NC Mountain Flood Relief - Avery & Watauga Counties

Hello and thanks for taking the time to look at my Mountain Relief Fundraiser. My name is Jody Scholl, I was raised in Sugar Grove, a small town 7 miles West of Boone, North Carolina.

<<<<<< SEE UPDATES AT BOTTOM OF STORY >>>>>>

This was a peaceful mountain community where, at 14 years old, I would ride my bike along the curvy mountain roads to get to a little country store. I would spend my hard earned lawn mowing cash on these lone bike trips.

This store happens to be world famous today, and have 11 branded stores (across 4 states) selling their wares. I didn't know how lucky I was to be able to peddle my way to the Mast General Store. I would grab a Nehi Peach (in a glass bottle) out of the ice filled cooler, rest for a while, and peddle back home. This ride took me over multiple bridges, the longest being the crossing over the Watauga River.

NOTE: Updates will be added at the bottom of my plea, maybe plea sounds desperate... That is an accurate assessment. Read On, and Thank You....

Having grown up in the mountains of Northwestern NC and Eastern TN, the scenes of destruction and eyewitness accounts following Helene shake me to my core. The cover image shows a community that is completely cut off due to the entrance bridge being washed out. Folks have to cross here to get food, supplies, medicine, medical care, the list goes on.

I went to elementary and middle school, less than a mile from this spot, with many kids that lived up this particular “Holler”.

I rode my bike by this exact missing bridge many times, and one of my favorite Christmas Tree Farms is just up this road. I came back to get Christmas Trees at this farm while living in KY after college.

This is ONE image of ONE bridge in the Sugar Grove/Cove Creek community (Watauga County). This is not the only bridge up this single "Holler" that washed out…

Google Maps shows you some of the roads that are closed, but what you can't see are all of the little community bridges that are also damaged or washed away. Communication is completely cut off in this region, and will be for a long time.

The creek being crossed here runs for miles, with the same story being repeated with bridges every ¼ to ½ mile. Most of which are now completely gone, or are too damaged to cross.

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Avery County (2020 population 17,500 as of 2022) - Newland, NC (the highest elevation County Seat (3,609 ft) East of the Mississippi River) is also a huge part of our family story.

The Newland community was a place to land when we had to regroup following the housing bubble collapse. We had 3 young daughters at that time and had to start over.

Bankruptcy can happen to anyone, we had our moment for sure. Investing in the housing market, and quitting my good paying engineering job, to focus on investment properties full time in 2007, was apparently a poor decision.

We lost our small farm in Berea, KY, along with 2 investment properties that were being remodeled, so could not be rented to pay the mortgages. We tried to refocus in Georgetown, KY, but I just couldn't make things work out like I had hoped.

Some amazing friends encouraged us to move to the mountains (about 30 minute drive normally) close to where I grew up in Watauga County. Our girls learned how to ride their bikes in Newland, and we had many heavy duty snowball fights the few years we lived there.

Our story took a great many turns during the next few years, including living 3 of those years in a School Bus I converted into an RV. We got to experience this great country, and visit the places many people only read about or see in movies, with our daughters as they were growing into the adults they are now. Our girls are now 17, 19, and 20, it is hard to believe we have been out of the mountains for nearly 10 years.

Living since 2015 in the SC Lowcountry, we see hurricanes and flooding rains on a regular basis. The water in the Lowcountry floods by rising and falling but for the most part, wet things dry out.

In the mountains, small creeks have no place to go but deeper and faster. They can’t spread out, and the falling water adds unimaginable force. The beautiful stream next to your Airbnb rental cabin can turn into a raging nightmare with heavy rains.

Bridges in the mountains can handle normal flood waters, but they can’t handle being rammed by cars, trees, mobile homes, and destroyed bridge beams from upstream.

I am doing what I can to load supplies and take what the communities actually need. I also have donation drop points being staged across the Lowcountry of SC for supplies to accumulate until the areas have enough bridges opened up to allow the loads to be moved to the areas in need.

The funds donated will go 100% to these communities. I will be buying supplies from Lowcountry businesses and encouraging them to sell them to me at cost, or make donations of their own.

This is not a short term quick recovery. Rebuilding the infrastructure will take many months and winter is just around the corner.

Through the spiderweb of career paths I have taken over the years, I managed to end up as a Senior Project Engineer for an amazing company, Ingenics Corporation USA, that is fully supportive of my relief efforts. They are actively working on ways they can help from the corporate level, so I am looking forward to see what they can bring to the communities.

My daily work activities focus on coming up with solutions to tough problems for massive multi-national companies. Maybe all of this experience will help me coordinate a massive relief effort that will snowball. I can deal with Massive, and with Snowballs so lets see what this can do.

The mountains, and the mountain people, are forever scarred by this storm. They will get back up, that is what mountain folks do.

I just want to do what I can to help give ‘em a boost. They don’t need a handout, just something steady to hold onto while they pull themselves out of this hole.

Please Share, and thanks for taking the time to read this story. I will post updates as new information is available.

UPDATE 10-2-24 - Dad (age 77), who still lives in Sugar Grove a couple miles from this bridge, had his power restored today. There are many areas that will be without power for (my estimation) months. This is not a matter of putting in a few poles that were damaged, and replacing some power lines that fell down. The main transmission lines that feed entire electrical networks are GONE --- Lines, Towers, Poles, Transformers --- GONE. In many cases this is for many miles in a row.

Think about it, this terrain is very rugged and steep. Does it make sense to go onto the side of a mountain to install main power lines or find a nice level spot in the valley between peaks to install those lines. Over the mountain may be a shorter distance, but when it is so steep a bulldozer can't climb it, you have no choice. What happens in valleys when it rains, the water must escape somewhere. The result is the current catastrophic power grid destruction we now face.

The information from friends and family living in the middle of this nightmare paint a much worse picture than what we are seeing on the news. Eventually the full magnitude of this damage and loss of life will be understood. Hindsight will help us see which actions taken were successful, and which ones made things worse. In an election year where everyone is charged up and primed to take sides, it is hard to not insert this into your judgement of how any public situation is handled.

Americans are known for many things. Coming to the aid of those less fortunate is something we can be proud of. Lets use this as a reminder, and a catalyst to help us get behind each other and Help Our Neighbor. We may disagree on a personal level politically, and have heated discussions to that effect in person. That would never prevent me from stopping on the side of the road to help you change a tire....

Maybe you are unable to donate to this relief fund, that is ok. Your form of donation could be telling someone else about this cause. This story may also help you reflect on someone close to you that may be going through their own "Bankruptcy" or equivalent life crisis.

So many friends and family helped us through our tough time as mentioned above, maybe you can be that helping hand for someone else in need. To keep someone else's head above the water long enough for them to be able to stand again.

I am sharing my youtube link here, not as a personal advertisement platform, but as a way for you to get to know me a little. I haven't uploaded videos in a while due to life getting in the way. You can see glimpses through my videos of the areas mentioned in this story. You can also follow the timeline I am describing if you pay attention. You may also see "The Scholl Bus", our converted bus I mentioned in the story above. Maybe this will lend some credibility to the story and give you peace of mind that I will do exactly what I say I will do. This is not some "Pop-Up" scam, the people in the mountain region will be blessed by your donation.

UPDATE 10-3-24 - Thanks so much to the folks that have already donated with the limited information I started with here.

I have an amazing update to the donation progress. I received a message from a family we came to know and love while my wife and I were attending Berea College in Kentucky. We met this family before we even started dating. Now we have been married for 23 years, and our faithful friends (and life mentors) wanted to do something to help. I was asked to call and we spoke briefly on the phone. I explained the news I have received from family and friends in the area that are actively living this nightmare. They asked how much I had raised toward the original $5,000 goal. I told them we had raised a little over $1,000.

I began to cry when he said they wanted to donate $4,000 to help us reach our goal.

There were no words, only tears of disbelief and appreciation. I could no longer speak, so my lovely wife took over on the call for a few minutes. I could not regain my composure enough to talk so the call was ended. A few minutes later the money hit my Venmo account.

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ADDED NOTE: I am very thankful a platform like gofundme exists. The ease of how I started an account, and had a fundraiser active within an hour using only my cell phone = AMAZING. This social media mess can actually be used to help people... I would not advise donations to someone through cash transfer apps that do not provide assurance your money will get to its intended destination. The friends mentioned here have known me for close to 25 years... I am not trying to go around the gofundme process, this is just how these friends preferred to donate to my cause. I am not going to turn away donations in any form, so I will find a way to make it work.....

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I began updating the story attached to the gofundme fundraiser so it was more clear. I had typed the original information on my cell phone while staying in an airbnb house for a work trip. I knew I wanted to update the content but this gave me the drive to make it happen.

I have since updated the goal to $50,000 for this fundraiser. Plans are being put into place for utilizing the early seed funds this weekend if all go as planned.

If you have a business that would like to donate supplies directly, please reach out. Also looking for businesses that would be interested in selling supplies in bulk and at cost.

I also need anyone interested in hauling supplies, or providing trucks/trailers to haul supplies. I will find drivers or equipment operators as the need arises.

I may not be able to speak when all of the emotions come flooding out, but I have found I am an effective typist when this happens.

Who Knew....

UPDATE 10-3-24 - I have begun communication with government officials in the Newland, Avery County, area. My major focus has shifted toward getting some heavy equipment into the area for major debris removal, rock slide clearing, and even possibly moving houses out of roads so electrical and emergency medical crews can access further back into the isolated communities. I will publish images and videos of content as soon as the opportunities present themselves. I am also arranging bulk supply purchases with the funds already available in this fundraiser.