I was born, raised, and lived most of my life in New Orleans, La. At six feet below sea
level, the city was prone to a foot of flooding during the heavy spring and summer rains,
and August became the month when anxieties were high and whispers of names like
Betsy, Camille, and Katrina were fodder for more worry. Questions loomed. Would
another Katrina cause the city to never return, to sink into a burial ground of food, jazz,
and our exquisite culture?
On August 28, 2012, a little Hurricane named Isaac hit New Orleans. As a mere
Category 1 storm, I had only minor concerns about the impact. Sure, there will be street
flooding and limbs down, but the Corps of Engineers shored up the levees, and the
water pumps were restored to full functioning. Much to the chagrin of my wife, Jeanne,
we stayed home. I battened down all the hatches and we rode out the storm with our
son and 5 dogs. The thought of evacuating was way too arduous, and I’d already
evacuated what seemed like a zillion times over the years only to sit in a car in traffic for
24 hours while seeking a hotel that would house our motley crew. We stayed up till
about 1:00 a.m. that night, then finally went to bed, sure the storm would pass, and life
would resume. Then, at 1:30, we were awakened by the thunderous jolt that hit our
house. A massive 250-year-old oak tree had fallen on the center of the house, knocked
down the chimney which fell through the skylights above the living room, while a huge
branch dug deep into the roof over our kitchen and breakfast room, leaving a 4 x 8 ft
hole. That tree came down approximately 3 feet from our heads as we slept on the
other side of the living room wall.
There is no place hotter and stickier than New Orleans right after a hurricane, and no
relief from the sweat and the mosquitos that stick to you like glue. It is hell on earth, a
hell we now were desperate to move away from. That was it. Our beautiful home had
been desecrated by the waters of the Gulf that rose to the sky and showered upon us
with the force of Mother Nature’s angry wrath. In time, the house was repaired, albeit not
to its former glory. It was time to move on. Time to move to safety.
The Western North Carolina mountains called to us like a melody that sang of the safety
of the mountain arms wrapping around us like a global hug. We called Black Mountain
home, a little home on the Broad River with a few acres that would allow me to finally
fulfill my dream of farming. I had always worked in Non-Profit social and behavioral
health services, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to work remotely from home
for the same company I’d been with for many years. Now I could focus on not only
feeding people emotionally and psychiatrically but feeding them with homegrown,
organic goodness.
It took a good 6 years to build enough chicken coops and woodland
runs to begin to focus on Heritage Delaware Chickens, and I bred and raised them for
eggs and meat, supplying the community with the cleanest products available. I took
great pride in what I did and stayed mission-driven, which came in handy when the long
hours made me tired and weary. It’s not always easy being a farmer. Like most farmers,
we have 2 full-time jobs, our regular job that feeds the household, and the farm that
feeds the community. Not easy, but always worthwhile and soul-nurturing.
September 27, 2024, was the day our lives changed forever in the most drastic way
imaginable. My wife insisted with the forthcoming Hurricane Helene, that we leave the
house and stay at a hotel. There were several very tall, precarious trees that sat in front
of the house, and we both could readily imagine those trees coming down on our heads.
So we skirted down the mountain for about 15 minutes to a local hotel where we would
ride out the storm and head home the next day. Dachshund old lady in tow, we left our
kitty and 2 large dogs in the house with plenty of food and water. It was a no-brainer.
We’d all be fine. After all, we were in the safe embrace of the mountains which had
ripped up all previous storms.
Friday morning, the storm whipped through, and the hotel asked all patrons to leave at
11 a.m. They had no power or water. Thrust out into the wind and rain, we attempted to
drive back home, but the road was blocked by trees and a large section of the road had
collapsed into the water. We spent the next 6 hours trying to get back home in every
possible route we could find on GPS. At every turn, we encountered downed trees,
washed-out roads, and fallen bridges. Concerns grew about our animals at home and
not being able to get them. We were running out of gas. With nowhere to go, we slept
that night in our car in the parking lot of a Dollar General, where we were forced to do
unspeakable bathroom activities in the pitch dark in a field behind the store.
The next day, we made our way to what we were told was the only gas station with gas
available. When we got there, no gas was available, and the parking lot was filled with a
sea of lost and abandoned people trying to make their way home. That night, we took
the risk on our gas tank that already registered we were just about out of gas and drove
to my Jeanne’s place of work, a nursing/rehab facility. We made it on gas fumes and
were graciously invited to eat with them and sleep on a couple of chairs, which we did
for the following 3 nights. With no internet access or cellphone capabilities, our anxiety
over our pets at home grew to sheer panic. Little did we know at the time that our pets
had experienced a chain of events that not only saved their lives but were the result of
many hands being involved in their rescue.
Our cell caught a glimmer of hope on day 5. Our friend Beverly sent out a message
reading “We have a generator and hot water. Come.”, to which I quickly responded we
were on our way. Our friend’s home opened to us like a beacon of hope amid sheer
desperation. The hot shower felt like the beginning of healing. It would be 2 more days
before we would finally travel the dangerous road back home only to find our house,
completely destroyed, hanging in the trees, and our entire farm wiped from the map. Our
beautiful heritage birds had gone the way of the river. It was like a war zone of fallen
trees, under which our life-sized St. Francis status lay buried, head poking out, with our
previous pets’ graves laying beneath. Our lives as we knew it would never be the same.
There was no safe space, and the irony of it all was the trees that concerned us about
hitting the house were the things that kept our house from being swept up by the river.
Those trees, those precarious dangerous trees that made us evacuate, saved our lives.
Perhaps there was wisdom and safety in Mother Nature after all.
Anne M. Byrne
Heirloom Annie Farms, LLC
Black Mountain, NC
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