“To Lose and Find Yourself”
Interview with Hot Springs resident Gloria Sundquist, who lost her home in Hurricane Helene
By Wendy Stancil, on behalf of the Madison Alliance for Rebuilding Communities
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Gloria Sundquist and listen to her remarkable Helene flood story. As a longtime resident of Hot Springs, she moved down by the beautiful French Broad River in 1997.
Geographically her home sits at a place where the river basin opens up, and the river is quiet and wide. Having seen many powerful flooding events over the years, she didn’t feel overly concerned about Helene. She recalled the morning of the hurricane, how it was strangely sunny, so Gloria decided to stay-put. But within a few hours, the river began creeping closer. Soon after, she heard it running beneath the floorboards until, eventually, it was pouring into her home.
At waistdeep, she pulled down the attic stairs and hoisted her six cats (who went willingly) into the attic. Her dog Marble scrambled up the stairs. Gloria told me how Marble was scared and resistant. She was, after all, unfamiliar with climbing ladders into attics. She held Marble and watched the rushing water and floating furniture and appliances. As she told me this, she laughed at the memory of standing in waist-deep water, wondering where she could find dry pants to put on. How our brains offer short-circuited solutions when we are in survival mode. It was at that moment that she heard people yelling her name from outside the dining room window.
Gloria became teary-eyed as she described the immense relief that washed over her when she saw her friends, a motley crew of local raft guides, ready to perform a swift water rescue. They had come, she realized, to save her life. Marble and Gloria clambered into the boat, leaving the cats with food in the attic, as this was their best chance at survival. The paddlers headed out into the rapidly rising river that had now encompassed acres of her land. Gloria stopped, interrupting her own storytelling to make clear to me that she is forever bonded with the people who rescued her that day, who showed up out of nowhere and risked their own lives to save hers. I asked Gloria what it was like going under the trestle in a raft. Her eyes widened, and she revealed to me that she does not recall much after she and Marble were safe in the boat.
The next thing she did recall was arriving at the bloated river’s edge. Her voice cracked as she said, “All of these people were just there, waiting. They were waiting for us.” They offered blankets, water, food, cash, places to stay — neighbors and strangers alike were armed with the things that she would need in the coming days. As for the trestle, the swift water rescue team said that they had gone over it.
The trestle sits a hundred meters farther from the river than Gloria’s home. It was chilling to comprehend the river being that high.
The following Sunday she went into downtown Hot Springs, where she ran into Chris, one of the raft guides who helped rescue her. He said, “This followed you out of the house,” and offered her the Hand of God candle that had been sitting on Gloria’s window sill where she and Marble were rescued. It had fallen out behind them and floated to the raft.
That Chris had the presence of mind to even notice a candle in the midst of a swift water rescue was astounding to Gloria. She cherishes the candle and its newfound significance, but little did she know that this was the first of many extraordinary events that she would experience in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
A few days later Gloria was able to get back to her now-destroyed homestead. The mud made it impossible to drive, so she walked down to her property. Inside her home, a water line nearly 5 feet high marked the interior walls.
As Gloria spoke, it was clear that her faith and trust in God was what carried her through the trauma of losing her home, and continues to carry her now, nearly eleven months later.
She stood in the ruins, unsure where to begin, when she heard a 4-wheeler. A woman and boy whom Gloria had never met had come to bring her food. What followed was a flood of support that Gloria cannot explain other than “the grace of God working through others.”
Her neighbor provided a place to stay during the first few weeks, allowing Gloria to be close to home, tend to her animals, and work on whatever she could. Every time that she reached a point of complete overwhelm, another group of volunteers would miraculously appear and get her through the day and its series of hurdles.
Friends and folks she’d never met showed up with heavy equipment, clearing the driveway, gutting her house. Three friends in particular, whom she now calls “Charlie’s Angels,” moved all of the furniture out of the house. Another came and pressure washed her clothes to see what could be salvaged. She rattled off a list of so many organizations and churches and businesses that helped her during some part of her recovery process, calling it “a divine situation.”
Gloria debated whether or not to rebuild, having heard lots of conflicting opinions. But one day, a “hero named Jason” showed up from Tennessee with “his boys.” Jason offered to be her unofficial contractor for the massive undertaking of rebuilding Gloria’s home. Coordinating volunteer efforts over months, Jason provided oversight from mucking out to demolition to flooring to installation of cabinets. For Gloria, he became a source of dependability and strength, and now Jason and his family are dear friends of Gloria’s — she even spent Christmas Day with them last year.
We talked about the collective experience. She shared how comforting the daily town meetings became for her. We agreed they offered all of us an anchor of normalcy in an intense and unknown time. The consistency of daily hugs and shared meals with friends, updating each other with newly discovered resources; it was something we all needed greatly.
As we wrapped up our talk, Gloria became teary-eyed, and then she smiled as she told me that she continues to pray everyday for the volunteers. She humbly tried to describe the feeling of strangers coming to do the things that you’re not capable of, because you’ve become “mummified” by the whole experience. She paused. ”You lose and find yourself in times such as these,” she aptly ended.
Now, eleven months later, Gloria is close to being able to return home. Though eternally grateful to the family from Pennsylvania that delivered their camper so she had a place to live, she’s looking forward to moving back into her house. Her furniture has begun to arrive, and she has a sparkle in her eye as she talks about the celebration she wants to have, welcoming her community, and everyone who helped, to come and celebrate. It is a beautiful next chapter that she will soon be surrounded by the walls of her home that were built by the kindnesses of many. As for her six cats, they all survived, too.
