Helene Heroes

Vickie Cook has always been a strong person. In the wake of Hurricane Helene, her friendly face and no-nonsense, can-do attitude is a mainstay at the Big Ivy Community Center (BICC) in Barnardsville, just 20 miles north of Asheville. 

Cook, 60, spent the first years of her life in Asheville. As a young teen she returned to Barnardsville, where her mother’s family has lived for generations. “I can’t think of any other place I could call home,” she says. “I love this community.”

The Big Ivy Community Center, where Cook has served as a board member for the past 3 years, is located down Dillingham Road. This local thoroughfare winds parallel to Dillingham Creek, a beloved waterway fed by innumerable springs and streams flowing from Pisgah National Forest, which, prior to the storm, was accessible from the end of the road. 

One of the worst hit areas in Barnardsville, itself one of the worst hit areas in the region, whole swaths of Dillingham Road were completely washed out. This led to hundreds of people being completely cut off, needing to walk or bike for several miles in order to access supplies in the first few days after the storm.

Thanks to the immense generosity and hard work of Barnardsville-based Brock Mountain Land Company, access was restored to the BICC within less than a week. 

Since Brock Mountain also cleared and repaired Vickie’s own road, she was then able to head to the Community Center and get to work “from daylight to dark...You name it, we’ve been doing it. During the first phase it was mostly immediate needs like getting people supplies, now we’re looking at what we can save, what can be rebuilt, getting people campers and tiny houses who need them. This next phase is going to be more of that.”

Managing operations and resources is nothing new to Cook. She’s a mother of 3 adult children and spent most of her career working at Mission Hospital, after leaving Law Enforcement Training School in Weaverville due to family pressure to choose a safer job. At Mission, Cook worked in Facilities Services doing security and maintenance dispatch. 

On Saturdays she was the only person in the office, dispatching throughout both wings of the hospital. “There was even a phone in the bathroom,” she laughs, implying that she was required to be “on the job” every moment of her 12 hour shift. After Mission, she worked for Mountain Mobility, driving over 300 miles a day. “I enjoy helping people,” Cook says with a smile. “If I can help somebody, it makes me feel good inside. My mama was like that, she would help anybody. I’m thankful I got that from her.”

Some years ago, Cook started using an electric wheelchair to get around. Being such a strong person her whole life, this felt like a blow. “I thought it was over,” she says, with a glint in her eye. “But, nope! Just because you’re in a chair doesn’t mean you can’t help your community.”

This truth is evident to anyone who makes their way to the BICC these days. The spacious grounds, also serving as a community park before the storm, are bustling with activity and bursting with supplies: everything from whole sheds full of diapers, to generators and RVs. And Cook is easy to find at the “blue tent” where volunteers and people in need alike are directed to check in.

Before Helene, the Community Center operated a food pantry that served about 200 families per week. At the height of their disaster response efforts, that number rose to about 500 per day.

Regular volunteers have been joined by newer ones, along with lots of help from out of town and out of state. The basketball court hosts visiting organizations like Pike’s Plumbing, who cooked free meals for over a week, Blue Ridge Health, who have set up popup clinics, and others. “It’s such a tragic event,” Cook reflects,”But it’s beautiful the way people are responding to it, the unity. This country has been so divided, and this has given me hope to see such an outpouring of love.” 

Cook and the BICC have been in friendly collaboration with the Barnardsville Mutual Aid Hub that popped up at the old fire station and is run by mostly younger “newcomers” to the Barnardsville community.

Even local officials have come “with boots on the ground, working together,” says Cook. Both county commissioner Terri Wells and senator Warren Daniel visited BICC and left Cook feeling seen and supported by the halls of power. 

“You just gotta depend on each other and believe in each other, no matter what you think or your social status.” Cook wisely remarks. “Just because someone looks different or has different ideas doesn’t mean they’re not part of your community.”

When I ask her what she’s learned from this disaster response, Cook looks up for a moment at the sun pouring through golden tulip poplar leaves. Then she answers that “community centers, churches, and everyone needs to think about this stuff, and prepare. We need to keep up with what resources we found.” 

She emphasizes that our local communities are what we have, we’re going to be the first to show up, and we can take care of each other long-term, not just in the moments after something awful happens.

Being a person of faith, Cook also notes that during a disaster like this, you can “see the hand of God all around, if you just look.” She shares stories of supplies showing up right after someone expressed a need for them, and even a team of horseback search and rescue volunteers asking where they should go not five minutes after a distressed friend in Burnsville called to say that they couldn’t get to loved ones in a particularly hard-hit and inaccessible area. “You don’t know how wonderful your community is until you go through something like this.”

The Big Ivy Community Center, where Cook is committed to serving for the long-haul and beyond, was badly damaged during the storm. The grounds and pool, where the greater Barnardsville community comes to walk, play, celebrate birthdays, and more, are strewn with debris and mud. 

The Community Center building sustained significant damage from flooding, and it is yet to be determined whether they’ll be able to repair or need to rebuild. To make a donation to the BICC, visit bigivy.org.