Written by Sally Kestin, Asheville Watchdog.
They perished under the most harrowing circumstances: entire families swept away by raging floodwaters, couples tossed out of their homes or crushed as the land underneath gave way, people battling diseases unable to access the treatments that kept them alive.
The devastating, heartbreaking picture of the lives lost in Buncombe to Tropical Storm Helene, a calamity few could have imagined, is just beginning to emerge.
In the initial days after the storm, Buncombe Sheriff Quentin Miller put the death toll at 72, but his office has since clarified that that number included all deaths, and some were not hurricane-related or from Buncombe. State medical examiners are in charge of determining disaster-related fatalities, and their official count for Buncombe as of Friday was 42.
Asheville Watchdog is bringing you the stories behind the staggering loss of life, the children, parents, grandparents, multiple generations of a single family, all gone in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the mountains of western North Carolina. This is the first installment.
Judy and James Dockery
Judy and James Dockery lived atop a knoll in Swannanoa on land that had been in the family for decades. A small creek ran through, barely ankle deep.
Previous heavy rainfalls caused some flooding, but the water “would always go down the road and down the other side,” said their son, Bruce.
Judy, 64, and James, 63, did not think Helene would be different and remained in their trailer as the storm came through on Sept. 26-27, dumping 13 inches of rain near Swannanoa.
“There was an aquifer at the top of the mountain that blew,” Bruce Dockery said. A geyser of water roared down toward the Dockerys, unleashing a landslide that destroyed everything in its path.
Wes Barnett, who runs Satya Sanctuary, a meditation retreat next door to the Dockerys, saw his neighbors gathering out front just after the mud settled. They had discovered James Dockery on the ground, steps from where his trailer had stood.
“He couldn’t communicate,” Barnett said. “You could tell he had been crushed somehow.”
The neighbors carefully lifted Dockery out, trudging through mud and fallen trees. They fashioned a stretcher out of two-by-fours, making their way to a truck, their only hope for finding medical attention with cell service out and no way to call 911, Barnett said.
Bruce Dockery, who lives in Black Mountain, desperately tried to reach his parents. “There was no way to get” there, he said. On U.S. 70, “there were houses in the road, literally, trailers and sheds sitting in the road,” he said.
He tried an alternate route, Davidson Road, but “all of those smaller bridges were gone,” he said. “I found some cops directing traffic, and I was able to get a hold of them, and they were able to use radios” to call for help.
The neighbors tending to James Dockery were also searching for his wife. One said “they didn’t think Judy made it,” Barnett said. “And that’s when I could tell [James] kind of started letting go.
The neighbors tried CPR but could no longer detect a pulse. “They held his hand until he passed,” Bruce Dockery said.
One of the neighbors found Judy Dockery several hours later. “She was probably a quarter of a mile down, about three streets down, on a rock covered in mud,” her son said.
Dockery thought his mother was still alive and set out on foot for a 2-mile journey through woods to reach her. About halfway there around dusk, he received a call that she had died.
“I sat on a log and cried for a few minutes” and decided to turn around, Dockery said.
The neighbors “put a blanket over and stayed with her until help arrived” the next day, he said. They took turns, he said, making sure that animals did not disturb her body.
Judy drowned, and James died from landslide injuries, according to their death certificates.
Dockery said he believes his parents were attempting to flee their trailer. “My dad, he was old school. He did not go outside unless he was fully dressed, and when they found him, he had his pajamas on, but he had his wallet and keys and knife,” he said.
The torrent of water and debris left “SUV-sized rocks” in the Dockerys’ yard, their son said. “There is a complete bald spot, probably 20 feet wide, all the way up the mountain where that spring under that creek just blew.”
A truck that James and his son had been rebuilding and Judy’s car “are just completely unaccounted for,” Dockery said. “They’re nowhere to be found.”
The Dockerys’ trailer was sheared in two with half ending up in a road below their driveway and the other half three streets away, slamming into a house and knocking it off its foundation, Dockery said. That house, he said, settled into the garage of the house next door.
The Dockerys “deeply loved each other,” their obituary said.
James, a Buncombe native, played guitar and enjoyed making others laugh. He was a preacher at Victory Baptist Church in Black Mountain. A former arborist, he had been unable to work in recent years due to health problems, his son said.
Judy was known as “Mama” or “Aunt Judy” and loved serving, cooking and caring for others, their obituary said. She had retired in February after working factory jobs and in nursing homes, her son said.
“My dad was a really avid outdoorsman, and my mom loved crafts, any kind of craft,” Bruce Dockery said.
The couple would have celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary Oct. 14.
James Harbison
James “Jimmy” Harbison of Swannanoa, a disabled U.S. Army veteran, loved to visit his cousins nearby. His sister, Norma, warned him to stay home as Helene approached.
“I said, ‘This is not just a rain. It’s a hurricane. Do not leave this house,’ ” she recalled.
Harbison dismissed her concern. On Sept. 27, as rivers and streams suddenly swelled with floodwater, Norma Harbison received a call from her cousin.
Jimmy Harbison, 71, was attempting to cross the creek to her house, a normally calm stream no more than knee deep. From a hilltop, Harbison’s cousin yelled, “Go back, go back, go back,” Norma Harbison recalled. “And she said he reached for the [bridge] railing, and the water like swept his feet right under him.”
She said her brother was a good swimmer. “In his head, he probably thought he could swim,” she said. “That water was running so hard…It washed the bridge completely out.”
Norma Harbison’s son and other relatives looked for Jimmy, but the creek had risen to more than 12 feet deep, she said.
Harbison’s body was discovered two days later. The cause of death was drowning.
A welder, Harbison loved to sketch cartoon characters and attended the River of Life International church in West Asheville, his sister said. He was a paratrooper in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and had been discharged for health reasons, she said.
“Jimmy was well known with the people in Swannanoa/Asheville,” Harbison said. He “spoke to everyone he came in contact with.”
Harbison lived with his sister for more than 30 years. “I was devastated and still am,” she said.
Patrick McLean
Patrick Andrew “Drew” McLean, 45, of Black Mountain was swept away by floodwaters.
Born in Charlotte, he excelled at school, winning an oratory contest and participating in theater productions and the debate team, according to his obituary.
He majored in filmmaking at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and achieved his bucket list of watching 100 classic movies, the obituary said.
He enjoyed painting, writing, illustrating and photography. “From pen and ink sketching to hand-painting gifts,” his vision and ideas were unique, according to the obituary. He was the youngest person to be honored as Southern Highland Craft Guild’s Volunteer of the Year.
“Drew gravitated towards people with whom Christ’s love could be shared,’ the obituary said. He “admired global peacekeepers and followed their teachings” and read historical biographies.
He mentored church youth in Beaufort, South Carolina, and at-risk youth in an outdoor therapeutic program in Tennessee.
McLean’s body was found Oct. 7 at the Grove Stone & Sand Company’s quarry in Black Mountain.
His mother said the family was too distraught for an interview.
His father, Ronald, wrote in his obituary: “If you feel grief over Drew’s passing, may it pass quickly. If you had a part of him in your heart, be warmed by his spirit as he embraced friends and strangers with the same humor and compassion. Celebrate the time he had with you in your own way. He loved everyone he shared time with while he was here. I will carry his memories with me and have comfort in them.”
Patricia Radford
Patricia Radford, 84, died at her nursing home, Flesher’s Fairview Health & Retirement Center, on Sept. 29 of cardiovascular disease. “Utilities failure” and Hurricane Helene are listed as contributing conditions on her death certificate.
Her son, Chuck, said he lost cell service as the storm moved through and could not reach the nursing home. He received a message Sept. 30 to contact Flesher’s.
“I made my way up, went through the barricades, got up there, and they told me she had passed,” he said.
Radford said he had not been told what happened.
“Did they lose power? Did that have an effect?” he said. “Did they have short staff? Did that have an effect?”
Nursing home administrators did not respond to an email with questions from The Watchdog.
Radford said his mother had been “in declining health, but we did not as a family, and from the doctors, did not feel like this was imminent.”
A former bank manager, Patricia Radford was “a loving mother, and she was a very loving grandmother,” her son said.
“She took care of my kids, I have two, when they were growing up, her and my dad,” he said. “They were primary caretakers while my wife and I worked.”
Photograph: The remains of the Dockerys’ trailer are strewn across a wide area in Swannanoa. Credit: Starr Sariego.
Investigative reporter Victoria A. Ifatusin contributed to this report.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Sally Kestin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. Email [email protected]. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.