RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) – A pair of siblings are in agony, waiting to find out if their mother who lives in western North Carolina is still alive after Helene ripped through the area, sweeping away her mountain home.
Rod and Kim Ashby started building their dream house in Elk Park, North Carolina, two years ago, with Rod largely building the house with his own two hands. He worked to make sure he accounted for every conceivable threat to the couple’s perfect mountain escape.
“He had markers up on the trees from historical floods, just to kind of see what the previous standings have been. So, he built the house above those points, not thinking it would be even close,” said Chris Meidinger, Kim Ashby’s son.
The Ashbys live in Sanford, where Kim is a middle school math teacher, but when they got the news that Helene was heading for the mountains, they wanted to go up to make sure their dream house and everything precious inside was going to be OK…