Our Hurricane Helene Story
If you've already read our About page, then you know how Crazy Green Studios came to exist across two studio spaces in Riverview Station in Asheville's River Arts District. My studio within The Village Potters Clay Center was where I made work to sell in our shared gallery, fulfill commissions, and design and make work for restaurants and food professionals. In that studio, I shared use of electric and gas reduction kilns, and kept a full inventory of backstock pottery for sale in our gallery. My own studio included an electric wheel, a large variety of tools, hand made molds, clay, and small equipment and studio furniture. My production studio was also on the first floor of Riverview Station, and it housed wheels, an electric kiln, slab roller, extruder, clay, glazes, and other materials to produce works for wholesale accounts. Riverview Station is located across the street from The French Broad River.
A brief note here to say that under what we knew at that time as normal storm situations, we would generally have days in advance of any storm surge to prepare and move vulnerable equipment and inventory to the second floor or off site. In the case of this storm, the forecasts mainly focused on when the hurricane would hit our mountains, and so we planned for the days before as our time to move equipment and inventory. What we had not planned for, however, was the nonstop rain in those days ahead of the hurricane, and that caused early flooding of area roads and ended up cutting short our plans to move equipment. Our original plan was to load trucks and move them to higher ground, but we soon saw there wouldn't be time for that, so we started moving what we could to the second floor of our building. As I had equipment, tools, and inventory in both locations, my own time was split between the two spaces. In the end, we were evacuated from the building on the morning of September 26 as the river was beginning to cut off all exit routes. We locked up and hoped for the best, and I think even at that point we imagined we would have to deal with flood waters and a loss of wooden display pieces, kiln damage, and loss of work, tools, and materials on or near ground level.
What we could not imagine was what happened: the river rose over 26 feet, flooding the building with a force stronger than Niagara Falls, roiling the contents of the first floor and rising up to four feet in sections of the second floor. The water wouldn't recede for more than 70 hours, leaving storm debris and river sludge in its wake. Both studios were completely destroyed. When we went to the building after the waters receded, we could only get part way into one of the entrances to the TVP space. I made my way to my production studio, but the door was held shut by the sludge and what I imagined was studio furniture that landed against it. It would take several days of careful clearing to gain entry to other parts of the TVP space, and in all it was over a week before we could even peek into our studio spaces as large debris blocked all entrances. The same was true for my production studio. At one point during salvage operations, there was an organized call for help to the community, and hordes of people showed up with tools and patience and love to help us reach spaces and bring out whatever could be salvaged. I admit that after a few days of mucking through the sludge I was feeling more than overwhelmed, and it was hard to see anything among all the destruction. Big shout out to all the helpers (including my friend Andrea who came and patiently carried things through dark muddy hallways from the second floor to my car for salvage).
They say a picture is worth ... well you know. Here are several thousand words, in that case:
A brief note here to say that under what we knew at that time as normal storm situations, we would generally have days in advance of any storm surge to prepare and move vulnerable equipment and inventory to the second floor or off site. In the case of this storm, the forecasts mainly focused on when the hurricane would hit our mountains, and so we planned for the days before as our time to move equipment and inventory. What we had not planned for, however, was the nonstop rain in those days ahead of the hurricane, and that caused early flooding of area roads and ended up cutting short our plans to move equipment. Our original plan was to load trucks and move them to higher ground, but we soon saw there wouldn't be time for that, so we started moving what we could to the second floor of our building. As I had equipment, tools, and inventory in both locations, my own time was split between the two spaces. In the end, we were evacuated from the building on the morning of September 26 as the river was beginning to cut off all exit routes. We locked up and hoped for the best, and I think even at that point we imagined we would have to deal with flood waters and a loss of wooden display pieces, kiln damage, and loss of work, tools, and materials on or near ground level.
What we could not imagine was what happened: the river rose over 26 feet, flooding the building with a force stronger than Niagara Falls, roiling the contents of the first floor and rising up to four feet in sections of the second floor. The water wouldn't recede for more than 70 hours, leaving storm debris and river sludge in its wake. Both studios were completely destroyed. When we went to the building after the waters receded, we could only get part way into one of the entrances to the TVP space. I made my way to my production studio, but the door was held shut by the sludge and what I imagined was studio furniture that landed against it. It would take several days of careful clearing to gain entry to other parts of the TVP space, and in all it was over a week before we could even peek into our studio spaces as large debris blocked all entrances. The same was true for my production studio. At one point during salvage operations, there was an organized call for help to the community, and hordes of people showed up with tools and patience and love to help us reach spaces and bring out whatever could be salvaged. I admit that after a few days of mucking through the sludge I was feeling more than overwhelmed, and it was hard to see anything among all the destruction. Big shout out to all the helpers (including my friend Andrea who came and patiently carried things through dark muddy hallways from the second floor to my car for salvage).
They say a picture is worth ... well you know. Here are several thousand words, in that case:
GIFT CARDS
