Her ministry helped the homeless in her hometown in North Carolina. Now she lives among them

SVANNANOA, North Carolina — Earlier stormthe natural beauty of the place was a source of comfort and peace for Cindy Riley, and its river and streams were part of what drew her home after decades of absence.

Whereas Swannanoa might not be how wealthy as near Asheville and other nearby towns, Riley has found purpose, she said, in her work helping homeless and poor mothers, even if some of their interactions have been brief or the work itself has sparked feelings of distrust and fear from the wider community.

Trained as a disaster relief chaplain, Riley never dreamed she would one day face a life crisis like the ones she helped her clients overcome.

Then, flood waters came

It has been exactly one month since Hurricane Helen released the flood in western North Carolina, rivers and dams swelled until the waters burst their banks with such terrible force that they washed away everything in their path. At least 98 people died in the state alone. For many in Swannanoa, the devastation remains apocalyptic.

Memories of the storm are still there terrify Riley. How rivulets of water began to curl under her front door while she and her husband were drinking morning tea. How it only took a few minutes for the sheer force of the flood to smash through her garage door and flood her home.

“A nice little creek that you go sit by just to have a quiet afternoon … all of a sudden it turns into this raging river that takes over the whole neighborhood,” she said. “There was no way out and no warning.”

“This land that I love feels like it has turned against me and betrayed me.”

Riley soon found herself in an emergency situation similar to the ones she’s helped many women in Swannanoa weather: no home, no resources, no idea what’s next.

The destruction would certainly test her survival skills. But it would also teach her things she never imagined, even in all the years she’d spent with him. Swannanoa Valley Christian Ministries.

It will open her eyes to how outsiders see those in crisis and how debilitating her experience can be.

As she endures Helen and the suffering that still lingers in its aftermath, Riley will come to see the community she serves in a way she never could before the floods. Finally she really “gets it”.

Mackenzie Happe/CNN via CNN Newsource

“Swanna-nowhere”

Swannanoa has long had a reputation for being overlooked. About 18% of residents live there below the poverty line significantly higher than the national rate of 11%. Riley, who was born and raised in the village of just over 5,000 residents, said it has always been a tough place to live.

“It even had the nickname ‘Swanna-nowhere,'” she said, “because no one wanted to live there.”

For almost 50 years Swannanoa Valley Christian Ministries provided food, clothing and direct financial assistance to those most in need. A few years ago, director of ministry Kevin Bates appointed Riley as chairman Hope for tomorrow – An 18-month temporary housing program for low-income mothers – as part of a broader mission.

The work is largely donor-funded, and in the past ministry staff have had to “fight tooth and nail” for resources such as tents, generators and stoves to distribute to the homeless, Bates reminded CNN.

“During the year, we serve about 1 out of every 5 people who live in the Swannanoa Valley,” he said. “It seemed like that number was growing exponentially before the hurricane.”

When Helen’s streams pushed their little stream above its shores last month, Riley and her husband, Dennis, grabbed whatever they could and fled to their SUV. As they backed out of the garage, she recalled, their neighbors yelled at them to hurry:

Water was pouring into the exhaust pipe.

“I think we got out milliseconds before the car stalled,” Riley said.

Others faced worse. According to Riley, one neighbor was stuck in her driveway surrounded by rust-colored water and soon “was literally wearing a sheet because she was so cold.”

The flood inundated their street, turning trees into islands and cars swaying in several feet of water.

Meanwhile, in the nearby town of Black Mountain, Bates watched from his daughter’s bedroom window as the Swannanoa River rose nearly 20 feet and cars and trees were transported downstream to the city. His thoughts rushed to low-income communities in the floodplains along the banks of the river and to friends like Cindy and Dennis.

“I knew that if I saw that much devastation and that much water high above the watershed,” he said, “Swannanoa would be hit — and hit hard.”

“It was like a ghost town”

Helen’s flooding left half of the Riley area under water. She and her husband helped move all their neighbors – “from the youngest to the oldest” – to the heights, she recalled. A woman wrapped in a sheet for warmth was also rescued. Then the scenario was reversed, and the couple was picked up by neighbors, fed and given a place to stay the night.

When they were finally able to get out, they headed straight for what they knew would be a safe haven: Swannanoa Valley Christian Ministries.

“I knew if we got to SVCM we could find supplies and we’d be fine,” Riley said. “And I knew that at Hope for Tomorrow there would be a shelter for anyone in our area or elsewhere who might need it.”

But what they saw on the way was amazing.

Raging waters split someone’s mobile home in half, forcing Riley and her husband to drive through its ruins.

Much worse, she recalled, was the silence.

“There are no people around, just devastation. It was like a ghost town.”

In those first days after the storm, over a million people lost power. Residents relied on each other in the rugged Appalachian terrain complex efforts to provide assistance to the most affected areas. Many people have gone missing, state records show – from the 26th still lost weeks later

When Riley and her husband finally made it to the ministry, Bates didn’t hesitate to offer them housing at Hope for Tomorrow. Riley’s neighbor, who was stuck in a sheet in the driveway, moved into the next building.

Soon after, Riley wrote a journal entry that described how her new home was already changing her perspective: “I now live in an apartment no bigger than a barracks in a community with others who have been made homeless by Helen or other misfortune.”

“This season I learned that home is not a structure, but a way of life and a community.”

Meanwhile, other silver linings appeared.

“Suddenly there was an influx” of resources and items that Bates had once requested, he recalled, as donations poured in to those crying in North Carolina.

Volunteers came from all over the country start search and rescue missions, prepare free mealshelp pure mud and garbage from houses and otherwise they offer moral and emotional support of the community, which is suddenly overwhelmed by the shortage – and growing grief.

“It was like people’s humanity and people opening up to each other as people again,” Bates said.

Even before she could fully understand how her own life was unfolding, Riley also started drinking water one cup at a time.

“It gave me hope that where I work, where I go to serve every day, we can do something to help our community,” she said.

But, of course, now she also found herself among the needy.

“This person was just trying to survive”

From the depths of her own devastation, Riley said she understood – perhaps for the first time in her career dedicated to serving the least of us – the plight of those with no fixed address, no plan for their next meal, no promise of morning tea.

“Whether we have a home or not is no longer an issue,” she said. “We were all on equal terms and considered each other more equal, worthy of care and dignity than I have ever seen.”

Despite all the safety and comfort she found at Swannanoa Valley Christian Ministries and Hope for Tomorrow, Riley said the experience was an eye-opener.

Helen Riley bristled when some customers seemed demanding, perceiving them as a little ungrateful, she said. Now she finds herself doing the same, and her expectations of how people should behave during a crisis have changed.

“I think most of us feel that way, a lot of judgments that I may have had before about someone’s position or different things, I’m like, ‘Oh, I see… This person was just trying to survive. They couldn’t say it kindly. They took everything they had just to say what they needed to say,” she said.

Riley also has a newfound sympathy for those who long for a modicum of normalcy when their world is turned upside down.

“I’ve noticed that everything we think is comforting to that person might not be,” she said. “There’s no way to know without asking the question, ‘Do you know what grounds you and helps you feel safe?’ We want to make sure you have it.”

But after Helen, things may never go back to normal. Now there are sand dunes in Swannanoa. According to Bates, piles of silt, dirt and debris turned this once verdant valley into “open fields of cracked dirt.”

The devastation is hard to describe, he said, as is the flood’s impact on those already struggling. FEMA estimates that North Carolina alone has been approved for more than $100 million in individual aid.

“We could say (recovery is) a marathon, but most people quit after the first mile,” Bates said.

“It’s an opportunity for us as a community to look at some of these broader, systemic social issues, take a hard look in the mirror and say, ‘Why are we generous now, when maybe we weren’t so generous before?’

Holding grief and joy together

As Swannanoa tries to rebuild it, Bates continues to ponder the biblical passage in which the Jewish exiles return and begin rebuilding their temple.

Among their work, “the two sounds of mourning and joy mix together and make one sound,” he said.

“There’s no judgment about what’s better,” Bates explained. “They both stick together. Therefore, creating a space where we can accommodate both grief and joy is one of our goals and one of our hopes for our community.”

Riley and her husband were able to salvage a few pots and cups from their home, but nothing major. Now, like many other Western North Carolinians, they are beginning the slow process of getting back to the kind of life they had just a month ago, largely thanks to donations and support from their community.

As Riley begins to rebuild, the parallel emotions of grief and hope set forth in the ancient biblical story also reflect her own twin lessons from Helen.

“I even wondered if it was part of my life’s journey so that I could learn it better and be better equipped to help other people,” she said.

“I hope so.”