Flood-ravaged YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly retreat and conference center continues serving mountain community after Hurricane Helene
- appalachianplaces
- 1 day ago
- 7 min read
By Mark Rutledge
BLACK MOUNTAIN, North Carolina — The majestic peaks, deep valleys, and peaceful blue haze of Western North Carolina are home to a network of faith-based mountain retreats and conference centers established during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of the complexes experienced damage to their historic facilities when Hurricane Helene dumped record-breaking and catastrophic amounts of rain on the region on Sept. 27, 2024.
YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly — established in Buncombe County’s Black Mountain, just east of Asheville, in 1906 — sustained extensive damage losing two of its historic buildings along with seeing its swimming pool destroyed and most other buildings heavily flooded. A landslide turned a small cottage into rubble in a matter of seconds. Raging water carrying mud, rocks and debris caused such heavy damage to the historic Old Gym building that it had to be demolished. The building was later featured in a series called “Love Letters to Lost Places” published by the Preservation Society of Asheville on its website. The letter, by Blue Ridge Assembly President and CEO Melissa Bailey Logan, begins:
“Dear Old Gym,
I am so grateful for you. I’m grateful that when Helene sent a deluge of rocks, debris, mud and water down the mountain, you stood tall with your steel beams and solid wood and took the brunt of the devastation. I’m grateful you saved other buildings from destruction, including your neighbor for over a century, Asheville Hall, which had over fifty people sheltering there…”
Logan and other staff members were on the campus with about 300 young guests when the storm arrived. Expecting a lot of rain, they had activated emergency-preparedness procedures, which helped prevent injuries or deaths. Still, they were shocked by the intensity of the storm and violent flooding.
Mountain hurricane
Raised on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, Logan knew well the destructive nature of hurricanes. She just never thought she would witness one on the mountain she now calls home.
“I’d experienced hurricanes growing up,” she said, “experienced Katrina. But I always thought the mountain was safe. What I didn’t realize was that the land would give way. When you hear about the Gulf Coast, you hear about storm walls coming in and the canals rising and things like that. But here, I didn’t realize that the land was going to give, the trees were going to give.”
On the nomination form for its listing on the National
Register of Historic Places, Blue Ridge Assembly is described as situated along the north slope of the Swannanoa Mountains. “The Assembly is nestled in a cove between two steep, heavily forested ridges that loom up behind the complex to elevations of well over four thousand feet,” the form reads.
With the region saturated by heavy rain just prior to the storm, the steep, forested ridges became unstable slopes where the land and many trees did indeed give way and become deadly projectiles. Black Mountain experienced more than 13 inches of additionalrainfall from Helene, swelling rivers and streams up to 30 feet above normal levels. Hillsides collapsed in several areas, creating massive flows of uprooted trees, mud and rock. Among the 108 known fatalities from the storm in North Carolina, 43 were in BuncombeCounty.
Wolfpit Branch, one of two small tributaries running through the Blue Ridge Assembly campus, became a raging torrent that slammed trees into buildings and sent water, mud and muck into most structures. The picturesque creek bed — cloaked for more than a century by tree branches and mountain laurel — is where visiting kids have for generations dipped their feet and searched for crawdads. The storm transformed it into a wild and reckless mass that rerouted itself to spread mud and debris throughout the campus, piling up parked cars like discarded toys.
Changed landscape
Returning the creek to its original bed was an initial step toward the long recovery effort. If not for nearby Eureka Hall, the Assembly’s original landmark building built in 1912, before and after pictures of where Wolfpit Branch enters the campus would look like streams in completely different locations. The flood waters carved away the creek bed, adjacent soil, trees and vegetation to create more of a bedrock-exposed gorge.
The shock from the devastation was immediate. Attention turned quickly to ensuring everyone’s safety, evacuating visitors and staff, and then to coordinating a massive cleanup and recovery operation. Located just south of the town of Black Mountain, YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly, despite the damage, had enough of its facilities still functioning to house some of the relief crews working in the area. While undertaking enormous recovery and repair efforts of its own, the Assembly was able to stay true to its mission of community service by hosting disaster recovery groups.
“What we did after the storm, when we were broken — we were not forward-facing — but the fact that we could have AmeriCorps disaster relief, we could have Convoy of Hope, Mission Discovery…” Logan said. “These were volunteer disaster-recovery groups, and they would actually stay in our buildings that we were able have online, and they were serving Western North Carolina.”
Relief outlook
In and around Black Mountain, roads, bridges, and buildings were damaged or destroyed. The town’s public works and recreation and parks building was damaged as well as the Lakeview Center for Active Aging, other public infrastructure, parks, and support facilities for vital community services. In a July update published by The Carolina Journal, Town Manager Josh Harold estimated that the town sustained between $25 and $30 million in damage to assets and infrastructure — far more than the town’s annual operating budget of about $20 million.
“It’s a slow process, and we’re going to keep working through that probably for the next number of years because I think it’s going to take that long,” Harold told The Carolina Journal. “At this point, we are continuing to work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).”
Receiving the needed federal disaster aid has been a frustrating bureaucratic process, according to media reports marking one year of recovery efforts after the storm. A Sept. 23 report published by WRAL in Raleigh said less than 10 percent of requested federal disaster relief funds had been awarded or received. The report contrasted the roughly 9% of Helene recovery costs covered by the federal government thus far with the more than 70% provided in the aftermath of other large storms, including Hurricanes Katrina, Maria and Sandy.
‘Help needed’
As part of a federation of independent, charitable nonprofit organizations, the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly, during normal times, maintains an advancement team to generate annual giving for scholarships, capital needs, and other financial support. Facing millions of dollars in recovery costs, fundraising efforts have taken center stage during the year since the storm. Logan and others on staff have produced regular storm relief update videos that chronicle the status of recovery efforts and detail remaining needs.
The Assembly received just over $1 million in insurance funds, which is a small percentage of the amount needed for full recovery and return to normal operations — projected in July to be at least $13.5 million. By September, a $2 million gift had been committed for replacing the swimming pool.
Some grant funding has been awarded, such as $100,000 from the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina Emergency Disaster Response Fund; and $1.3 million provided by the American Red Cross to pay for electrical work and to completely reoutfit the Assembly’s main kitchen. “That has been tremendous,” Logan said of the Red Cross grant. “And part of that grant is so that we can continue to serve the disaster recovery groups. It’s about reopening, but also so that we can continue to serve the community as we move forward.”
The Assembly was able to reopen in June, albeit at less than half capacity, “Which was very intentional on our part” Logan said. The phased reopening is being timed so that the Assembly can serve at greater impact and capacity moving forward.
As of July, $8.5 million had been raised toward recovery — including grants, insurance and, mostly, philanthropy — with another $5 million still needed for full recovery. The Assembly’s website offers information about the status of fundraising efforts and how to give. Along with monetary donations, volunteer groups from within the area and outside of the region have visited the campus throughout the year to help with a multitude of tasks, from rebuilding trails and other recreational infrastructure to cleaning facilities and painting.
Network of faith
Being part of a network of faith-based conference centers in the area brought forth other resources. “Lake Junaluska (a Methodist conference and retreat center) has been just so amazing,” Logan said. “All of the conference centers — when you look around this region, there’s a whole host of us here in Western North Carolina. … Ken (Howle, Lake Junaluska Assembly CEO) called and said, ‘We want to help you as you’re navigating this. Let us be a resource. Let us support you.’ And one of the ways they have done that is we have sent them any groups whose stay we had to cancel. And if Lake Junaluska Assembly could serve them, they did. And they have sent us a portion of those proceeds.”
As of October, recovery efforts shifted from having the main focus on campuswide recovery to bringing Eureka Hall, the original landmark building and centerpiece residence hall, back online, according to Ryan Graham, vice president of Advancement. “We stabilized the operation and reopened at 40 percent capacity in June,” he said. “Now it’s time to get our centerpiece, Eureka Hall, back online so that we can again have large groups of kids that couldn’t come this summer.”
Mission sustained
Serving large groups of kids is the mission and the heartbeat of the Blue Ridge Assembly, according to Logan, who, along with Graham, went from being among kids served by the YMCA to making it a lifelong career. Logan worked summers at Blue Ridge Assembly during college starting in 1994 and became a full-time employee after graduating. She worked in nearly every campus area before being named president and CEO eight years ago. After visiting the Blue Ridge Assembly as a 14-year-old in 1987, Graham also pursued a career with YMCA, serving in Ohio, Charlotte, and now back in Western North Carolina.
“When YMCA Blue Ridge was founded in 1906, this was kind of the motivating philosophy: To make any significant societal changes, you must start in the hearts and minds of young people,” Logan said. “Our Leadership School program has been running for 100 years. It’s about leadership development, character development, and it’s about community service. And, it’s about spiritual growth. It’s about all four. That YMCA program happens across the country. YMCAs — mainly in the Southeast — come here for a one-week session, and that’s what Ryan did, which sparked a 30-year career.”
Tying in the mission of community service with the mission of storm recovery has, in one way, been a natural development for the Blue Ridge Assembly, according to Logan.
“The heart of the work here has always been about serving people,” she said. “And the way in which we serve people, at times, has to change a tad bit. But the heart is still there, which I think is powerful when we think about the mission of YMCA and the motivating philosophy of Blue Ridge Assembly. We haven’t strayed from that.”
Mark Rutledge is managing editor of Appalachian Places, and communications coordinator for the Department of Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University.