North Carolinian from hurricane-gutted town shows old family letter that detailed 1916 flood which also destroyed the town
A North Carolina family whose home was flooded out by Hurricane Helene found a 108-year-old letter that recounted with stunning detail the last time a similar tragedy struck — and now they feel like history’s repeating itself.Shirley Rhodes told ABC 13 News in Asheville that she found the handwritten letter some years ago — and she believes it was written by her grandmother’s friend.The stunning message paints a chilling picture of what locals went through the last time a deluge of such magnitude inundated the tiny town of Bat Cave, when 22 inches of rain fell there back in 1916.“We have had a distressing time, such rain and floods,” the letter said.“The slides were something terrible … the water came in our house, it tumbled down while we were in it, we made our escape through the kitchen, all ran out through the rain.“We waited and scrambled until we got up on the ridge.
We sat in the rain from 11 p.m.until light the next morning.
It rained all night.We couldn’t get to anyone’s house.”The storm ruined buildings and killed 50 people — and left the survivors with nowhere to go.“We can’t get out our houses and wagons out of here,” the letter said.
“We had to carry everything we brought to eat from Edneyville.”It’s an all-too-familiar story for the residents of Bat Cave, an unincorporated community of just a few hundred who have been taking stock of the shocking destruction wrought by Helene.The normally-lazy Rocky Broad River — which rarely reaches higher than a person’s knees — tore through the town during the September storm, ripping up homes and businesses as its swollen waters went on a wrathful joyride, according to The News & Observer.Landslides, washouts and downed trees have blocked or destroyed the roads in and out, and one resident told the outlet that it could be months before anyone gets there.
Workers are still trying to restore local bridges, which is the first step to rebuilding the little community�...