Support Nicky's Recovery from Asheville Flood

*EDIT#2* I have been denied FEMA assistance outside of hotels, but I am lucky enough to be staying with family in Ohio, so I am not using that help... This doesn't come without compromise on my family's part. If you can see it in your heart to help out, I would be eternally grateful for the help. I'm opening this back up because I really do need some help, since my government can't help me. I will probably be here for a month or so until water comes back and is clean. Please help me if you can. I will pay it forward when I can.

*Edit* You know what, friends... I stopped the donations this evening. I wrote this gofundme this morning.

Then I read it again this evening after I drove to the store and all the stoplights were working, and I was able to cook dinner in the light and the tv was on, and I did the dishes in hot water, Then I saw more news updates from home. I immediately felt shame. How incredibly selfish it is of me to ask for help when I have it. I can do whatever I want. And they can have the rest?!? Honestly, gross.

I apologize deeply. I am going to pause this fundraiser and figure out what that is all about. I should be doing it all for them. It shouldn't have even been a question. Who does that? Please stand by. I wish I could wake up and get a do-over like in groundhog day. Lemme get in touch with their help team and get this properly addressed.

Hello all... My name is Nicky, and I have lived in Asheville, NC for over 20 years. It's a beautiful city with a vibrant and loving community. When I went to bed on Thursday the 26th, the river was already at a commonly high level for rainfall, and the ground was very saturated. I went to bed knowing that Helene was going to hit us overnight, and I went to bed knowing the power would go out, and that the flooding would be close to breaking a record high from 1916. I woke up to a war zone of devastation on an unimaginable scale, sufficed to say that it is indescribable. Power and water were out, sirens and helicopters were nonstop (will be for weeks). Nobody had any cell service at all for 2 days, so we couldn't even check on each other, except the people we could readily get to in our neighborhoods. We couldn't get far. As we moved through that Friday, the river crested around 8 pm, and the next morning was even worse. The only information we could get was by transistor radio, and it wasn't much, because nobody local could make calls or share their videos or photos of the destruction. We pulled our little network of sharing resources together, and began to make sure people had what they needed, but supplies ran out fast, and aid information was spotty, unless you had a radio. Things were getting very real. My apartment is a basement apartment, and although we stayed dry, it began to get very musty within a day or two. Sitting alone in the dark with only the sounds of the sirens and choppers, reminding me of what was out there lowered my morale a bit more every day. The musty/moldy smell got stronger every day. I made it five nights, and with a heavy heart for my community, I decided to get out. My neighbors gave me enough gas to get to a working gas station, and I loaded my pets into the car and came to Ohio to stay with my Uncle. Thing is, I'll likely be here for a month or so. I would like to be as little of a burden as possible to him for his generosity, and I also don't have much at all in my account at this point.

I'm humbly asking if you can donate anything you can to help me get the things I need like pet food, gas, groceries, pay my rent and bills, and help a few friends out in Asheville who also need funds. If I can't physically be there, I can help in this way.

This is an unimaginable disaster of genuinely Biblical proportion, and I just really could use some support if you have the ability to donate or share this.

Thank you in advance. I can't believe this is real.