After the storm, North Carolina faces daunting task of housing survivors left homeless
A week after Hurricane Helene ravaged western North Carolina, emergency planners face another daunting challenge: where and how to shelter residents.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. — The deluge came furiously — and shockingly fast.
Speaking from a makeshift shelter at a local technical college here, James Yulon Ferguson recalled this week how he escaped with a friend on Sept. 27 shortly before the rising floodwaters reached the roof of his trailer along the Swannanoa River.
After the storm, when the waters dropped somewhat, Ferguson went back to find that his trailer had been swept into a neighbor’s home nearby. He salvaged some clothes, but his home was lost, he said.
Now, Ferguson, 52, is staying in his third shelter since being displaced and faces the grim prospect of a long, cold winter with nowhere to call home.
“It might take us another year, maybe two or three years, to get another place,” he said. “I don’t know.”
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