Ross Cash’s normal drive from his home in Jonesborough, Tennessee, to Asheville, North Carolina, takes roughly 45 minutes.
Right now, it’s impossible for him to make the journey. The women’s golf coach at UNC Asheville has no idea when he will get back to campus, let alone what will be at campus when he returns. Hurricane Helene ravaged Asheville and other places in the lower Appalachia region, causing historic flooding that has wiped out towns, livelihoods and will take years to recover from.
The UNC Asheville women’s golf team will also have to find a way forward. Its entire facility, an indoor annex just off campus and along the French Broad River, was completely underwater when the river crested over the weekend. A photo of the facility, featured at the top of the story, shows when the waters have receded a bit. There’s a shed, Cash doesn’t know from where, now in the parking lot where only hours before the rains started, numerous cars from the golf team were parked as they returned from the Golfweek Red Sky Classic in Vail, Colorado.
“Everything is going to be ruined,” Cash said. “The whole building was under 15 to 18 feet of water. We thought the structure itself was gone.
“Everything that I ever really cared about in my career, or just personally, I had in my office, too, and it’s just all gone.”
Cash estimates the golf team has more than $150,000 worth of equipment, clothing and other items in its facility. Now, until he and members of the team can get back to campus to examine the full extent of the devastation, they’ll have to wait and see.
Cash and his team were not able to fly into Asheville after the Red Sky Classic, so they flew into Knoxville, Tennessee instead and made the drive down Interstate 40 as Helene was barreling north. Cash’s leadership at the school, athletic director Janet Cone and chancellor Kimberly van Noort, wanted Cash and the team to check in every 30 minutes on the drive because they were worried about mudslides in The Gorge, an area that meanders between the mountains in a river valley on the interstate between Tennessee and North Carolina.
Only a few hours later, flood waters from the river next to the highway washed away portions of the Interstate, including the lanes the golf team was driving on.
The team made it home safely before Helene reached Asheville, and with the students secure on campus, Cash made his trip home. While the team was gone, Cash had all of his player’s cars towed to a higher spot on campus, or they would’ve possibly been washed away.
The next day, Cash was worried when he couldn’t get a hold of anyone in Asheville, from his players to his administration. Cell service was out to the entire area, and communication was essentially impossible.
“It was real strange,” Cash said. “It was so eerie to not have anyone be able to answer questions. I was in father mode trying to figure out if everyone was OK.”
Eventually, his players made their way to a fire station that had service, and they contacted their coach that they were OK.
Asheville, on the other hand, was not.
At first, Cash wanted to figure out how to get his players to Jonesborough so they could have power and food to eat. What was normally that 45-minute drive had turned into 6 hours based on GPS maps. Eventually, it said the trip couldn’t be made because of how many roads and bridges were washed out.
Eventually, Cash found a way to get his players to Charlotte, back to the east in an area not hit by Helene, and his players all traveled home and away from the devastation.
As for him, he’s waiting it out in Jonesborough because there’s nowhere else to go. School officials said the plan is to try to open campus on Oct. 9, but at this point, it’s unclear whether the infrastructure in Asheville will be able to handle that.
Floods washed out numerous roads and bridges into town, making it somewhat of an island for a few days. Cash is still unsure of when he’ll be able to return and what will be waiting for him when he comes back.
The indoor facility is something he has built over time, and it’s not something that’ll likely be replaced in a blink of an eye. Most of the players had their clubs and important equipment with them since they had just returned from an event, but there’s no telling what they’ll have to replace once they get back to campus.
“Some communication is starting to open back up,” Cash said. “We’re all safe, and the girls are all safe. That’s what is important.”