Roof rescue, looters and red tape. One family’s housing struggles after Helene struck

FEMA money, private insurance payouts and lots of private donations have helped many of the thousands of people displaced after Helene’s historic destruction in Western North Carolina. The state expects $1.4 billion in federal block grants will in time serve as last-resort aid for disaster repairs, most of it for housing.

For now, many people are still not back at home, including Sabrina Mills, her husband and their family.

For Sabrina Mills and her family, surviving Helene’s wrath was traumatic enough.

As floodwaters from the Swannanoa River rose to stomach level inside their house on Sept. 27, Mills’ 24-year-old son hacked his way through the attic ceiling with a chef’s knife and a hammer so the family could get atop the roof.

It was a matter of survival: Rising water was washing the Swannanoa house off its foundation and toward the raging river. Fortunately the house hit a cluster of trees so they weren’t swept away.

Mills, her husband, their two children and a family friend made it to the roof, where they heard the screams of an elderly neighbor who was swept away by the currents before volunteers with rafts rescued them from their house.

Then came the looting. Their three-bedroom home destroyed, the family went to stay with Mills’ mother in Rock Hill. While there, thieves ransacked their flooded house, stealing jewelry, electronics and musical instruments, Mills said.

In early October, FEMA representatives told the family the agency could provide a temporary trailer so they could continue to live on their three-acre property. That would allow Mills and her husband to keep an eye on their house and prevent more looting.

Days later, Mills said, another FEMA rep delivered a conflicting message: The agency couldn’t put a trailer on their property after all because it was in a flood zone.

FEMA would not make any of its officials available for an interview and declined to discuss the cases of individual homeowners. But in an email to the Charlotte Observer, the agency said the placement of mobile homes is governed by federal, state and local regulations.

Mixed messages from FEMA

Mill’s family was soon facing more frustrations.

FEMA offered the family free hotel lodging, Mills said, but the nearest hotels that participated in the agency’s Transitional Sheltering Assistance program were an hour and a half away from the Asheville hospital where Mills worked as a nurse.

In December, FEMA provided the family $2,900 — enough to help them rent a smaller home in Swannanoa.

The family has received no more rental assistance money since then. In January, Mills said, a FEMA representative said they didn’t qualify for further help because they had “boarders,” she said. The people the representative was referring to weren’t boarders — they were her 24- and 23-year-old children, she said.

So the Mills family paid $4,200 out of pocket for the next two months’ rent. That’s put a strain on their finances because they’re still paying the mortgage on their destroyed home.

Every FEMA representative Mills and her husband have talked to has been nice, Mills said.

“But we get told different things every time we talk to someone,” said Mills, 46. “Nobody seems to be reading from the same playbook. It’s been frustrating.”

Their home was covered by flood insurance, Mills said, but the insurance settlement will fall far short of what’s needed to rebuild and properly flood-proof the property.

Mills and her husband loved the privacy of their three-acre lot, but they’re not confident they’ll ever be able to move back there.

“I really want to go home,” Mills said. “I don’t think my brain has accepted that I can’t.”

This story was originally published March 19, 2025 at 6:00 AM.