Rebuild Beacon Veterinary Hospital After Flood

On Thursday, September 26th, 2024, the staff of Beacon Veterinary Hospital completed the day’s work early and left our building at 1 pm, as the rain was coming in ahead of Hurricane Helene. The hurricane had yet to make landfall in Florida, but it was preceded in the Western North Carolina Mountains by 48 hours of steady, heavy, ground-saturating rain. On the morning of the 27th, as Helene made her arrival, Dr. Johansson logged in at 7 am to the security cameras and saw some water approaching in the backyard. By 7:05 am, the cameras and power went dark at Beacon.

Those were the final moments of our sweet little animal hospital, created in 2009 in a former bank building in the heart of Beacon Village in Swannanoa, NC. When the Swannanoa River flooded that day, the waters reached as high as 7 feet inside the building, washed out the doors and windows, and crumbled the interior walls, cabinets, laboratory equipment, etc., along with every object in the building. No animals were present in the hospital, and fortunately, our entire staff is currently safe, although our lives have been disrupted well beyond the destruction of our workplace.

The entire Swannanoa community was ravaged by the storm, and the rebuilding work that has begun will likely take years, possibly a decade or more to complete. Our hospital will rebuild, we hope at the original site. However, seeing the damage to the land—erosion and sinkholes surround the building, severe damage to the roadways and infrastructure—we will need to seek a temporary facility outside of our “home” in Swannanoa.

As there are many in need in Western North Carolina, we have not wanted to divert any resources away from individuals that need immediate assistance and the many on-the-ground organizations providing this assistance. But as the days and weeks pass, it is clear that the rebuilding work has already begun. As part of that rebuilding, we have been approached by many individuals and groups that would like to support our mission to continue our independently-owned veterinary practice despite the physical destruction of our hospital.

This funding request is specifically to help with the uncertain road ahead for our practice and staff of 11 compassionate and heart-heavy caregivers. We lost every bit of our equipment in the toxic sludge, including our digital dental and radiography machines, a portable ultrasound unit, and our complete stock of medications and preventative care products. We are hopeful for assistance from our insurance and vendors, but are offering this site as an avenue for those that wish to help us with our rebuilding efforts as we continue to serve our stricken communities in Swannanoa, Black Mountain, and Asheville.

In addition to our campaign, we would encourage the support of the many individual crowdfunding efforts from those impacted by this disaster, as well as the support of local groups providing aid in the area. Some of the groups we would direct those wishing to contribute to individual efforts (in no particular order) are:

MANNA FoodBank https://donate.mannafoodbank.org/?source=lb

Beloved Asheville https://www.belovedasheville.com/donate/

World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/

Fundraiser for Christine Hart, our client services representative who had a harrowing escape from her home in neighboring Beacon Village https://gofund.me/b7dda506

Brother Wolf Animal Rescue https://secure.qgiv.com/for/rebuildbw

ResilieNCe (local group of volunteers)https://extremeresilience.net/reliefrequest?fbclid=IwY2xjawGPOsNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHXeEN8-J4lME5ilY5hI9P9u9CFTftxJqVw1D_F0ApawYs684g5OmgXOvHg_aem_UWv2TQaDDCZ21-yQ4exDSg

We appreciate the community’s support to our hospital and staff as we begin the healing and rebuilding. Hope to see you soon back on Whitson Avenue.

All donated funds will be placed in a separate account with our bank and used for direct rebuilding costs and supporting our staff as needed.