High Country Community Health has mobilized to help residents still reeling from the storm’s calamitous lurch through western North Carolina.
By Jaymie Baxley
Read the full article at NC Health News.
When your house is flooded and all your soggy belongings are piled on the street in front of your home, having a cavity or a toothache might seem like a small problem.
But it could become a bigger problem for residents of Avery County, where one of the primary dental clinics was inundated with floodwaters generated by the remnants of Hurricane Helene in late September.
More than a month after the storm, most stores and restaurants in Newland, the county seat, are still closed. Piles of ruined belongings sit waiting for collection in the yards of battered homes throughout the little town, which lies in a bowl surrounded by mountains and is bisected by the North Toe River.
On a recent afternoon in the lobby of Avery Medical, a clinic near the center of Newland, two women shared stories about the devastation they’d witnessed. One told the other she would have been “assed out” if the floodwaters that surged through her home had risen just a few inches higher.
“I’m just blessed that we made it out alive,” she said.
A total of 102 Helene-related deaths have been confirmed in North Carolina as of Nov. 8. At least five people from Avery County perished in the storm.
Avery Medical is run by High Country Community Health, a nonprofit that provides affordable care to low-income patients who lack health insurance. Many people in this rural county, which has a population of about 17,500, depend on the organization.
Nearly 15 percent of Avery County’s residents live below the federal poverty line, and 14.6 percent are uninsured, according to data from the N.C. Rural Center. The median household income for the county is only $53,500, well below the statewide average of $70,800.
Alice Salthouse, CEO of High Country, said seeing the storm’s toll on the struggling community has been “gut-wrenching.”
“Every day on my way to work, I drive past people’s homes — and everything they’ve owned is outside waiting for somebody to come take it all to the dump,” she said. “We’ve got older adults who have lived in their homes for years and years, and now their homes are gone. People’s lives have changed and will never be the same again.”
Read the full article at NC Health News.
