Inside the race to alert residents to Helene’s wrath

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — If she had known the rivers would swallow whole towns and neighbors would be swept away, Lindsey Miller would have better prepared – or left her home altogether.

Her home near Boone, North Carolina, survived but there was no power, cell service or water. Some neighbors filled buckets from a nearby river to flush toilets and washed children with bottled water. 

Miller recalled hearing the ping of emergency phone warnings early on the morning of Sept. 27, just hours before the water rushed in. By then it was too late.

“We knew there was a storm coming, but we didn’t know it was going to be quite like that,” she said. “We really weren’t prepared at all.”