Please help Chuck rebuild after Hurricane Helene

Hi, my name is Chuck Brodsky, and I'm a singer-songwriter living in Asheville, North Carolina. I'm fortunate to still have a house, but I need to ask for help for repairs. I’ve done a few crowdfunding campaigns in the past that allowed me to record new CDs, and with those I had something to offer in exchange. This time is a little different.

Hurricane Helene caused 160 landslides in Buncombe County, NC, and 2 of them were on my property. One pushed a rock wall 10 feet out into the middle of my driveway. A muddy stream then flowed across the driveway, which clogged the drains on the other side of it. Then the water found its way to the edge of the hillside my house was built on, causing the hill to collapse in a massive slide, and leaving my house dangerously close to where the land fell away. The support posts for my deck were left just inches from the edge. I've attached a few videos so that you can see what happened. Fortunately, within a week I was able to find a crew to stabilize the deck by adding new posts a few feet further back. That was just a very temporary fix.

The permanent fix, to stabilize and rebuild the hillside so it won’t collapse further and take the house with it, is going to cost a lot of money. I got bids from two very reputable geotechnical engineering firms, and I chose Gentry. Their bid was the lower of the two, but the price is staggering.

It will cost somewhere between $75,000 and $80,000. This will cover soil testing, surveying, drawing up of plans, soil compacting, and construction work. A massive retaining wall needs to be built to hold up a restored hillside, and to keep it from everfalling again now that the land has been weakened. An additional retaining wall needs to be built behind the rock wall along the driveway, to keep it from failing again in the future. Proper drainage for both walls will be an essential part of the fix.

Unfortunately, my homeowners insurance won’t cover landslide damage. And FEMA would only cover damage if it were to the actual house itself. Thankfully, my house was unscathed. But it’s sitting precariously close to what’s left of the hill it was built on, and without stabilizing the hill, it could someday fall.

My driveway itself was also badly damaged by runoff from the mountain, and I’ll need to have landscaping work done as well. But I’m only asking for what it will cost to cover the structural repairs, to make things safe again. The driveway and landscaping I can deal with someday in the future.

Thanks for reading this far. If you’d like to help me, I’d be deeply grateful for any amount. I don’t want anyone to feel obligated or that I’m expecting anything from you. You may have already helped others who’ve suffered more than I have. Several of you have already helped me over the past 6 weeks, and I’m not asking you to give again.

Whatever I can raise toward the cost of repairs will be a godsend. If you’d like to donate, you can click on the GoFundMe link below. Please share this if you feel so inclined. Thank you.