Sewell Family Support Fund-home swept away in Swannanoa NC

As we all know there’s been some serious damage and huge losses in the southeast. I learned that a friend of mine‘s son and daughter-in-law, Ned and Samantha, and fur babies, lost their entire home due to the floods. Please help them stay afloat (yes the pun was intended! They may have lost their home but we can help them keep their sense of humor.) Any gift of love and hard cold cash is seriously appreciated. Ned does finishing work in construction and well I’m sure he’ll start getting work within the next 4 to 5 weeks there’s going to be lag time there. Let’s build a financial bridge to help get them across successfully.

Below, Ned and Samantha share their account of the terrifying morning of Friday September 27, 2024:

"As you may or may not know, our house was washed with everything we owned, but we were able to evacuate and are healthy and safe with our pets.

Here is our story.

"Up until a few days ago, we were happy residents of Bee Tree Rd in Swannanoa, NC. We adored our home, our neighborhood, and community. On Thursday, September 26th, we spent the entire day prepping for hurricane Helene's arrival. The Fridge was stocked with 20 servings of premade food. We bought a big backup generator the night before to power the sump pumps and the fridge. Then there was nothing to do but wait and watch the news while we had power. We went to bed and woke up at around 2 or 3 with no power. At this point the wind and rain was picking up. We checked on things and tried to get a little more rest.

At 4 am we awoke to gusts of strong winds and pouring rain. A transformer blew lighting up the sky in green. Things were starting to get real, but we still could never imagine what was to come. At around 5 am things started to get very intense. Water began filling the basement and Ned was in and out trying to get the generator and sump pump going. The storm was right on top of us. A tree fell on the house from the creekside because of the enourmous amount of water coming from the spillway. I ran outside to check on Ned so afraid that a tree hit him. Thank God he was okay. Within 5 mins of the first tree falling, I heard another and even louder crash. The huge oak tree in our yard was uprooted, landing on our house, caving in one of the rooms. I ran outside to get Ned again. We assessed the rest of the damage and saw that, Ned's truck, which was also our planned escape 4x4, was crushed. This was our cue that we needed to get out of there without wasting any more time.

In the pitch black and with trees crashing down all around, we grabbed our bags and the animals to leave. In the mad dash we were so focused on surviving that we left behind any food or other important items we planned to take with us. Our front door exit was blocked by the oak tree and the side exit was smashed entirely. We were still able to go out through the rapidly flooding basement with our cat and dogs into the gusting 70+ mph winds and blinding rain with branches and trees landing all around us. We made it to our our honda as all we could do was drive a few houses up the road and across the street to hunker down with our neighbor. That's where we spent the rest of the 7 hours of the storm hunkered down and white knuckled, praying a tree didn't fall where we were hiding. Many trees hit the house causing leaks in the roof and other damage, but no one was hurt.

Finally, the storm began to subside and we could see the daylight and the rising waters. Nervously, we watched hoping the damn above us would hold and the water would stop rising. We watched our house from across the street as we saw huge items like our basement refrigerator and the oil tank for our furnace float away. We naively wondered, "how did the refrigerator get through the basement door?"

Once we felt safe enough to go outside, we decided to go check on our house. We walked up to our house. The subaru was badly damaged and had been swept 20 feet from its original place and the van was floating up against the house. We saw that half of the basement had been washed out and our upstairs bedroom was suspended over the water. We started to hear cracking which was a familiar sound from the night of trees falling so we backed away some. Moments later, we saw the entire house start to move and float off until it collapsed, quickly becoming obliterated by the rapids.

All of this left us left with nothing but the clothes on our backs and our backpacks. We never imagined when we left that morning with the animals would be our last time in our home.

The next couple of days we're with our friends/neighbors all sharing resources, ideas, and hope to ensure everyone's safety and survival.

It took a lot of time and energy to get out to safer ground. We had to hike out with everything we had left on our backs and hitchhike to get to our friends house that we hoped were okay and luckily they were. They took us in with open arms and gave us our first real meal in days.

Now, we are now safe with family in South Carolina, trying to process everything that happened and figure out how to rebuild from scratch. Ned is a carpenter has lost $20,000 worth of equipment that was his livelihood. And that is just scratching the surface of the loss.

We are forever grateful for your support. Our hearts are with our community in WNC experiencing so much loss and devastation. Love you all."