Sellers Shook is an NF Staffer who runs our customer service. She lives in Brevard, NC and is also a trainer, specializing in Dressage. Her farm, Bent River Equestrian and home was hit by Hurricane Helene, and what is written below is a reflection of the aftermath and how her local horse community came together.
In the small town of Brevard, North Carolina, which is nearly five hundred miles from the Gulf Coast and three thousand feet above sea level, no one expected that a hurricane would be a devastating and life-changing natural disaster.
Along Brevard’s rivers, there are sod farms, hay farms, and livestock farms, with homes tucked up as far from the river as each tract allows. The rivers have carved our beautiful pastures and valleys and cleared views up to ridgelines that guided people for centuries. Over the last decade, this area has had a population boom, with many people leaving urban and low-lying lands for the culture and lifestyle that our region provides.
I was among those many transplants, attracted by the horsey history and infrastructure of Tryon. I settled just up the mountain near Asheville, North Carolina, like many other trainers, drawn to the beauty of our town and the community of established professional equestrians before me.
This wasn’t our first brush with weather- and natural-disaster-related issues. My first year as a working student here, wildfires affected our air quality and our horses' eyes and noses were runny for weeks. Some years, severe thunderstorms on top of the mountain brought me closer to lightning than I would ever like to be. In 2021, an experience with flash flooding in Brevard galvanized our creekside communities and farmers to prepare better than others further north. However, no one expected the catastrophic flooding that Helene brought, significantly higher than any water levels in the last century.
Before the flood we just experienced, I had been excited to see the equestrian community grow in the Asheville area. In fact, only a week before, I had scheduled a meeting to discuss starting a chapter of the United States Pony Club (USPC) in our immediate area, something desperately needed by our young riders.
After settling here in NC, I spent my twenties dreaming of my perfect barn, weighing the pros and cons of every expense needed to establish a facility that was easy to work and play in. I hired a surveyor to tell me where the floodplain was, gauging where the river would statistically flood only once in 100 years–and if it did it would be only about 12 inches of water. I worked with the building department to ensure my barn would drain properly and not be picked up and carried away by water in the very rare chance of a flood. I had my arena lifted by about five feet of fill. I completed the barn and opened for business on July 1, 2024.
Despite all these efforts, when Hurricane Helene hit at the end of this September, my barn took on not just 12 inches of water but instead four feet, with dirty river water rising up to fill my horses’ feed and water buckets. Our horses were evacuated by foot and sheltered in a very old barn, built before insurance and building codes and flood maps let you guess the best place to invest in your property. I lost a lot of hay and barely saved enough grain to get me through being cut off from the outside world. If we had not hand-walked eight horses away from the flood, evacuated to Eagle’s Nest Foundation (ENF.org), they would have been chest-deep in water for nearly 48 hours.
When you live on a farm, it’s common to have a well, but that well needs power to pump the water up, and it will not be powered by a tiny camping generator. Since I had never lost power for more than four hours on this property in the last decade, I was completely unprepared and dependent on others to water these eight horses.
Beyond these logistical details, there have been many tragedies that continue to haunt us. How is it that two weeks later, a lovely palomino quarter horse who was guided into a family’s backyard still hasn’t found her owner? Was the owner killed during the hurricane, or are they just out of cell service? I wish I knew. Ten days after the hurricane passed, It is horrific to see people are still searching for horses and identifying dead horses in the river. There is a feeling of relief every time I see horses have been found alive. The tears have welled up in my eyes when I’ve received wellness checks from our friends and vets, knowing that they are seeing and helping animals who have suffered greatly.
In the aftermath, there are a lot of positive things to say about the horse community near and far. Friends from neighboring farms generously donated hay, coordinating pickup and drop offs in Armageddon-like conditions, where there was no cell service or electricity running to stores and traffic lights. Barrel racers and Arabian breeders, people far from my own equestrian sport, helped me without hesitating. Volunteers from coastal South Carolina brought up hay, and when the interstate was washed out, my hay supplier took on extra mileage charges to bring our normal delivery of bales to us. Grocery stores are working hard to recuperate, although still not as well stocked as normal. It is uplifting to see search and rescue teams on mules heading up washed-out roads to bring supplies and check on folks who have not been able to reach their families.
Hurricane Helene has been a lesson to those of us in the horse community: first, expect the unexpected. Even as prepared as I thought my facility was, nature surprised me by exceeding all statistics and expectations. Second, if you are ever in these circumstances, you can hold the truth that collaboration will benefit us all. Find ways to help when these kinds of disasters strike, and you will make our equine community stronger.