Safe and Sound
Friday, September 27, 2024 is a day I'd just as soon forget, although I expect I'll remember it always.
The rain had begun in earnest on Thursday, the day before. Everyone knew we were going to get some effect from Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in the Big Bend region on the Gulf Coast of Florida that same day. Helene hit shore with one hundred forty miles per hour winds and a fifteen foot storm surge and then continued churning northward overland through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. Usually, when a hurricane travels inland it lessens in strength, but this time the damaging force of the storm was sustained over hundreds of terrestrial miles. Helene saved some of its worst for the tail end of its run, when it reached us. To make matters more miserable, western North Carolina, including Asheville, was apparently setup for disaster by certain atmospheric effects of our mountainous topography, combined with the fact that the ground was already saturated and the waterways full from the rain we had prior to when the main body of the storm struck. Helene's full impact hit us overnight Thursday into Friday, creating a new world of disorder that was revealed to us in the grim early light of Friday morning.
The unimaginable damage done by Helene was made fully known only over the course of the coming days and weeks. For people outside the range of the storm's effects, the scope of devastation and the plight of Helene's victims and stories of rescue and relief operations underway dominated the national news for a week or so. Then, as is always the case, the ever-roving eye of media interest moved on to other pressing matters and Hurricane Helene became old news. For those who were in the storm's path, however, the story is ongoing. Some unfortunate people are even now still trying to come to terms with their losses so they can figure out how to rebuild their lives. Those of us who escaped the storm with relatively little direct physical damage, and that's most people, are dealing with the psychological impact of trauma and a devastated community. People are making the best of existing circumstances and figuring out workarounds to maintain some semblance of normal everyday life, as everyone struggles to regain equilibrium. For all of us who live in the areas most upset by Hurricane Helene, the storm will leave a lasting impression. Both the physical and mental effects of this experience will reverberate for a long time.
My purpose now is to speak directly to the matter of how The North Carolina Arboretum and particularly the Arboretum's bonsai collection and bonsai garden fared in the face of the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene. This is a personal account, not intended as an Institutional statement.
The Bonsai Assistant asked me early Thursday afternoon if there was anything to do in preparation for the extreme weather being forecast. She gave an update on what she had just read, which was a more severe storm warning than was in the weather report I saw earlier in the day. "They're calling for sixty mile per hour winds," she said. We went out to the hoop house and put some of the taller trees down on the ground to prevent them from being blown off the benches. There wasn't much else to be done. There are scores of valuable bonsai in our collection, some of them large and heavy, and moving them all to a secure indoor location on short notice is simply not a practicable possibility. Plus, the weather report seemed to be all over the place, changing every few hours. How bad could this storm really be? Almost all the temperate bonsai in the Arboretum's collection had been through heavy weather before, including hurricanes, and the little trees have generally sustained minimal damage. Serious rain is usually no problem. The potting medium can hold only so much water and excess runs out the ample drainage holes found in the bottom of any good bonsai container. If some medium is washed out of the pot it is not so difficult to replace.
Wind is a greater concern because it can topple taller bonsai or bring down limbs from large trees nearby that might crash on bonsai below. Placing the taller bonsai on the ground doesn't necessarily prevent them from being blown over, but it gives them less distance to fall. Because of the relatively open nature of the two locations where our temperate bonsai reside — the Bonsai Exhibition Garden and the hoop house — tree limbs falling from above is not a great concern. But the hoop house is covered with shade cloth during the growing season, and strong wind can play havoc with that large piece of fabric. Such a worst-case scenario is exactly why we fasten the shade cloth strongly in place with wire ties. At the bonsai garden, the walls surrounding the entire facility have in the past proven to be an effective barrier against strong wind. All things considered, and with a certain degree of confidence born of experience, on the eve of the storm I felt like we were as ready as we could be for whatever came.
The rain was coming down strong and steady when I left work later on Thursday afternoon. The Arboretum had closed early and staff had gone home. State Highway 191, the road that brings most people to our front gate, had earlier in the day been closed south of the Arboretum's entrance because the French Broad River had already begun to engulf it. At this time Bent Creek was running very high alongside Frederick Law Olmsted Way, but not yet to the road. The heavy rain continued the rest of the afternoon, then all through the evening and all through the night without letting up. Somewhere in the darkness, as most people slept, the wind got up and started moving around, making itself known with murderous force. When morning came the damage that had occurred overnight gradually revealed itself — the power was out and the water was off, internet connection was lost and cell service was gone. The serious destruction in my own neighborhood, in the form of countless fallen trees and flooding of the nearby Swannanoa River, was shocking in its extent and severity. As I came to grips with the destruction all around me, my thoughts went immediately to the Arboretum. What happened there overnight? What happened to the little trees when the big storm raged through? There was no way I could not at least try to find out.
Although flooding and downed trees meant many roads were impassible, there were plenty of people driving on Friday. Traffic lights were out, so larger, more complex intersections were backed-up, dangerous tangles of confusion, adding to the anxiety of drivers already on edge. It was a good time to not be driving, but living eleven miles distant from the Arboretum meant the choice was to drive there or to not know how the bonsai came through the storm. My younger son offered to come on the ride and I was glad for the company. With a little effort we reached I-40 and jumped on it heading west. About a mile and a half later all traffic was diverted to the Highway 25 exit because I-40 west was closed beyond that point. After finding two alternate routes from there to also be dead-ends, we got back on I-40 east and backtracked, then started out on a different route. The whole trip was like that. Where roads were not blocked off, the traffic was backed up and barely moving. I wasn't paying attention to the time, but it took just about forever to reach Highway 191.
The entrance to the Arboretum is at the same intersection with 191 as the Blue Ridge Parkway. This also happens to be the confluence of Bent Creek, which runs through the Arboretum property, and the French Broad River, which runs through West Asheville on its way north to Tennessee. This area is subject to flooding in big rain events, so I expected there would be no access to the Arboretum from the front entrance. After finding Highway 191 closed ahead of the Arboretum entrance as expected, we turned around to go in the side way, via the service entrance. Accessing the service entrance means driving some local secondary roads. As soon as we engaged with the side roads it became apparent we might not get through that way, either. Trees and power lines were down across the road just like back home. Right away we passed a place where a tree had crashed down on a fire hydrant, resulting in water spouting up at the roadside like a poorly placed fountain. Soon the road became a single track weaving through a series of trees that fell from either side and then finally we had to stop because the road was totally blocked by fallen trees that had come smashing down from all directions.
We were not that far from the service entrance gate, maybe a quarter mile away. I parked the truck right there and my son and I continued on foot, following the blacktop, climbing over a forest of downed trees, before we came across a man with a chainsaw clearing a path from the other direction. He was middle-aged and accompanied by a younger man. The older man introduced himself as Jessie, one of the few private landowners adjacent to the Arboretum. He and his son were working to clear a pathway from their house to the rest of the world big enough for their ATV, and once that was done he'd figure out how to clear enough away to fit a car through. I introduced myself and my son and told Jessie what we were about. "Well I hope those little trees are okay," he said.
I didn't have a key to the service gate lock but it turned out to not be a problem. We were walking parallel to the Arboretum property fence by this time, maybe fifty feet away, and saw a place where a huge oak had come down across it. The fence is of ten-foot high chain link construction and the tree had flattened it to the ground. We crossed over onto the Arboretum side at this point, which put us near the far end of the overflow parking lot. From there we quickened our step in the direction of the bonsai garden.
Approaching the garden from Frederick Law Olmsted Way revealed a scene of shockingly violent destruction. Out in front of the bonsai garden upper entrance, where the road ends at the traffic circle in front of the Education Center, is an allee of Chinese lacebark elms. Those elms have been there since 1996, so they've had a chance to grow and become quite picturesque. Now several of these sizable trees were not only broken down, but literally shattered, strewn about as if explosive charges had been set to their trunks. Walking silently past them felt like walking through a crime scene. My mind went blank then. I didn't even wonder what sight might greet my eyes when stepping into the garden, because there was nothing for it now but to go in there and find out.
It was eerie in the bonsai garden. There was a stillness to the place as if a breath was being held, as if time had silently slipped into a lower gear. Leaves and sticks littered the ground just as they did everywhere that day and the garden looked untidy. And... that was it! The garden looked a little disheveled, windblown but otherwise just fine. The bonsai were completely fine, sitting where they had been left the day before and appearing unperturbed. None of the little trees had blown over or moved about on the bench top. A few plant labels had blown over and there was some leaf debris on the benches, but those leaves had come from landscape trees nearby and not from the bonsai. The bonsai were fine, the landscape trees in the garden were intact, the overall garden was messy but there was no real damage. After every unhappy sight encountered that day leading up to that moment, the bonsai garden coming through the storm in such good shape seemed something on the order of miraculous.
After assessing the situation in the garden, my son and I headed toward the Support Facility and Production Greenhouse. The main portion of the temperate bonsai collection is housed there in the hoop house, while the tropical bonsai reside in the greenhouse. We found the greenhouse completely intact, its automated operation carrying on by means of power from a large, diesel-fueled emergency generator. The bonsai within the greenhouse were undisturbed, as were all the other plants being grown by the greenhouse operation. We headed out back toward the hoop house, and here I was expecting we might find some problems. As we approached, it became apparent the hundred foot long shade cloth covering an adjacent hoop house had blown off and was draped over the bonsai hoop house, which was located about thirty feet away. That such a large, heavy piece of material could be ripped off of the one house and thrown through the air to land over the top of another structure is testimony to the force with which the storm winds blew. The shade cloth covering the bonsai hoop house was still securely in place.
Closer inspection of the situation revealed that the wind-blown shade cloth had knocked two bonsai off benches set up outside the bonsai hoop house. Examining them as I collected them from the ground, I found the two specimens to be hardly any worse for the experience. One tree, a mugo pine, had a very small broken branch. The other tree, a Japanese white pine, had no damage. Both trees were in American-made containers and both containers were intact. My son helped me pull the errant shade cloth off the hoop house, then I went through all the many plants out there looking to see if anything else had suffered from the storm. To my amazement, nothing more of any consequence had happened. All the bonsai were safe and sound. An historic storm had raged through the night and wreaked havoc on the big trees, but the little trees stood tall.
That would make a happy ending to the story, if the story ended there.
Unfortunately, the bonsai coming through the ordeal in good order was but one small bright spot in an otherwise darkly destructive episode. For western North Carolina, for the city of Asheville and for The North Carolina Arboretum, the damage wrought by Hurricane Helene was so comprehensive that no one can say when everything will be restored to anything like normal. The general shock and disbelief that followed in the immediate wake of the storm lingers on, even as heroic efforts to recover are well underway.
Some of those heroic efforts are taking place at the Arboretum. Bonsai came through the storm okay, and the other gardens and the various buildings on property came through in relatively good shape, too. But the Arboretum property itself took a merciless beating. At the time of this writing, more than three weeks after the night of the storm, the main entry road from the front gate to the main parking lot is almost cleared. There is still much work to be done before all roads and trails on property will be in a similarly passable condition. The damage along Frederick Law Olmsted Way was so extensive, the US Army Corps of Engineers became involved in the tree-removal effort. According to Arboretum Director of Horticulture Mac Franklin, a crew of more than sixty loggers, supported by a fleet of bucket trucks, dump trucks, knuckleboom log loaders and skidders, has been hard at it for most of this week to get the road open. Mac said an outside appraiser sizing up the entire Arboretum property estimated that upwards of two thousand trees needed processing.
Tree debris being unloaded on a pile in the Arboretum overflow parking area. Horticulture Director Franklin said this pile represented “a small fraction” of the waste being removed from Frederick Law Olmsted Way.
The flood waters of the French Broad River and Bent Creek made a mess of the bottomlands on property, while great bursts of wind ravaged the ridge tops. I heard that twenty four inches of rain fell in our area during a thirty six hour period. Official reports say that wind speeds of slightly over one hundred miles per hour were recorded at the weather station atop Mount Mitchell during Hurricane Helene, but in Asheville the gusts were supposedly only about forty six miles per hour. Seeing the extent of damage in certain places on the Arboretum property belies that number. Big trees were snapped like matchsticks.
It took a great deal of coordinated, cooperative effort on the part of the University of North Carolina, the State of North Carolina and the Federal Government to bring necessary resources to the Arboretum's aid. I would not pretend to know all the work going on behind the scenes to get us back on our feet. The Arboretum's interests in all this high-level political maneuvering are being ably managed by our new Executive Director, Drake Fowler. On the night the storm struck, Drake had been officially running the show here for about a month. I've been working at The North Carolina Arboretum for more than thirty four years and have seen a few events that rocked our boat pretty hard, and I'd say that Hurricane Helene ranks right up there with the worst of them. Some people undergo a trial by fire, but rookie Executive Director Fowler's trial is one of wind and water.
The Arboretum front entrance, two days after the storm. (Photo by Drake Fowler)
It's important that the Arboretum gets back up. We have an obligation to our Members and to all our community to get ourselves back in the game, to be here and open to serve as a natural refuge in a time of difficulty, a dependable sanctuary during a period of great uncertainty. All the people who work here are committed to the effort, putting in the hard labor to get the Arboretum up and running once more. This coming Monday, October 28, the Arboretum front gate will open to the public for the first time in a month. Trails will not be open and access to the property will be limited to the area around the core gardens and main buildings, but visitors will be able to come see us again. We look forward to their return! The bonsai garden will be open and the little trees will be waiting to be admired once more. Trees large and small will all be in their autumn finery, and despite everything the Arboretum will once more be beautiful. Come out and see.
The following gallery shows the current stage of autumn color development in the bonsai garden (click on any image for full view):
