Latest news with #FlowGallery
Fox News
9 hours ago
- Business
- Fox News
Helene-ravaged river town reopens for visitors: 'It felt like victory'
MARSHALL, NC – Nearly nine months have passed since Hurricane Helene made its way through Western North Carolina, washing out homes and businesses. In the small mountain town of Marshall, just 30 minutes north of Asheville, business owners are eager for visitors. The main town sits along the French Broad River, which rose nearly 25 feet during Helene's storms, calculated by the U.S. Geological Survey. The town reopened to visitors in May and each week more businesses are opening their doors. Some business owners still remember the layer of mud caked on the floor, covering their belongings like a blanket. "I had no words, I mean I was crying," says Connie Molland, co-founder of Flow Gallery. "To walk into this space and see what we had left was all toppled all over and covered in mud." Molland says before the storm she tried to gather as much of the handcrafted art as she could. The gallery lost about 30% of its artwork from Helene. The gallery was not the only business crushed under Helene's wrath. Zuma's Coffee owner, Joel Friedman, says he had to climb through his windows just to get inside his coffee shop. "All these windows busted out, all the contents went out with it. All the tables, chairs, the equipment. It was total destruction," he tells FOX. Friedman and Molland say volunteers from all over the country showed up on their doorstep. Wearing protective gear, carrying tools, and ready to work. "That's what was keeping us going during that time," says Molland, "people just showing up and feeling good about how they were helping us." Friedman has the same story, "soon as everybody could come downtown, they were here with shovels and wheelbarrows and they went to work." Flow Gallery opened at the end of March and it has been six weeks since Zuma's Coffee invited locals back in. "It felt like victory, there's just small victories every day leading up to the final, 'ahhh, we've made it,'" says Friedman. "It is back to where it was, or maybe even a little better." Several businesses are still rebuilding and getting ready to reopen their doors.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
‘This is a story of human resilience': Marshall, NC still working to come back 6 months after Helene
MARSHALL, N.C. (WNCN) — There's an old saying that locals sometimes use to describe Marshall, North Carolina. It's 'a block wide, a mile long, sky high and hell deep.' Toward the end of September 2024, those words took on new meaning. 'No one alive has ever seen that. I mean, we were expecting 19 feet, and our crest was 27 foot two inches here in the town, and that's verified. So that's like where we're standing. People were like, where is the water line? There's no water line, not in this room. I mean, the whole thing would tear the whole ceiling out. So, I had 11 feet of water in this building,' said Josh Copus. Helene 6 months later: An artist's lifeline to another in western North Carolina Copus first watched the French Broad River from the historic jail, which he bought from the county and turned into a hotel and restaurant. 'And I went to the courthouse and just watched it and just cried in absolute shock, disbelief. I left about 1 p.m., you know, I watched all the windows in Joel Freeman's Zuma coffee just shatter. And the whole restaurant just floated down the street and that's when I was like, I can't take it anymore,' said Copus. Days passed before Joel Friedman could see the real damage Copus saw unfold. 'I had to climb in through sharded glass, glass shards through the window through about a foot and a half of muck, mud,' Freidman said. Helene 6 months later: Rebuilding neighborhoods in Buncombe County, NC Friedman's Zuma Coffee sits on a corner that is the cornerstone of downtown Marshall in the truest sense. He was among the first to see the town's potential 23 years ago. 'I'm at a loss and I'm saying you know what… I don't think is going to happen again,' he said. Friedman took a few days, leaving the devastation behind, to just clear his head and think. When he came back and parked his car, he knew what to do. 'As soon as I stopped the engine and opened my door I was surrounded by a community with hugs and love and asking me to come back and that we need to. That you're the heart and soul of this community. You're the one that got us started, we can't do it without you. So, at that moment I knew exactly what I had to do,' he said. 'I didn't think that it would be that hard, but it is': 6 months of grieving 11 family members after Helene in NC Through the same mud and destruction, Connie Molland was also soon surrounded. 'I'd say within two hours of starting, helpers came—people we didn't even know, people we knew just showed up and just started helping and without that help and so many people that came even this week to help be open today we would not be where we are,' Molland said. Officially back open six months to the day, Flow Gallery is flowing normally again just like the French Broad. 'We care about each other for our uniqueness and our quirkiness and what we've gone through,' Molland said. Proudly showing off his progress, Copus is getting there too. But he said the story book ending is not quite there yet. 'We've done an incredible job as a town. You know, I always like to tell people like, look at our progress and it's worth celebrating,' he said. 'But at the same time, like, this is going to take years and so we're not okay. We're still not okay. This is not over. Like that's just the first chapter. This is a story of human resilience, compassion and love and community. That's the story that we're actually writing.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
