Helene Recovery Fund

Hurricane Helene has been called 'the worst natural disaster' in Watauga County's modern history by local officials. Our school was hit particularly hard, resulting in extensive flood damage and destruction to both the interior and exterior of the campus facilities. 

  • Mountain Pathways received significant damage due to the flooding of the usually family-friendly Howards Creek

  • We have lost the Norwood House building, have received extensive damage to the Children's House, and have lost much of the infrastructure and materials that has helped us create a healthy, safe, and positive learning environment.

  • We need the help of our immediate community and our extended community across the world. Please join us on this journey of rebuilding. 

 

Recounting Hurricane Helene & Recovery from the MPS Staff

This is our toddler playground. The playground collected feet of flood contaminated mud. Our fencing has been destroyed, our playground equipment is missing, and our shed was pushed back from the power of the water.

September 26th - September 30th

The Start of the Storm:

We closed school early on Thursday night and all day on Friday in anticipation for the oncoming storm. Late Thursday night was when the flooding starting in the Norwood basement. Tori and Jenny, along with their partners, spent hours trying to wet-vac out the water and prepare the basement door against flooding. Thursday evening and Friday morning brought relentless rain and wind. The majority of Boone, NC and surrounding areas lost power, water, and cell reception which left everyone in the dark and unknown. After finally getting a small amount of cell reception late Friday night, we learned that both of our school buildings suffered significant flooding and damage from a parent in our community. We were unable to get to the school until Saturday, and that was when we saw firsthand how our once beautiful and peaceful creek had risen up and fundamentally changed Howard’s Creek Road, the homes of so many around us, and our beloved school.

 

Our Norwood building suffered flooding up to the second floor.

October 1st - October 3rd

Assessing the Damages:

The first week of October brought with it the heartbreaking realization of how much we had lost. Our Norwood building, which in the past housed our elementary and middle students, was inaccessible due to the foundational damage from the storm. Our greenhouse collapsed in on itself. Our propane tank floated all the way down to the end of the creek. Our Children’s House, which currently holds our 18mo-6 year olds, was going to need a lot of work to restore it to it’s former glory. We spent the first day cleaning out all of the mud from the classroom floors, hooking up donated generators because we had lost power, and starting the process of making claims. We spent the second day tearing out all of the carpets that were holding moisture, getting a porta-potty on site for our volunteers, and obtaining a dumpster so that we could have a space to throw away the materials and furniture that had been damaged.

 

Packing up the children’s belongings before the restoration crew begins their work.

October 4th-October 5th

The Clean-Up and SuperSaturday:

We were fortunate enough to get ahold of a restoration crew that could put us on their schedule immediately. In order for them to begin, we had the heavy work (emotionally and physically) of removing all of the items in our building and moving to them to storage containers. It was an emotionally taxing time for everyone involved. We had past and current families, past and current teachers, and volunteers arrive to help. The monumental task of removing everything from a building was daunting and devastating, but the help of our community members made it possible. On Saturday, October 5th we had our “SuperSaturday” event of grading our ….