Lee County teacher missing for weeks after Helene flooding, family asks for help

A Lee County Middle School teacher has been missing for weeks after her home in Avery County was swept away by Helene’s floodwaters.

Kim Ashby was last seen in a red shirt and black pants floating down the river after the floodwaters carried away her home in Elk Park.

Her husband was found alive days later, 2 miles away. He is recovering and refuses to leave the area until his wife is found.

Kim’s daughter, Jessica Meidinger, no longer believes her mother is alive, but she wants closure.

“I don’t think any of us have a lot of hope for that,” Meidinger said. “I know I can really only speak for myself, and I know that I don’t have hardly any hope for that, but you can’t help but have those daydreams that bring you a positive result, right? I know that somewhere within me I do have hope, but that’s just because we haven’t found her body yet.”

The family is asking people who are familiar with the area to help them now that the search team is completely made up of volunteers. People can reach out to the family through GoFundMe.

On Sept. 26, the SanLee Middle School teacher and her husband Rod went to their riverside vacation property in Elk Park to remove valuables before Tropical Storm Helene came through.

Meidinger said when Rod opened the front door on Friday, he knew they were in danger.

“He went outside just to check on where the water level was at that time, and he noticed a quarter of the house had already been washed away,” Meidinger said. “As soon as he saw that he was running inside and told her to get dressed.”

Before the couple could finish getting dressed, the power of the surging Elk River ripped the house off its foundation and carried them away.

“They managed to get on a mattress and just held on,” Meidinger said. “They hit in an embankment or a turn, and the house just kind of collapsed on them. And they started, I guess they were able to grab each other and were floating. At some point, they got hit by a tree and got separated in the water.”

That was the last time Kim Ashby was seen.

Christian Chaney is the principal of SanLee Middle School. He said the news of Ashby’s disappearance has hit the community hard, and they want her home.

“Tears have been shed,” Chaney said. “We miss you. And we want you back here safe. We firmly believe that will come to be, and that will happen.”