BOONE, N.C. - Cross-stitched Bible verses decorate the wood-paneled living room walls in a small, historic piece of Black Appalachia -- the Western North Carolina mountaintop community of "Junaluska."
Lisa Foster's 16-year-old dog sleeps on the flannel blanket next to her. She strokes Lily's head and glances at the TV in the corner. "The floods have devastated rural communities across Western North Carolina," a newscaster says, gesturing behind her to a collapsed creek bank surging with floodwater.
The Goins sisters -- Foster, Brenda Whittington and Sheila Goins -- can trace their family roots in Junaluska back to 1832. The Junaluskans gathered in Foster's home in the days following the storm and have worked together since then to map a future post-Helene.
This community of the descendants of enslaved people has proven resilient, but the storm that ravaged the region took a place trying to hang on and raised more challenges. How will they survive and move forward?
Junaluska Road weaves between homes on a mountainside that was rain-drenched by Helene, where fallen trees blocked the flooded street after the tropical storm hit. As Helene lifted on the afternoon of Sept. 27, there were no birds chirping, no cars driving and no dogs barking. The sun shone faintly through the breaking clouds as downed power lines lay strewn across the asphalt in front of the darkened homes.
One of Appalachia's oldest historically Black communities, the nearly 200-year-old community is home to about 100 people. Many of the families have lived here for more than seven generations. A white house overlooking the clear blue mountains of the North Carolina High Country is the Goins sisters' childhood home. All three were born and raised within its walls, along with their six other siblings.
Whittington, Foster and Goins rode out the storm together in the house, watching the wind and rain descend on their lifelong neighborhood through the living room window. "I just thank God it's over," 63-year-old Goins said after the storm passed, sitting in an armchair bouncing her young great-nephew on her knee.
When Helene swept through the mountain town, sturdy branches snapped like toothpicks around the house. Floodwater surged in front of the home, sweeping rocks and debris down the steep street.
"It got this high," 82-year-old Whittington said, holding her hand about 3 feet above the floor. "It scared me so bad shooting up out the ground. It washed big rocks down from who knows where."
'So many hollers': Appalachia's remote terrain slows recovery from Helene
The sisters, who live next door to each other, narrowly avoided the flooding of their homes. Other areas of Watauga County were not as lucky. Widespread flooding caused the condemnation of 144 homes in Boone alone.
"I thought we were gonna blow off this mountain," Foster said. "When the water started coming down that little creek right there, that was an awful scary time."
The women sit around a cast iron wood stove at the center of the room. It keeps the home warm in the cold winter months, despite the bitter Appalachian wind. They feel fortunate they were not hit harder by the storm. Yet they worry about what life in Junaluska will look like in the aftermath of Helene.
Faced with higher costs of living and pressures of gentrification, many residents already had sold their land to developers or landlords. Now, since Junaluska avoided the worst of Helene's destruction, the sisters worry the encroachment will only increase.
According to a 2021 NC Growth Housing and Resiliency Report, Boone's population has steadily risen in the last decade, straining the already limited housing market. Although the town's median household income is the lowest in Watauga County, home prices are 50% higher than in surrounding counties and median rent increased 31% from 2012 to 2022.
Junaluska's historically Black community has dwindled in population in this century as the elderly die and the young move away. Several people have been pushed out because they could no longer afford the cost of living, said a neighbor, also a lifelong Junaluska resident.
"We used to do a reunion every two years and folks would come from everywhere," Foster said. "There used to be busloads of people but it just kind of fizzled out. We haven't had one in more than 10 years."
Although the aging population is increasingly surrounded by outsiders, the community proudly represents its unique Appalachian heritage. Many residents are the ancestors of people enslaved in Watauga County as early as the late 18th century. Both freed and enslaved African Americans settled on the mountain above downtown Boone, Howard's Knob, establishing a community by the 1850s.
Junaluskans are largely multiracial, with African, European and Native American ancestry. The heart of the community is the 106-year-old Boone Mennonite Brethren Church, a historically Black congregation and the largest Mennonite church in North Carolina.
Although Junaluska has been majority Black throughout its history, a few white families were scattered in the community, Foster said. Segregation was enforced in Watauga County, but Goins said she feels race relations were not as tense as in other towns in North Carolina. Overall, the community kept to themselves, she said. She added that as long as Junaluska residents stayed up on the mountain, "there wasn't much trouble."
At the community's peak in the mid-20th century, 40 families lived in Junaluska. In the early 1980s, Junaluska residents started moving away to find better opportunities and higher-paying work in industrial jobs in the Midwest. "Now there are about four or five families left," she said. "We're all kin in some way or another."
Although they have watched the community transform throughout their lives, the Goins sisters' Appalachian heritage remains a core part of who they are.
"We're mountain girls," Foster said. "We're strong. We're able to conquer just about anything and anybody and I wouldn't trade it for nothing."
The women said growing up didn't feel difficult but as they got older, they realized how hard their mother worked to support them. "I was 4 years old when daddy died," Goins said. "Lisa was 5."
Their mother never remarried after her husband's death and raised the nine children on her own. "Didn't no man want her, you know, with an army of kids," Foster said. "So she had to do it with the good help of the Lord and the rest of the young'uns."
As the children got older, they pitched in to support the family. The Goins brothers hunted rabbits, deer, raccoons and squirrels for the family to eat. Foster would help her mother make squirrel gravy and homemade biscuits.
She said finances were tight growing up but as an adult, it's even more difficult. Before the storm, many community members struggled to make ends meet. Now, some residents are at a loss.
"It's just too expensive," the retired nursing aid said. "Our taxes have doubled and our water too. It's going to get worse after the storm. We're on set incomes, but we still make it just by the grace of God."
Her house, built in the 1940s, needs major kitchen repairs. Goins' home across the street has roof leaks, broken steps and a smell of gas. The family has been on a waitlist for a local nonprofit to fix their homes for "five or six years, maybe even longer."
After the storm, the sisters are doubtful they will ever get the help they need to make the repairs. Especially now since resources are focused on rebuilding and relief. Thankfully, at least the post-storm infrastructure repairs have been speedy and the power and water quickly restored.
"Since all these people have moved in around us, and because they're mostly white, I think that's the reason the town and these non-profits are doing so much and to be helpful," she said. "It wouldn't be like that otherwise. My whole life we've always been last for everything."
In the past five years, Whittington said, she has noticed a steady flow of outsiders and Appalachian State students moving to the once-quiet neighborhood. The university of more than 21,000 students has grown 23% since 2012, further worsening the housing crisis in Boone and forcing development.
"I can't even count how many moved in here, there's no telling," she said. "We were just invisible, as far as they were concerned. They never say 'Good morning' or 'How are you doing?' or nothing."
Today, the meadow the sisters once played in has been developed into housing. Newly constructed modern houses are scattered throughout the historic neighborhood and a large townhouse complex looms above the sisters' street.
Since the storm, the women have noticed a shift in their community. After Helene, the students living in the neighborhood helped Whittington and her sisters clean up their yards and get back to their homes. "I think it's a blessing, you know, that it had to take a tragedy for people to come together," she said. "Now, they come up and ask if they could help us in any way. You know, we need each other regardless of the storm."
Although Helene has exacerbated community concerns in households up and down Junaluska Road, many feel blessed that they were spared.
As a post-storm autumn afternoon stretches on, the three sisters greet concerned neighbors as they drop in and out of the white house on the hillside. Two student disaster relief volunteers knock on the frame of the door, their arms filled with covered dishes, loaves of bread and bottled water. Two more carry a banjo and a guitar.
The sky fades to a rich pink as the evening falls.
Students fill the living room with old-time bluegrass, a sound heard less and less in this changing community. The sisters have never met many of the people sitting in their childhood home until now.
One picks his banjo, a Lucky Strike balancing between his lips as he sings. The smoke wraps around his fingers on the fretboard, an ashtray balanced on the family's cast iron stove beside him.
Goins taps her foot on the carpet, singing along to a song of her request -- "Take Me Home, Country Roads." The smell of homemade casseroles and the melodies of folk classics pour out the open door into the street.
Ella Adams is an undergraduate anthropology student at Appalachian State University and an editor for The Appalachian, the university's independent student-run news publication.