Helene flooding destroys McDowell County couple's home just months before their wedding

You can’t see the floor at Micheal Danford’s home in Old Fort. It’s covered in mud – a lingering sign of the floodwaters that filled her home last week. Many of their belongings are waterlogged.

“This mud is just on everything,” she said while guiding a WRAL News crew through her home.

Danford said they spent hours shoveling mud from inside their home to the outside. Included in those piles were damaged belongings. However, they saved some valuable items, like sentimental photos of her fiancé’s late parents and the shoes she designed.

“I’m grateful there’s things to pick through…Luckily, we’ve got our drink dispensers for the wedding. There’s still a few things here and there that we can salvage and make something of.”

Danford said their wedding, scheduled for early December in Pittsboro, will go on as planned. However, the difficult task of wedding planning just got harder. They’re making do with fewer items than they started with and an even tighter budget. That’s where community support comes in.

“Our florist messaged us last night, and she was like, ‘We’re going to wave the rest of your fees. Anything we can do to help you.’”

She said she was home alone the night of the storm while her fiancé Jake was out of town for training.

“I was sitting on the couch. My dogs and I were just watching the rain,” Danford said. “[An officer] was banging on the door. He was like, ‘The water level’s getting too high; we have to evacuate.’”

She said she tried going to a nearby restaurant, but the water continued to rise. She tried her luck, hoping her car could drive through the floodwater.

“Every road I went down, it was like, trees down, phone lines down, water in the road…I ended up just sitting at a gas station that didn’t have power for 2 hours,” Danford said.

She and her fiancé were able to reunite in Hickory that night. Since then, they haven’t been able to stay in their home.

“We had no clue this would happen here, in North Carolina,” Danford said. “We thought we would come home and the power would be out, but we could stay here. But he called me and said, ‘It’s all destroyed. Everything’s gone.’”

She said they filled out a FEMA application as soon as they could. Just minutes before WRAL News arrived at Danford’s home Friday, A FEMA representative left.

“She asked all the questions, measured the water line, took a bunch of pictures, and said it would be about a week until we get more information,” Danford explained.