had the highest death toll of any in North Carolina, where 97 deaths had been confirmed by Thursday.

Across the region. the total number of confirmed deaths has now crossed the 200 threshold, according to a USA TODAY Network analysis. South Carolina reported 41 fatalities, Georgia 33, Florida 19, Tennessee 11 and Virginia two.

'I didn't think I was going to make it'

Jagielski was able to swim to safety. In jeans, shoes and a hoodie, the extra weight dragged him even further down into the current, he said.

“There were a couple of times I didn’t think I was going to make it out of the river, but I was able to grab ahold of some branches and pull myself back up," he said Wednesday.

After he dragged himself out of the raging waters, he made his way to Safe Shelter, a 20-bed homeless shelter, housed on Trinity United Methodist Church's campus in West Asheville. In recent days, it has expanded its capacity to meet the overwhelming need to house people.

Shelter Director Christian Chambers recalled Jagielski arriving in soaking wet clothes. He got cleaned up and has been helping out ever since then.

'Everything is gone'

Jagielski was walking the ravaged areas along Amboy Road Wednesday, past Carrier Park and Wilson's Riverfront RV Park, sandwiched between the French Broad River and an I-26 exit ramp. He said he was looking for where he could lend a hand.

Carrier Park was wrecked. Debris and trees tangled with the wreckage of buildings and vehicles. Immense root systems were exposed on countless downed trees that were bent and snapped as though felled under the weight of a massive hand.

The Asheville Motor Speedway, which first opened in 1960 and was repurposed into a paved asphalt track used for biking and skating, was caked in mud. The fence around it was flattened. The playground leaned. The wooden stairs and bridge that span across the velodrome still stood, but an entire RV was caught against it and partially suspended, its innards spilling into the grass.

In the park, Sam Mortier was sorting through the wreckage. He was coiling wire to stow in a cart attached to the back of a bike. A grill was jerry-rigged to the handles. He was doing what he could to make a dollar, he said, but the scrapyards were still closed.

“I’m down to $10 and I’m getting scared," Mortier said. He lost his camper in the storm, he said. It was parked somewhere nearby, but not in the campground down the road. At this point, he said, as he sifts through the wreckage, he's just looking for something "recognizable."

Without his camper or truck, which he said was recently stolen, he's left camping in a tent.

"Everything is gone," he said. Mortier "climbs trees for a living," he said, so he's used to chasing storms. This time, he said, it followed him. Asheville has been home for 17 years.

While the destruction isn't new to him, he said, “It’s different when you live in it."

"When you leave a stable place and go to a place that’s in havoc, it’s different because you’ve got supplies with you," Mortier said. "When you’re there when it hits, it’s over.”

Four shelters, three nights

The nearby RV park was largely cleared out, cement pads were empty except for a red tent, beside it a white canopy. Under it, Randall Houghton was fixing tacos. He said he'd been camping at the park before the storm hit, since then he's been at four shelters in three nights.

First to the Salvation Army, where he stayed for a night; then to the Veteran Restoration Quarters, nonprofit Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry's housing for homeless veterans; then after VRQ was evacuated as floodwaters rose the morning of Helene's arrival, to the Harrah's Cherokee Center in downtown Asheville. That stay was brief, and not overnight. He ended up at Buncombe County's emergency shelter at the WNC Agriculture Center, stood up after the storm.

"It was horrible," he said, deciding to camp instead. Houghton made his way back to the RV park where he slept for two nights on the exit ramp. The water had engulfed the park. He watched it recede. Now, he's hoping to stick around and help rebuild at the park.

Several camper vans were strewn down Amboy Road. The registration office and RV repair shop's awning was collapsed, and the brick façade was peeling away from the cinderblock below.

Owner Tony Wilson was making his way up the exit ramp Oct. 2, where vehicles were parked along the roadside.

The last few days have been "hell," he said. "We've lost everything."

Everyone staying at the park got out, he said, but some RVs didn't. At this point, Wilson said he didn't know what federal aid would be available to them. His daughter's house in Weaverville was also "wiped out," but she was safe.

"We'll try to dig back out of it," he said.

'We're still here'

Houghton, an Asheville newcomer, got emotional when he spoke about the people who had helped him since the storm descended. He talked about "Kate," whose last name he couldn't remember, who helped him evacuate from the park. To anyone who approached his tent, he freely offered food and water.

With the ground drenched, he's been sleeping on one of the righted picnic tables.

He and Jagielski greeted each other warmly when the latter walked up to Houghton's camp. They had met days earlier and shared cigarettes.

Stories like these have been common in recent days, said Chambers, back at Safe Shelter. When the shelter's first generator was stolen, others were offered. He drove to meet a Charleston company halfway, who gave them a brand new one.

The shelter, too, has been redistributing supplies throughout the community.

Traci Ettison, supervising community health worker at Safe Shelter, said she was determined to provide people a sense of normalcy: "We're still here, and we're still making it."

Both Ettison and Chambers agreed Helene exacerbated the difficulties already facing the city's unhoused population.

"Camps are washed away and there is no trace of people," Chambers said. "It's the people that most wouldn't report missing, so nobody knows until they know."

Contributing: Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY

Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com or message on Twitter at @slhonosky. Please support local, daily journalism with a subscription to the Asheville Citizen-Times.