28-03-2025
New life rises but memories linger for woman widowed by Helene
WASHINGTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) — New life fills the frame of a close-in look at Vicki Hunter's home and surroundings barely a stone's throw from the Nolichucky River.
It's a cool first day of spring. Hunter's brown schnauzer puppy, Ford, waits inside her newly built home as she approaches four very pregnant broodmares standing near a picturesque red barn.
Woman recounts her rescue from river, husband's death
'Foxy girl has given me some beautiful babies,' Hunter says, reaching out to stroke the head of a large, reddish Quarter Horse. 'Last year was a palomino with white socks and a big blaze of red. I have no idea where that came from.
'She's due first. She's got this big old baby hanging here, so I'm hoping next week that I'll have something on the ground.'
Draw back the view, though, and the full picture of the 63-year-old's recent life experience comes into sharper focus.
'During the flood, there was six to seven feet of water — you can see the water line on the edge of the barn door there,' Hunter says, pointing to a straight horizontal line along the barn with bright red above, a duller red below.
'I was afraid this one here, the buckskin would not come out of her stall, and she just didn't,' Hunter says. 'And when I went looking for horses the day after the flood and I started counting heads, I thought, 'oh, my God, I'm missing one.''
That horse, like Jerry and Vicki Hunter's others, survived as the usually placid Nolichucky burst violently from its banks and tore through Hunter's low-lying rural neighborhood about 10 miles southeast of Johnson City on Sept. 27. Rains from Hurricane Helene had dumped up to 30 inches of rain in the Western North Carolina mountains that feed the creeks and smaller rivers, the Toe and the Cane, that form the Nolichucky's headwaters.
The river smashed out of the rugged gorge that carries it from North Carolina into Tennessee, devastated parts of Erwin, then regained force in a smaller gorge that separates Erwin from Embreeville and Hunter's community. It tore violently out those constraints and swept through A.J. Willis Road, Tittle Circle and O.L. Huff Road, ripping houses from their foundations and carrying vehicles, farm equipment and anything else in its nearly mile-wide path.
By the time Hunter was looking for Kiwi, the buckskin mare, the house she shared with Jerry was gone. The day before, a Friday, the rapidly rising water had left the Hunters without time to drive off their property. They'd ended up on opposite sides of the house — Vicki holding her schnauzer, Batman, Jerry just feet away.
Hunter heard loud popping sounds as the house unmoored from its foundation and began to float. Rescue crews pulled her into a boat, but she'd lost her hold on the dog's leash.
'I said, 'Can we go save my dog?' Because he was a little dog. I could see him swimming, and they said, 'We have to save you.' So that was the last I seen of Batman, unfortunately.'
Hunter also never saw Jerry alive again. They'd been married for 14 years, sharing a love of horses. Jerry, 15 years older and a Vietnam veteran, was a vibrant, healthy, outgoing man, Hunter says.
'I used to call from my little part-time job and say, 'What are you doing today?' And he'd say, 'I'm fencing.''
Hunter says Jerry was out working shortly before the flood as utility workers erected new poles.
'He was … talking to the guys as they're digging the hole and putting the post in the ground, and a week later, they're back because the flood took out the post. They're like, 'He died? We were just talking to him last week.' He was very healthy. He was very active.'
Since the shock wore off, Hunter has thrown herself into her own recovery, gladly accepting the help that has poured out. Appalachia Service Project (ASP) oversaw the construction of a new home that she was in just before Christmas, and she's seen about half a dozen other replacement homes completed around her.
Flood victims receive new homes before Christmas
Hunter happily accepts all the help that people and organizations from near and far have provided and believes her neighbors should, too. Appalachian people can be proud to a fault, but Hunter said there's no reason to try and white-knuckle it alone.
'I think that people want to give. They want to reach out and be generous, and this is their opportunity. And you shouldn't take their joy. You should accept it in the manner it was given.'
There's another type of help that, while well-meaning, hasn't always hit the right mark for her, Hunter says.
'People'd look at me, and they'd go, 'Well, God's got a plan for you.' And I said, 'I'd really like to know what God's plan is, because I was pretty happy with the plan I had,'' Hunter says, laughing and serious at the same time.
'People would look at me, and they'd go, 'your reward is when you die and you go to heaven and you meet your savior, Christ.'
'I said, 'Well, I don't want to die. Everything's pretty darn nice right now, right here. I have a good man I love. I have a property here with all my horses on it. We can afford to go on a vacation if we want.''
Hunter says she did not expect to be a widow. 'I thought, 'Jerry and I, we're going to get old together.''
Standing on her porch, Hunter points to houses fully built or nearing completion.
'See the white house — it used to be gray,' she says. 'His house flooded, but it didn't go anywhere and he had water about two feet into the second story, so he had to gut everything and start all over. While he was at it, he changed the siding.
'Dave and Carolyn over here with the little green roof, that's an ASP and they are close to being completed. I told Dave, I said, 'When you get ready, I'll bring you over some manure. We'll make a garden for you.''
She points to a still-standing two-story that is gray, still.
'Mike has got a group that came in and they've been helping him with the sheetrock inside, so he's getting closer. It's hard for him because he and his significant other both work during the day.'
'We've got a house that ASP has built that they just started last week, and they've already got the roof on that, so they're moving right along,' she says, pointing across the street from Mike's to a project with a small trailer blocking part of the view. 'His wife, Ashley, said 'We had noticed that we were going to get a FEMA trailer the same day that ASP said, 'We'll build you a home.''
That couple had lived for 18 years in their home, which wasn't washed away but was irreparable.
Hunter shifts her gaze about 200 feet to two more ASP builds. One is for Lisa Fender, who had only been in her home for about 11 months when the flood washed it away.
'ASP built her a second one on the same foundation,' Hunter says.
Two other neighbors getting homes completed are older veterans. One, Danny Cutshaw, was rescued from the back of his home during the flood. His house 'survived,' but was unlivable.
'He had a battle with the mortgage company because the value for his mortgage was his house,' Hunter says. That got worked out enough for Cutshaw to be on the verge of getting a new home, but it points to the complexity of post-disaster life in a community like hers.
Hunter herself has had to continue paying a mortgage on a house that's not even there, as the bank has threatened to foreclose on her property, which the couple owned outright.
Even dealing with the help that is available, through FEMA and other agencies or non-profits, isn't simple, she says.
'Unless you have someone that's very savvy with computers and knows and hears about, 'This is what we're going to do and the county's going to give you, and FEMA,' it's not easy.
'You have to be really having an advocate that helps you. The neighbors on the hill here, Erica and Mike Smith, have been working really hard to help people,' she says, pointing to a home near the highway that wasn't damaged.
She hopes 2025 brings continued change to her surroundings.
'A feeling of done. Of the neighborhood being put back together. I want to age gracefully here in this home with these neighbors. We're going to rebuild, and we're going to be here. This is our community.
'This is where Jerry's heart is and so that's where I want to be. I like the fact that I can go out and see the neighbors behind me. I like the fact that I can see all of that, all the progress.'
The loss of Jerry remains a gaping void in Vicki Hunter's life.
'I have my moments,' she says.
It happened when she took Ford, the brown schnauzer puppy with red highlights named after Jerry's red pickup, to the same vet clinic she used to take Batman to. She started crying and shared her feelings.
'Before I left, I'm like, 'I'm really sorry.' (The vet) says, 'I'm going to be thinking about this all day long.'
''Listen,' I said, 'I am too.' And then I drive home and I'm crying on the way home. Thinking about Jerry. So yes, he is very close, yet. I think that if he was alive, he'd be out there fencing.'
She walks toward the barn to check on the horses. Asked if the pending arrival of foals evokes thoughts of symbolism, Hunter doesn't shy from the topic.
'The renewal of life, that kind of thing? It does. I mean, you go over and you rub the belly and you got a baby in here,' the mother of two and grandmother of four says.
'I can't wait. This is what Jerry and I sort of have our love and our deep emotions for. And this is what he had his farm set up for, was horses.'
Hunter will keep the foals for about six months before selling them. She'll be keeping up with Ford and driving a small new tractor around the place, compliments of good-hearted people. The old tractor, which was part of Jerry's portfolio on the mini-farm, was ruined in the flood.
'I told Jerry a long time ago, because he always told me I had to learn to drive his tractor. I said, 'If I have to learn to drive your tractor, there's something wrong, and you're not here.' And sure enough, his tractor is not working. He's not here, and I had to learn to drive a tractor.'
Hunter has a lot to be thankful for six months after a catastrophic event turned her and her neighbors' lives upside down, and she is thankful. But she doesn't sugarcoat her reality.
'I don't have Jerry, but this is his dream. So, I mean, in essence, he is here yet.
'When I walk through the barn at night and lock up, sometimes I'll just say 'good night, Jerry.' Because he's been here since '79. Here, he had a 30-year head start on me before I entered into his picture of life.'
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