Surviving Helene: Amidst the Chaos, Extension Staff Sprang into Action

Jun 3, 2025 | Hurricane Helene

A man kneels on muddy ground amid storm debris, holding a bent metal beam in a heavily damaged area, surveying destruction left by Hurricane Helene with a concerned expression.

Former N.C. A&T Cooperative Extension agent Michael Rayburn visits the site where the Asheville Tea Company development, storage and sales facility stood before floodwaters from Hurricane Helene washed the building away.

WESTERN N.C.  – September 27, 2024. For residents of Western North Carolina, that’s the day when regular life turned to chaos, as torrential rains from Hurricane Helene sent water rushing into mountain towns, washing away homes, farms, businesses, quaint downtowns, roads and bridges.

“It was like being in constant fight mode; I was running on adrenaline those first few days,” recalled Michael Rayburn, the former urban agriculture Extension agent in Buncombe County. Rayburn’s 17-acres farm in Barnards Hill north of Asheville was inundated when flood waters raged down the Ivy River. The family’s outdoor garden was washed away and several houses were knocked off their foundations and dropped in their fields.

In those first few days, Rayburn went to a nearby fire station to find a radio signal and learn about the extent of the damage from the storm. He headed out with other volunteers in a neighbor’s tractor, equipped with a front grabbing claw, to clear roads.

“As an Extension agent, I think it’s just in our nature to dive in at a time like this and be a first responder, even if that’s not what our job titles are,” said Rayburn.

The story was similar in nearby High Country counties in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

In Watauga County, Richard Boylan, area small farm management agent, worked with neighbors to keep a three-mile gravel road into their community passable. Boylan’s home lost power for about two weeks, but when he was able to reach the Watauga County Extension office in Boone, he began reaching out to small farmers who lived in the path of the flood waters. He worked with Extension agents to bring engineering experts to Boone to test water and soil quality and, in one case, redirect a culvert that was shooting a fire hose of water at the foundation of a farm owner’s barn.

Two large industrial storage tanks lie overturned and heavily damaged in a debris-strewn lot, illustrating severe infrastructure damage caused by Hurricane Helene.

Derailed train cars still remain along the banks of the Swannanoa River in Asheville on April 11, 2025, more than six months after Hurricane Helene spawned floodwaters that destroyed much of the area along the river.

“Once I realized this was not a normal flood, this was unprecedented, you begin asking yourself ‘What can I do?’ ” said Boylan. “As an Extension agent, you’re there for farmers, you’re there for people. And you need to figure out how to be there amidst all the chaos.”

In Yancey County, which got 32 inches of rain and Category 2 hurricane-force winds at Mount Mitchell, Adam McCurry, agriculture and natural resources technician, set out with volunteer firefighters and his 18-year-old son on search and rescue missions while his wife, a Veteran’s Administration nursing supervisor, ran a makeshift medical operation at the local fire station.

“This is one thing that I will brag about Extension for, every chance I can,” said Jennifer Harrison, agriculture and natural resource director in Buncombe County. “Extension didn’t have to do all those things. The university didn’t say, ‘Go work at a water station or a feeding station.’ That was our Extension agents saying, ‘This is our community and we are here to help, regardless of what the work is.’ ”

After the Flood, a Need for Water

Water was the cause of destruction and heartache in mountain towns, but for Megan Riley, owner and operator of M R Gardens in Asheville, uncontaminated water was harder to find.  With the city water system shut down, water wasn’t flowing to her greenhouses in early October 2024, essential to keeping her nursery plants alive.

Riley wasn’t immediately concerned about the city’s nonfunctional water system because of the amount of rain the storm had brought. But, after more than a week without water deemed safe, and some unusually warm October days, she was in danger of losing her plants. Friends, colleagues, and Cooperative Extension came to the rescue. A nursery owner in Pittsboro drove to Asheville to pick up a truckload of plants to sell and a landscape architect in Durham sold about 250 plants from his home. Extension staff in the area also put their heads together to help Riley. They were able to corral a 350-gallon tank full of water to help Riley save her plants and keep her business operating.

“I’ve always considered Extension agents to be part therapists, and that role definitely held true this time as they helped keep me cool in the midst of it all,” Riley said.

In addition to Rayburn and Luke Owen, commercial horticulture agent in Buncombe County, Riley said she is grateful for the help of Extension staff beyond the county, including Sam Marshall, area agent in ornamental horticulture who works out of Hayward County, and Danny Lauderdale, who holds a similar position in eastern North Carolina and works out of Wilson County.

Hay and Feed from Across the Country

Yancey County communities were left helpless after Helene roared through, and Extension staff sprang into action coordinating distribution of supplies that included hay, feed, generators and fencing. With the power out at the county Extension office, McCurry dispensed supplies from a local building supply company and from local farms that served as distribution points for livestock feed.

Woman in a purple shirt tending to lush green plants in an outdoor garden with white wall in the background.

Megan Riley, owner and operator of M R Gardens in Asheville, works in her greenhouse.

McCurry estimated he oversaw distribution of about 6,000 rolls of hay and 20 to 30 tons of feed, with donations coming from local charities and churches, but also many states, including Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, New Jersey, Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee and South Carolina.

“When all the donations started coming in, our work shifted to getting these emergency feed supplies to the folks who needed them,” said McCurry. “Some of that was just coordination. Some of it was actually taking the feed to them. Once we had the distribution system up and flowing, then we moved on to damage assessments.”

Two people crouching and inspecting young vegetable plants in a garden bed with curved support hoops, in front of a shed or barn.

Former N.C. A&T Cooperative Extension agent Michael Rayburn examines a failing broccoli plant and talks with Leonora Stefanile, manager of the Dr. John Wilson Community Garden in Black Mountain.

That damage has been catastrophic, he said, and has likely left a permanent mark on the region. Extension’s role in the months and years to come will focus on connecting people to financial help, enabling water and soil testing to ensure crops are grown without contamination, and looking forward to how mountain towns and farmers can be more resilient in the face of climate change and the threat of more weather-related disasters.

“Helene was a perfect storm in multiple ways,” said McCurry. “My family has lived in this county since before the Revolutionary War, and it will never look the same in my lifetime. We had landslides, lots of infrastructure loss and loss of farmland.

“And we’ve got Extension,” he continued “Everybody here pulled together and did a little bit of what needed to be done, and the role of Extension was a huge part of that.”