Helene gave them a chance to meet Kamala Harris. They didn’t expect a follow-up call.

Politics wasn’t on the radar when Justin Thompson and his wife loaded their 8-month-old son into the family car to leave Asheville on Sept. 28 for a safer place to stay after Helene.

A random connection landed them a meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, when she visited Charlotte on Oct. 5, he said. But it was the call from the vice president on his cell phone Friday that really took him by surprise.

It was a quick call, said Thompson, 33. She was just checking in to make sure they were OK.

“We were out, and it took me off guard,” Thompson said, recalling the conversation. “Hey, it’s Kamala. How are you?”

He supported Harris for president before the storm, Thompson said, but his experience over the last week has “further reinforced” his decision that she’s the right person for the job.

Finding a road to safety in Charlotte

Thompson and his wife, Rebecca, headed to the basement with their son Carter when Helene hit the north side of Asheville around 7 a.m. Sept. 27, he said. It was “pretty scary,” he recalled.

The next day, they found over a dozen trees in the yard, including one that hit a neighbor’s house and another wrapped in power lines at the neighborhood’s entrance, he said. They were fortunate not to have flooding, but they ran out of supplies, he said.

Without a way to buy food and no water, they decided to leave for Charlotte, where he and his wife have family, Thompson said.

“That took a while. Our neighbors talked about it for a little bit (and contacted Duke Power), and then they went in and took the power line out and chopped (the tree) up,” he said. “It was fortunate for us, because that was the only way we had to get out.”

Because they didn’t have cell service, they didn’t realize how bad the damage was in other parts of the city until they crossed the French Broad river and saw the flooding, he said.

“It was devastating, very sad, to see the city that you love and contribute to — I feel like we’ve spent so much time there, grown up there — and to see it in that condition is very sad,” he said.

After trying multiple ways to get out of town and finding roads blocked, they managed to get through on Interstate 26 to Gastonia and then Charlotte, he said.

They were “very fortunate” compared to “the folks who were not able to leave and have been struggling and going through a lot,” Thompson said. “Focusing on the broader community outside of Asheville — all the small towns in Western North Carolina — everyone was impacted, so I really want to make sure that relief and attention is on the wider focus and not just Asheville.”

Meeting the vice president

A few days later, a close friend who works in North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s office and had also evacuated to Charlotte asked them if they wanted to share their story with the vice president during her Oct. 5 visit, he said.

“It was an incredible experience,” Thompson said. “It was very intimate. It was just us and one other family.”

Harris and Cooper shared updates on the response by FEMA and state resources to the storm in Asheville and the wider Western North Carolina community, Thompson said, and he got to emphasize to Harris how important federal support was going to be for the small businesses that make up the backbone of Western North Carolina’s economy.

“That’s going to make or break the recovery at this point, in my opinion at least,” said Thompson, who works for community development financial institutions that support small business investment.

This story was originally published October 13, 2024 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Helene gave them a chance to meet Kamala Harris. They didn’t expect a follow-up call.."

Tammy Grubb

The News & Observer

919-829-8926

Tammy Grubb has written about Orange County’s politics, people and government since 2010. She is a UNC-Chapel Hill alumna and has lived and worked in the Triangle for over 30 years.