For those of us who live in Western North Carolina

For those of us who live in Western North Carolina, the week of September 8, 2004, was both frightening and exciting. Hurricane Frances dumped so much rain on our area that the rivers overflowed their banks, pouring into Asheville, Brevard, Clyde, Canton, Hendersonville and other areas. Our family was isolated for only two days by water-covered roads, but others were not as lucky, suffering injuries, terrible property loss, the disadvantages of not having power or drinking water and the fear of losing all you own.

One thing I discovered about our newly-adopted state of North Carolina - the people are incredibly friendly, helpful, supportive and positive. We had the opportunity to meet many of our neighbors and made new friends.

All the photos below were taken in our neighborhood off Crab Creek Road near Brevard. My husband, Homer, took all the photos of the rescued wildlife. Thousands of insects and animals swam for their lives to get to high ground and we tried to help where we could.

HURRICANE IVAN

When Ivan hit Western North Carolina on September 16 and 17th, it brought even more destruction in the form of downed trees, power outages and damaged roads. Tragically, there have been eight reported deaths and the death toll keeps rising. Mud slides, emergency evacuations and roads damaged so badly, it will be weeks or even months before repairs can be made. We were extremely lucky once again, but feel saddened by the deaths and injuries around us. Once again, people have come together to help their neighbors.

We took a few photos on the 17th as the dark clouds moved across our valley here in Transylvania County. They are shown at the bottom of the page.

Luckily Hurricane Jeanne didn't have as much impact as the previous storms. Hopefully, the worst is now over.

(CLICK ON THE PHOTOS BELOW TO SEE LARGER IMAGE)

This was Talley Road before the flood...

...and after the river covered it.

Homer watching the water rise.

A neighbor's mailbox AFTER the water went down a bit.

There is a tree farm under the water.

Here are some of the survivors of the flood.

More scenes of flooding.

There is beauty even in disaster.

On the days following the worst of the flood, the weather was beautiful.

A common sight.

PHOTOS FOLLOWING HURRICANE IVAN

The beautiful lake shown here is actually a flooded cow pasture. As the clouds moved rapidly overhead, the sun shone through showing beauty even during great destruction.

This poor horse looked like he was saying "Where's my field?"