Hurricane Helene

In Western North Carolina we occasionally get big rain from hurricane impact, gulf or Atlantic, but never ever ever has a storm impacted our mountains, hollers, small rivers, small towns and downtown Asheville like this. I’d been in this awesome studio for a year and a half, after re-inventing my professional world post-covid and having to close my former big awesome studio and training center, Clasique. So yes, this is one of those real raw moments when I’m not smiling. Looking through the windows at my precious Pilates apparatus and whole professional world swimming in river soup-mud-yuck.

The word resilient gets thrown around a lot these days, but I’m honestly kinda over it. I think there’s much more. I’m a serial entrepreneur for sure, as soon as I could I started creating businesses from degrees, certifications, experience, hard work and big dreams so that I could (and would always) only work for myself. Hurricane Helene’s surprise to Western North Carolina, brought me another re-set, re-build, re-vision, re-craft, re-envision as an entrepreneur and has and will take much more than resilience. Grit. Creativity. Community. Patience. More grit. And artistry I think, because the Swannanoa wiped my canvas clear and clean, studio space gone, now what?!

The week Helene hit was a typical full dynamic week at work between in person private clients, a Pilates teacher was in town for the week to study with me via observation and workouts, plus online sessions mentoring Pilates teachers, online sessions training WNBA players, and sprinkled in were acupuncture patients doing big work and booking more treatments for steady care. It was a fun week because the Asheville High Baseball team was back in the studio too. I have trained AHS Baseball boys for 12 years - in my old studio, and now in this new studio. They come weekly and learn about their core strength, chinese medicine and cupping/body care, they use all the apparatus in the studio and train from fall through winter until their spring season. As we did our workout they joked with each other about the ‘monsoon’ coming our way.. it was a light rain then, and we laughed.

Thursday was then a great day with Pilates clients and teachers doing some private training with me to level up their careers and knowledge. It wasn’t until I saw Brother Wolf’s head of business out in the parking lot that I had any idea we should plan for Hurricane impact.  She was on the hustle, evacuating 100 animals  into foster care and getting all staff out immediately. Alright, so my building is at least 6 feet higher than Brother Wolf Animal Rescue, and the Swannanoa River is so far down down the road I can’t even see it from the parking lot, no way I thought. We are good, but in case let’s put some of the Pilates equipment up on the 4” yoga blocks.  Which as we found out, did nothing when 5’ of water fill the space by the next day. 

Friday the storm hit hard and I was home. Power went out by 11, and just prior I got a text from a friend who lives in the apartments on Thompson Avenue saying the river is rising so fast, it’s all going to flood. My home was safe from fallen trees so I drove 26 into Asheville to see for myself what was happening. Nearing town the water levels of the French Broad above River Side Drive were jaw dropping and tear jerking. Weaving around town on Friday afternoon hearing that the rivers were still rising was wild and shocking.

Arriving finally above the studio on Glendale Avenue I found not a road leading to the studio and surrounding businesses, but a  brown lake. The water so high it was still and it was everywhere. I waded in, above my waist, to see the glass doors of the studio flowing in and out with the muddy Swannanoa River up to 5 feet.  All my assets, all my work world, my very very expensive classical Pilates equipment, tangled up and floating around like it’d shaken in a muddy snow globe.

So naturally, I went home and got out my paddle boards and some rope. I even debated goggles, did I have a snorkel? I was going in. No way was I leaving all my apparatus and my means of work floating around in that gunk another day. 

Saturday at noon I arrived with my sister, niece, nephew, and my Pilates teacher friend Sam who got stuck and stranded here during her training visit. The water had receded leaving at 12-24” of wet sloppy gross mud everywhere. I put my truck in four-wheel-drive and backed up the slop with a trailer. We were all in disbelief. Surreal to see the toss up inside the studio. Apparatus tangled, tipped, springs ripped off reformers, wunda chair stacked up on top of other apparatus with water marks already setting into the wood frames. So much lost. So much saturated. Electronics lost in the muck. Furniture stinky and mud covered. We got to it. Hauling out and stacking like a game of tetris. How much can we fit on this trailer? Let’s get it out of here and then take the next step. 

In the end I had to abandon three full pieces of apparatus to the dumpster, but the rest was loaded in four trailer loads in four days and taken home to my gravel driveway and garage, or spread out on the kids basketball court for cleaning and stripping and dismantling. It was a fully equipped studio and apparatus I have been collecting for two decades. I’ve been teaching Pilates since my training in Seattle in 2002, and my first piece of apparatus was a wunda chair I had in my home in 2005. Yes yes this one is going to be rebuilt. I have it stripped apart now ready to be sanded multiple times before being repolished with wood finish and reupholstered then reassembled.  I do all the re- words now, all day long. 

And a shout out to my two kids who are excellent staple removers, foam peelers, wood sanders, and garage organizers. They were right there beside me through much of the grief and challenge of closing Clasique after covid, and with me when I was working at home online only and waves of sadness and isolation, and with me moving and organizing and setting up this CoreSelf studio on Glendale Avenue. My daughter assisted me during the last workshop, we landed in this studio every day after school for homework, mom’s workout, small ball basketball games, Chisel classes with friends.  It was their home too. And as they help me strip the equipment down to the metal and wood frames so that it can be rebuilt with integrity, they are part of the journey from endings to new beginnings and around again. 

And here’s the thing about what happened here, FEMA offers no financial support for a business like me, and insurance has a neat little clause stating that any events related to climate change, like a flood far from a flood zone, aren’t covered. The SBA offers loans, and I’m not getting tangled in any loans ever again after the weight and trauma from covid and SBA EIDL loans… another story all together. So just like that it’s massive revenue lost and asset/investment in my space lost for me, a one woman show, and huge expenses staring at me.

So yes I will rebuild and yes I am resilient but really it’s going to take grit, patience, creativity, and more grit. And time, it will take time. AND community. Community support near and far has touched my heart and inspired me deeply. I have had so many people, many who I didn’t know but who know and follow and learn from me, reach out with kind words and offers of support. I’ve had Pilates teachers and studios run their own ‘class for a cause’ campaigns and raise money for CoreSelf to rebuild. I’ve had teachers offer to loan me their equipment so I can keep teaching. It’s heartfelt and it’s inspiring.

There are many bright lights in the past weeks since Helene and through it all I feel grateful, seen, supported, and not alone.