My husband and I were in Ashville, North Carolina from September 19-21. We then rented a car and drove first to Columbia, South Carolina, where we went to the University of South Carolina and lunch, and then on to Charleston.
I planned to write a glowing blog about how much I loved the hotel we stayed at in Asheville: The Omni Grove Park Inn. A lovely 1912 hotel built out of Granite and overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains.
I will not write about the hotel. I know it is still standing, even though it is now closed. I will not describe the places I saw on the Hop on/ Hop off tour I took, because the downtown and the arts center of Asheville are currently underwater or covered in mud. I won’t tell you the joke our tour guide made about the French Broad River, because it crested high above flood stage and destroyed most of the town.
What I will tell you is that Ashville was a beautiful quaint city with a lovely downtown. The Arts area was covered in murals created by local artists. And all the buildings were brimming with pieces created by local artists. Now probably washed away, destroyed or at the least covered in muck and mud.
I will tell you about the black bears that calmly walked down the street and were shooed away by people standing on their porches. I wonder how many survived.
While I was on my tour, the tour guide stopped to show us the white painted line on the side of a building to show us how high the flood of 1916 covered the town. I think the flood of 2024 was higher.
I do not know if any of the many people I met there who worked in the hotel or in town were hurt or injured or lost loved ones. Lost their homes, their jobs and their sense of security.
I will say, Asheville and western North Carolina needs our help. The highway we used to leave town, Highway 26, was closed for a while. It is now open. But many roads are still closed, power is out, phone coverage is out, internet is out. There is a lack of water and food.
I will post here some of my photos from Asheville. I hope that everyone can do what they can to help. I know the Red Cross is collecting money to help.
I wish I was writing the blog I wanted to write about Asheville. We had a wonderful visit and met many lovely people. We enjoyed our stay at the hotel imagining life there in the early 1920s. I loved the little museum with information about their annual gingerbread house competition. How F. Scott Fitzgerald lived and wrote there. And the many famous people and presidents who visited the hotel.
I hope it does not take decades to recover. But I know the entire western edge of North Carolina needs our help. The Red Cross is asking for volunteers to help with Hurricane Helene disaster relief, specifically people from Arkansas and Missouri who can go for two weeks. They also need financial donations. Here is the link to the Red Cross donation page.
Or you can go to the American Red Cross on your own to donate: https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation.html/.
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