Western NC voters cast ballots in donation center after Helene tossed Ashe County
Tim Hamm had a lot to think about when Big Horse Creek flooded.
How many more branches need to be sawed off before the roads are cleared? Is this boulder big enough to fill the hole in the bridge?
Remnants of Hurricane Helene doused North Carolina's rural Ashe County in rain, mud and debris on Sept. 27. It pulled the foundation out from under a century-old voting site — the site for the county's Hurricane Precinct. The little building had no heater, Hamm said, only a wood-burning fireplace that needed constant tending.
A month after the storm, sand still covered the uncannily-named precinct's floorboards, and nearby residents still spent their days digging sludge out of their rooms and restaurants.
A little over a month after the storm, it was Election Day.
Some in western North Carolina were voting in tents . Others were voting in a new place for the first time in their lives.
"You find us OK?" Hamm, the chief judge for the Hurricane Precinct, asked as Debbie Miller walked into the relocated site Tuesday. The new location had been combined with another precinct and a donation center.
"Well," Miller said as she weaved through tables of clothes and cleaners, "eventually."
The 66-year-old first went to the old schoolhouse where she'd voted every other election.
It was destroyed.
So she called the courthouse, and they told her where to go, she said. Six miles away, on the other side of a one-way, cliff-side dirt road, she'd be able to vote at White Oak Community Center, known locally as the Old White Oak School, a clerk told her.
Linda Inch's great-grandson made sure she made it to her voting location, too.
"You going to work, grandma?" 3-year-old Levi asked as Inch packed her bag Tuesday morning.
"Yes," she replied.
"You going to ?" he followed up.
"Can you believe he said that?" Inch said to Hamm and two other poll workers sitting inside a makeshift voting site. They all knew each other. "He's not even four years old yet."
Ashe County, which hugs Virginia's border, has a population of about 20,000. Lansing, the closest town to the Hurricane Precinct, has about 128 people.
In purple, swing-state North Carolina, both Ashe County and Lansing are solidly Republican. Through orange and yellow leaves — and brown and gray grass — bits of red, white and blue poked through. "Trump, Take America Back" signs and flags dotted the soggy ground after storm winds had blown campers, refrigerators and sheets into trees in September. One voter wore a Trump hat, shirt and pants as he dropped his ballot into the box.
Inch remembered when young Levi saw former President Donald Trump on TV months ago — before Helene ripped strips of tin off her roof. He looked up, listened and, in the voice of a toddler, said: "I like that man."
"Well good," Inch replied, "because grandma's going to vote for that man."
Inch said she felt most comfortable voting for Trump, who she described as "an honest man who does what he says."
As Inch drove away in her blue Volkswagen Beetle, Hamm handed the precinct's first curbside ballot to 72-year-old Randy Gurlacz.
The Miami-born man moved to Ashe County 20 years ago. His wife was scared of the hurricanes, he said.
"Now, here we are," he said. "We're in the Hurricane Precinct, you know?"
Gurlacz, who lost his left leg years ago while building bridges, cast his ballot from the passenger seat as his nephew, Tony Jaramillo, 27, and family friend, Shane Blevins, 28, bubbled in their ballots inside.
Jaramillo said he knew to go to the new location after checking the Board of Elections website. Other residents knew because of the beloved local radio station — their equivalent of a local TV station — 580 WKSK The Farm. Some knew simply by word of mouth.
"You just kinda hope it gets out there," said Lansing Mayor Mack Powers, 73, of the changed polling sites.
By Tuesday afternoon, it seemed like it had.
"We have a whole lot going on," he said, "and despite the importance of the election, getting the mud out of your house, having somewhere to sleep and food to eat are at least equally important."
Hamm said the day had gone as expected, and they had a good turnout on top of the roughly 60% of voters who cast their ballots early.
"Everything was the same," he said, "except this time I didn't have to build a fire."
'Dig or donate': What I found in the NC mountains after Helene wrecked Appalachia
In other areas of Western NC
More people voted in Buncombe County on Election Day this year than did in 2020, the county government reported in an update at 4 p.m. Tuesday.
"We're thrilled to see so many voters turning out today," Buncombe County Elections Director Corinne Duncan said in a statement. "Our community has been through so much in recent weeks, but we are resilient and committed to the elections process, and there has been much to celebrate already today."
About three hours before polls closed, students at Appalachian State University in Boone were waiting in a four-hour line to vote, journalist Lee Tauss posted on social network X.
Buncombe County had to replace or transfer 17 of its 80 voting sites because of Helene.
