John Anderson at Hickory Nut Gorge Recovery Plan community meeting
Dublin Core
Title
John Anderson at Hickory Nut Gorge Recovery Plan community meeting
Description
On Tuesday, August 19, 2025, Henderson County staff and environmental planning and design firm Equinox hosted a community meeting for the public to participate in the planning process for developing the Upper Hickory Nut Gorge (Gerton, Bat Cave, Edneyville) Recovery Plan for Henderson County. The community meeting for this long-term planning process included opportunities for storytelling and listening.
This audio recording of Helene survivor John Anderson was recorded during the community meeting by Friends of Buncombe County Special Collections volunteer Lindsey Grossman. Anderson describes witnesing mudslides in his Bat Cave, NC neighborhood and checking on neighbors during the storm. He commends the Bat Cave Fire Department for their evacuation efforts.
This audio recording of Helene survivor John Anderson was recorded during the community meeting by Friends of Buncombe County Special Collections volunteer Lindsey Grossman. Anderson describes witnesing mudslides in his Bat Cave, NC neighborhood and checking on neighbors during the storm. He commends the Bat Cave Fire Department for their evacuation efforts.
Creator
Date
Rights
Copyright transferred to Buncombe County Special Collections.
Format
Language
English
Extent
1 digital audio recording (00:04:27)
Sound Item Type Metadata
Duration
00:04:27
Transcription
John Anderson. We live off of Edney Inn in Bat Cave North Carolina. I'll start by saying that I don't know why I was doing it, but I had decided on Wednesday to keep track of how much rain fell. So I kept track of, from Wednesday to Friday when it stopped, I was keeping track with the rain gauge and at our house we got 40 inches. Yeah. And the last 20 of it came between midnight and 10:00 AM midnight Thursday and 10:00 AM Friday. So yeah, that kind of puts in perspective what ended up happening. But our house was protected from the bad winds 'cause we're on the northwest slope of the mountain. So the wind was coming out of the southeast. So during the storm, early on in the storm, I'm standing on the front porch thinking, okay, this isn't too bad. Getting a lot of rain obviously, but I can see around my house. Right around my house, water's draining fine, just there's a lot of it.
But then around nine o'clock I was standing in the front porch. My wife was sitting there and I just heard this most godawful sound and I looked at her and said, "Something really bad just happened." And it sounded like a 747 flying through our valley. And what it was was that was when, using Emma's words, the mountains collapsed. That's when all the slides happen. And we have huge major slides all around us, fortunately across the river from us. But the biggest of the slides create a huge earthen dam and the water built up behind it. My neighbor actually watched it come down, the whole slide come down the hill, and then the water built up behind it and then the dam let loose. And then it just took everything in our valley out. That's what took the bridges out. That's what took the houses along the river out, took the ends of paved road, it washed it away.
Anyway, we're still sitting up our house. I'm hearing all this knowing something terrible is happening. We finally get our raincoats and go down and actually see the river. And my neighbor's car was parked down at the bottom of the hill, and it was there and we turned around and looked back and it was gone. And then we get back to our house when the neighbors start banging on our door because the slide had hit our neighbor's house. And so we quickly got together and to get to them, we had to cross a stream. So we formed a human chain to get across, but she had already passed. She...sorry. The slide, it really came out of nowhere and hit the back of her house. And so the rest of the morning was then just us covering as much ground as we can to check on all the different neighbors.
And fortunately everybody else was good. We did have some neighbors lose their house. But for how it started, I want to say at that moment, I was sure there was just going to be extensive loss of life given the level of the damage. So I have to give a tip to the Bat Cave fire department and all of the others that did just an amazing job evacuating people that night. During the night, my neighbor called me to say his son, they evacuated my son out of his house. And I'm like, he's well away from the river. And sure enough, the river came right up to his doorstep. But there were a lot of folks we were really worried about, but found out that they had been gotten to safety in the middle of the night by the fire department. Steve and his group, I mean, it really is nothing short of amazing what they did that night.
But then around nine o'clock I was standing in the front porch. My wife was sitting there and I just heard this most godawful sound and I looked at her and said, "Something really bad just happened." And it sounded like a 747 flying through our valley. And what it was was that was when, using Emma's words, the mountains collapsed. That's when all the slides happen. And we have huge major slides all around us, fortunately across the river from us. But the biggest of the slides create a huge earthen dam and the water built up behind it. My neighbor actually watched it come down, the whole slide come down the hill, and then the water built up behind it and then the dam let loose. And then it just took everything in our valley out. That's what took the bridges out. That's what took the houses along the river out, took the ends of paved road, it washed it away.
Anyway, we're still sitting up our house. I'm hearing all this knowing something terrible is happening. We finally get our raincoats and go down and actually see the river. And my neighbor's car was parked down at the bottom of the hill, and it was there and we turned around and looked back and it was gone. And then we get back to our house when the neighbors start banging on our door because the slide had hit our neighbor's house. And so we quickly got together and to get to them, we had to cross a stream. So we formed a human chain to get across, but she had already passed. She...sorry. The slide, it really came out of nowhere and hit the back of her house. And so the rest of the morning was then just us covering as much ground as we can to check on all the different neighbors.
And fortunately everybody else was good. We did have some neighbors lose their house. But for how it started, I want to say at that moment, I was sure there was just going to be extensive loss of life given the level of the damage. So I have to give a tip to the Bat Cave fire department and all of the others that did just an amazing job evacuating people that night. During the night, my neighbor called me to say his son, they evacuated my son out of his house. And I'm like, he's well away from the river. And sure enough, the river came right up to his doorstep. But there were a lot of folks we were really worried about, but found out that they had been gotten to safety in the middle of the night by the fire department. Steve and his group, I mean, it really is nothing short of amazing what they did that night.
Collection
Citation
John Anderson, “John Anderson at Hickory Nut Gorge Recovery Plan community meeting,” Come Hell or High Water Community Memory Project, accessed January 20, 2026, https://helenehistory.omeka.net/items/show/1189.