‘I just broke down’ – Helene takes emotional toll on survivors

Nicole Rojas, 25, moved to her remote home up the mountain in Vilas, North Carolina not long ago from nearby Tennessee, where she had lived, in her own words, “off grid”.

“I kind of wish I would have stuck to my lifestyle a little bit, because I always had drinking water, showering water, food,” she told the BBC, while looking for supplies in Boone.

Now, she and her roommates, who include a 54-year-old woman named Karen, Karen’s 74-year-old mother and a family with young children, will likely be without power for weeks, she heard, with the only way in and out a single-lane, tree-strewn road.

“The only reason I was even able to step out was from the gentlemen in the community taking out their chainsaws and their tractors and moving all the trees,” she said.

Ms Rojas had been at home on Friday, when the storm struck the mountain. On Sunday, after her neighbours spent all of Saturday clearing the road, she and Karen ventured out to town. Karen, who amid the chaos of the storm had suffered a life-threatening allergy attack after being stung by an insect, brought supplies back to their house.

Ms Rojas, meanwhile, stayed in Boone with friends, so that she could go to work at a local healthstore. She plans to return home, with more supplies, on Wednesday.

It was at work when it all finally hit her, after hearing the story of another customer.

“She had to drive by a truck that was picking up, that had like, dead bodies on there, and she started crying,” she recalled. “And that’s when I just broke down.”

“You hear everyone’s horror stories about how, like, literally their entire house just slid down the mountain.”

“I feel like I just survived the apocalypse.”