‘I still cry:’ Residents look back on Tropical Storm Fred’s impact 3 years later

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    HAYWOOD COUNTY, North Carolina (WLOS) — Saturday, Aug. 17 marks the three-year anniversary of Tropical Storm Fred swamping parts of Haywood County with deadly force.

To this day, many of its impacts remain.

Three years later, the hard-hit Laurel Bank Campground remains essentially a ghost town.

I still cry,” said campground owner, Sherrie McArthur.

For her, it is almost like Fred’s floodwaters camped out at her Laurel Bank Campground on Aug. 17, 2021.

The storm killed multiple campers. Two other people living nearby also died.

It was killing me,” McArthur said. “I will not move back there. God told me that was done.

Months and years passed with debris piled up, now mostly removed with only remnants of the life that used to be here.

Still, heavy emotions remain.

“I don’t hide as much as I used to. Depression’s been bad,” McArthur said.

Steve Eubanks and Dale Robertson had camped part of the year at Laurel Bank.

“Just everything we had was gone. We couldn’t identify one thing. It took it right off the foundation,” said Eubanks.

“Friends of ours that also live in the campground said ‘don’t come back, everything’s gone,’” said Robertson.

Both are now set up at an adjacent campground.

McArthur says she’s unable to reopen Laurel Bank as a campground.

“They would not give me permits. It’s too much of a flood zone,” she said.

That chapter, McArthur says, is closed, but the flood stories continue three years later. To document them, local author Julianne Rhodes has written a book called “Mountain Tsunami.”

“Get your Kleenex’s out because these stories are heart-wrenching. As you can imagine, some of the details are very, very difficult to read,” she said.

She wants to honor the lives lost.

So does Canton’s mayor, Zeb Smathers. His town was hit hard, too, but he says there is resolve in Haywood County.

“We find a way to put one foot in front of the other. Whether it’s flood, whether it’s a mill closing, whether it’s just the day-to-day tragedies of life, you have to find a way to keep going,” he said.

McArthur has seen improvements since Fred three years ago.

But now, she says a new river gauge just went up over the Pigeon River.

“We’ll have some type of noise alarm for the rivers getting up,” McArthur says.

McArthur says there will be a gathering at the Cruso Community Center on Saturday, Aug. 17.

For now, she takes the positives as they come – day by day.

“Maybe I’m getting better,” she said.

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