Desperate to find Grandma, a North Carolina family hit the road with bikes and chain saws

The Holmes family began preparing for Helene as soon as meteorologists started warning the storm was headed their way.

Beth Holmes, a real estate lawyer in the small North Carolina mountain town of Spruce Pine, told the staff at her law office to head home. Her husband cleaned their gutters. But most importantly, she checked on her 87-year-old grandmother.

Carolyn Livingston lived in an even more remote mountain community called Bandana nestled in the Appalachian Mountains. It was only 12 miles from Spruce Pine, but she had no plans to go stay with her granddaughter during the storm. Independent and strong-willed, Livingston felt certain she could weather the rain as she had many times before - alone.

“Are you ready for the storm grandma?” Holmes, 45, texted Thursday.

“As ready as one can be, I guess,” Livingston texted back.

Bandana is the type of place where neighbors check in on one another. People there take pride in being resourceful and resilient. They also tend to have practical skills, like knowing how to repair a roof or patch up old plumbing.

“These are hardy people,” Holmes said. “Grandma’s a hardy person.”

All of that was put to the test Friday, when Helene roared in and shattered the roads that connect Spruce Pine and Bandana. Both towns went dark. Holmes had no way of knowing whether her grandmother was okay.

“There was no cell reception at all,” she said. “We had no communication with the outside world - nothing.”

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Holmes grew up visiting her grandmother’s farmhouse in Bandana. She and the other grandchildren played in a giant field behind the home, and each spring, pink and purple flowers known as phlox would cover an old cemetery near the neighborhood church.

At the helm of the family was Livingston. She’d grown up in the mountains during the Great Depression and lost her father in a railroad accident when she was 8. The hardship instilled in her a sense of independence, and while she embraced domestic work like canning jams, she also played basketball, went to college and embarked on a career in education, becoming one of the first female principals at the local elementary school.

“I’ve wanted to be like my grandmother my whole life,” Holmes said.

Her grandmother’s original house was built in the 1930s. It was a Sears “kit house” that came with all the nails, flooring, doors and paint needed to construct it. When it was first built, water needed to be carried into the house in a bucket from a nearby spring. Eventually, they added indoor plumbing and electricity.

By the 1980s, the home was in desperate need of repair. But Livingston and her husband, Alvin, didn’t want to leave the land. So they tore down their home and built a new farmhouse with a finished attic.

Holmes remembers spending Friday nights at the home, watching Benji movies and eating Jell-O pudding pops and popcorn, “because my grandmother knew they were my favorite.”

Her grandfather died in 2021 after a bad fall during the pandemic. But Livingston did not want to leave the home where she’d raised her children. She decided to stay, even if it meant living alone.

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Livingston was in bed Friday morning when she began to hear what sounded like a loud roar. Helene had arrived.

Not far away, her granddaughter was also still in bed when she began hearing “constant popping sounds.” At first she thought it might be the sound of transformers exploding, but later she realized it was trees falling.

“We were very lucky, because we had just trimmed our tree and it came within six feet of our house,” Holmes said.

Livingston took out a battery-powered radio but couldn’t get any news. Water began filling her basement. She took out a broom and tried to sweep as much of it as she could into the drain. She’d never seen so much water flood the home.

“This is something people would experience once in 500 to 1,000 years,” she thought to herself.

All around their respective towns, buildings were caving in to the wind and rain. The local grocery store in Spruce Pine had collapsed. A historic train depot was flooded. But what worried the two women most was not knowing whether the other one was okay.

“It was all I could think about,” Holmes said.

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When she still hadn’t heard from her grandmother a day after the storm, Holmes decided to go find her. She and her husband put their e-bikes atop their Toyota Highlander and set out to find grandma.

Her aunt and uncle had attempted to make the journey to Bandana the previous day, but they’d run into downed trees and power lines, slabs of broken concrete, and abandoned, flattened cars almost every 30 feet.

This time, the relatives resolved, they’d bring chain saws.

“It was an absolute moment of laughter for us,” Holmes said. “We thought we might have to e-bike in with chain saws, but we didn’t.”

[Helene flooded North Carolina with water. Now there isn’t enough to drink.]

Holmes put on her overalls. She, her husband and two friends jumped into their car. A cousin led the way in his pickup truck. Locals had helped clear the roads by then, but they still had to swerve around tree limbs and fallen power lines.

“When I was a kid, we used to literally sing, ‘Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go,’” she said. “I kept thinking how true that was this trip.”

They were a quarter-mile from the home when they reached a part of the road that had collapsed and become impassable. Nearby residents were building a makeshift bridge out of poplar trees to help people get through. Holmes and her relatives parked their cars and crossed on foot.

They then walked the rest of the way to Livingston’s house, carefully navigating their way through slippery mud and brush.

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Livingston tried to keep busy through the long hours with no phone service. Neighbors dropped by and collected creek water so she could flush her toilet. They also helped mop out the water that was still in her basement.

She had enough food and water for about four more days.

“I was still feeling sick with worry though about Beth and my family,” she said. “Were they alive? Were they hurt? Or scared?”

When Holmes and her relatives reached the field behind her grandmother’s house, they began to run. Holmes started to cry the closer they got, wondering what they might find when they finally reached the home where she had so many cherished memories.

That’s when they spotted Livingston through the window of the home. She was in her recliner where she reads and does Sudoku.

Holmes’s cousin sprinted ahead and yelled, “Grandma!” Livingston jumped up in shock. The relatives raced into the home and embraced their grandmother. Holmes cried as she hugged her in relief.

Then, Livingston refused to leave.

“Oh, I’ll be okay,” she joked. “Maybe you will all be safe with me.”

She finally relented. When Livingston saw the destruction beyond her property, she said she was “glad I left.” There were sink holes and decimated buildings. Families and police were out looking for people reported missing. Her neighborhood was nearly unrecognizable.

[Hurricanes’ hidden toll: Thousands of deaths years after they strike]

But she plans to return to her quiet home in the country as soon as it’s safe. She’s hoping that’s in just a few weeks - or sooner.

“Then they can come visit me,” Livingston said, “like we always did before the hurricane.”