Ally Kerr, a senior golfer at UNC Asheville, was rolling putts on the observe inexperienced Monday at Forest Oaks Nation Membership in Greensboro, North Carolina, when the membership’s operations supervisor, Ryan Lee, walked up and handed her $200.
“He goes, ‘We all know you’ve been by it. We needed to present you this that can assist you out with meals, fuel, no matter you want,’” recalled Kerr, who together with the remainder of the Bulldogs girls’s golf group has been displaced by Hurricane Helene, a Class 4 storm that made landfall in Florida earlier than hanging western North Carolina, together with Asheville, as a tropical storm late final week, bringing historic flooding and inflicting catastrophic injury.
The gesture tugged at Kerr’s coronary heart strings.
“I began crying,” Kerr mentioned. “Persons are simply so type.”
Kerr doesn’t know the way lengthy she’ll be in Greensboro, or when she’ll see her group once more. Tentatively, college students are allowed again on campus on Oct. 7, with courses slated to renew two days later, however Kerr is skeptical. She has seen the storm’s destruction firsthand – the downed timber, the mangled energy traces, the Bulldogs’ observe facility utterly submerged by a rising French Broad River.
The Bulldogs’ subsequent event begins Oct. 14 in Charleston, South Carolina.
“That can most likely be the following time we’ll all be collectively,” Kerr mentioned.
LESS THAN A WEEK AGO, Kerr, 4 of her teammates and their two coaches, together with head coach Ross Money, have been wrapping up a dream journey in Vail, Colorado. Amongst 16 groups within the discipline for the Golfweek Pink Sky Basic at Pink Sky Golf Membership in Wolcott, Colorado, UNC Asheville was grouped within the first spherical with eventual champion Kansas and Pepperdine, an NCAA match-play qualifier two seasons in the past. “That confirmed the ladies that we are able to play with anyone,” Money mentioned. The three-day event, wherein the Bulldogs completed eleventh, additionally left loads of time for post-round bonding, from fancy dinners to exploring the Bavarian-inspired village to hanging out at their rental home, the place the gamers all slept in bunk beds within the basement.
“No person on our group had ever been to Colorado, a lot much less Vail,” Money mentioned. “It was probably the most lovely locations on this planet. They liked it.”
Added Kerr: “In all probability the event of the yr.”
Little did they know on the time that lower than 24 hours later, their worlds could be flipped the other way up.
The Bulldogs landed at McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville, Tennessee, round 4 p.m. Thursday. They’d flown out of Asheville, although with the storm barreling towards them and its outer bands already shifting by, getting a flight again there was unimaginable. A college administrator drove the group van to Knoxville to select up Money and his gamers, after which they’d make the two-hour trek alongside I-40 again to campus.
About midway residence, they stopped in Newport, Tennessee. It was round 6:30 p.m., and with the dangerous stuff anticipated simply after 8 p.m., they’d reached an inflection level: Preserve driving, or discover a resort and experience out the storm there.
“My GPS mentioned I might have them again to campus by 7:30, and so they all needed to be collectively,” mentioned Money, who had 4 of his 5 different gamers nonetheless on campus; one had already left city.
The choice was rapidly made – with approval from Money’s athletic director, Janet Cone, and the college’s chancellor, Kimberly van Noort – to complete their journey whereas staying in frequent communication with Cone. By 7:30, the gamers have been safely of their dorm rooms or residences, and Money was racing the 45 minutes north, up I-26, to his home in Jonesborough, Tennessee.
“There have been a couple of factors the place I used to be somewhat scared,” Kerr mentioned. “I couldn’t actually see the highway in entrance of us, however coach did a extremely good job of getting us again safely.”
Early that subsequent morning, floodwaters washed out big swaths of I-40, together with parts of the eastbound lanes that the Bulldogs had taken residence.
After the storm handed on Friday night, Money surveyed his property. He’d not misplaced energy, and except for some small particles, there was no injury. In fact, he couldn’t get in contact with any of his gamers or directors. He then plugged his facility’s handle, 838 Riverside Drive, into his telephone.
The normally 47-minute commute was displaying over six hours.
“Then it mentioned there was no approach to get to Asheville in any respect,” mentioned Money, who even contemplated using his bike right down to verify on his gamers.
“It was like probably the most helpless feeling I’ve ever had,” Money added.
ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA – SEPTEMBER 28: Heavy rains from hurricane Helene induced report flooding and injury on September 28, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida’s Huge Bend on Thursday evening with winds as much as 140 mph and storm surges that killed a minimum of 42 folks in a number of states. (Photograph by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Photos)
BACK ON CAMPUS, Kerr and some teammates have been venturing outdoors and have been “hit within the face by all of the destruction.” Two of the three exits to Kerr’s condo advanced, which is situated proper throughout the road from the college, have been blocked by fallen timber. One tree had crushed one of many freshman’s automobiles. Kerr counted a minimum of six downed energy traces on a five-minute drive to the grocery retailer to get some muffins and crackers. They rode by the power, too, however after they might solely see the roof protruding of the water a couple of hundred yards away, they turned again. For dinner that evening, a bunch of scholars from Kerr’s advanced obtained some grills to work and cooked up what was in all people’s fridges within the car parking zone.
“It felt like we have been in an apocalypse,” Kerr mentioned. “I couldn’t imagine how darkish it was.”
Van Noort despatched out a schoolwide replace on Saturday, saying, “Circumstances at UNC Asheville are troublesome. Important tree injury has occurred, and elements of campus are inaccessible. Everyone seems to be secure. Cell and web protection is nonexistent at this level. … We’re offering safety, meals, water, and luxury to the scholars remaining on campus.”
Close by universities have been impacted as nicely. Appalachian State, situated in Boone, North Carolina, about two-and-a-half hours northeast of Asheville, additionally sustained heavy flooding. “We’re all OK,” Mountaineers girls’s golf coach Chan Metts mentioned. “It might be some time for issues to return to regular, however the college and group are actually rallying round every little thing.” The Mountaineers males’s group is at the moment competing in Greenville, North Carolina, and can wrap up the Ironwood Collegiate Basic on Tuesday. The place they are going to go after that’s unsure. Lessons are canceled at Appalachian State by a minimum of this week; identical goes for Western Carolina, which sits simply an hour west of Asheville in Cullowhee.
“Our gamers all obtained off the mountain shortly following the storm,” mentioned Catamounts males’s golf coach Tim Eckberg, whose nine-man squad is now cut up between Charlotte and Atlanta – their residence golf programs suffered vital injury – as they put together for his or her subsequent event, the Carolina Cup, which begins Sunday in Spartanburg, South Carolina. “Fortunately, campus was largely secure all through. Some flooding and down timber. The lack of energy, cell service and wi-fi was the toughest half, making communication with one another and oldsters throughout these occasions unimaginable. However we’re blessed.
“Nevertheless, our hearts break for our group. Western North Carolina has been devastated by this storm in methods that won’t be seen for weeks and even months.”
As of Tuesday morning, the demise toll in Buncombe, Macon and Henderson counties had reached 47.
BY SATURDAY MORNING, Kerr and a few teammates had discovered wi-fi on the native fireplace station, the place in addition they, by likelihood, reunited with the freshmen who lived on campus and didn’t journey to Colorado. They contacted Money by the group’s group chat, and some hours later they have been all packing as much as head to Charlotte, the place they’d scatter from there till it was secure to return to high school. Fortunately, Cone had their automobiles towed from the power to increased floor, in any other case they’d’ve been washed away.
“It was form of a panic to get out,” mentioned Kerr, who was crammed in certainly one of two automobiles. “We didn’t know what roads have been open. We initially went south, however then we needed to flip round. We obtained misplaced. We didn’t actually know the place we have been, we simply saved driving.”
In the meantime, Money nonetheless can’t get to Asheville due to highway closures. He’s been requested to begin compiling an inventory of anticipated losses on the facility, from hitting bays to an indoor placing inexperienced, for insurance coverage functions. Cone had sat the group’s FlightScope launch monitor on prime of the lockers, however that probably did little in what Money estimated was 15 to twenty toes of dashing water.
The one gadgets Money anticipates salvaging from the constructing are the golf balls – if these didn’t wash away, too.
“The river hadn’t flooded that prime in over 100 years,” Money mentioned. “The rain, the water, there was simply nowhere for it to go. The injury is simply exceptional. I grew up in Boynton Seaside (on Florida’s east coast) and have had eyewalls churning proper over us, and my father and I sitting with our backs to the automobile with our toes in opposition to the storage door as a result of the braces had failed, a foot of water in our neighborhood, stuff torn up.
“However this, that is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
Money has additionally by no means seen a more in-depth group.
Although connectivity points have hindered video calls, the group chat has been full of love and reward, lauding how each participant banded collectively to make sure all of them have been secure and accounted for, each throughout and after the storm.
Now, in some way, the Bulldogs and different space golf applications should discover a approach to play by, actually and figuratively.
“We’ve already despatched a couple of texts backwards and forwards about how proud we’re of one another,” mentioned Kerr, who transferred from Idaho as a sophomore. “Coach actually has executed an incredible job of recruiting simply healthful folks, and we’ve got such an incredible group of ladies. Transferring ahead, it’s going to be a difficult scenario, however we’re an excellent group, and all of us look out for one another.
“This has strengthened that much more.”
