A self-employed couple lost their home and livelihood to Hurricane Helene

• A North Carolina couple was caught in a landslide caused by heavy rains from Hurricane Helene.
• Her home and livelihood were destroyed and Lindsay Thomas left unable to walk.
• They are not sure how they will repay their medical bills and get their lives back on track.

On the morning of Friday, September 27, Andrew Marsh and Lindsay Thomas were at home—one of a handful of cabins scattered along a winding mountain road in Marion, North Carolina—drinking coffee with two neighbors and waiting for Hurricane Helene to pass.

They lived in the 500 mile stretch of the US through which Helene would pass, including parts of Florida, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee. But the couple wasn’t worried; they knew a storm was coming but were not told to evacuate because their home was on high ground in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Still, they had prepared for flooding and had enough food, supplies and a generator to survive for a week or two “if it got really bad,” Marsh, a 34-year-old metal worker, told Business Insider.

But they didn’t know that several days of heavy rain from Hurricane Helene had loosened the soil on the mountain, triggering a landslide that headed straight for their home.

Marsh and Thomas were hurled down the mountain by a wave of sliding earth, rocks and trees that onlookers estimated was 40 to 60 feet high, destroying their home and livelihood in seconds.

The debris crushed Thomas, dislocating her legs and leaving her unable to walk. Marsh had “at least 50” flesh wounds and He couldn’t use his right hand because it was cut down to the muscle, he said.

Helene is estimated to have caused up to $34 billion in damage

At least 215 people have been confirmed dead since Helene made landfall, making it the second-deadliest U.S. hurricane in recent years, after Katrina in 2005.

On Monday, Moody’s estimated the hurricane caused $20 billion to $34 billion in damage, with $15 billion to $26 billion affecting property alone.

With the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimating that only 4 percent of U.S. homeowners have flood insurance, and those who do may not be covered for floods or landslides, this looks like an expensive disaster for many .

Marsh and Thomas, 40, a yoga teacher and masseuse, will face the consequences long after Thomas is released from the hospital. The couple told Business Insider that they will have to rebuild their lives and careers from scratch, all while paying medical bills, trying to apply for home insurance and dealing with the psychological consequences.

Stories like Marsh and Thomas will become more common as the climate crisis brings more rain and, with it, landslides to vulnerable areas, the researchers concluded in a 2016 paper published in Earth-Science Reviews.

Natural disasters have already cost the U.S. heavily: Between 1980 and 2021, the country spent $2 trillion on both immediate and long-term restoration, such as repairing infrastructure, found a 2023 article published in The Journal of Climate Change and Health.

“We and water were pressed into my nose, ears and mouth”

Shortly before 10 a.m., the couple heard a “deep rumble” and “loud rumbles like thunder” a few hundred yards from their home, Thomas said, before the ground fell out from under their feet.

“It happened so fast that there was no chance to react. The best way I could describe it is like someone threw the house in a blender and hit the mash button,” Marsh said.

Thomas added: “I just went down and down. I remember my vision going from light to brown to black and mud and water being forced into my nose, ears and mouth.

“I remember a very specific moment where I kind of gave up and admitted, ‘I’m going to die right now.’ So I decided to soak in the experience and moved to a place of more acceptance and recognition of all my blessings.

“I let go of the phone and it felt really good to give up the fight.”

Then he was “miraculously spat out” of the slippery ground and found himself about an eighth of a mile from where their house had been, riding on a tree trunk. and covered in mud from head to toe.

It took hours for rescuers to find the couple

Marsh managed to pull himself out of the rubble with some effort. He then helped Thomas, who had lost the use of his legs, down the tree trunk before digging his neighbor John Norwood up to his neck in the rubble. They didn’t know where Norwood’s fiancé, Julie le Roux, was, and he “went off” to try to find her, Marsh said. She was still missing as of October 3rd.

Marsh found an empty Airbnb property about 250 yards away and helped Thomas limp into it. There, they were able to provide basic first aid about three hours after the landslide.

Norwood emerged two hours later, “covered in wounds from head to toe,” he said.

Then, around 4 p.m., six hours after the landslide, they spotted a rescuer on a 50-foot-wide seepage stream. By midnight, the three were evacuated from the area by North Carolina firefighters and treated for their injuries at nearby hospitals by what Thomas described as an “amazing” team of EMTs.

Covering medical costs “somehow”

“We’re both still in a lot of pain. It’s pretty much constant, but there are definitely signs that we’re going to recover and we’re going to be fine,” Marsh said.

As a veteran, Marsh has access to a medical benefits package, but Thomas does not have active health insurance. They will have to cover his medical costs “somehow,” Marsh said. But since she lost her workshop, van and equipment in the disaster, and Thomas’ work depends on the “strength and mobility” of her body, it’s not clear how.

The couple’s insurer declined to cover the loss of their home, but “even with the homeowners insurance policy, if it were paid in full, it wouldn’t come close to replacing our lives,” Marsh said.

For now, Thomas is trying to stay in the present and not worry too much about the future, though it hasn’t fully hit her that “they don’t have a home to come back to,” she said.

Marsh’s brother has set up a GoFundMe for the couple to cover their medical expenses, temporary housing and living costs as they go along. Marsh said that while they struggle with accepting help, they know they need as much as they can get right now.

“When this whole situation is over, I will devote a part of my life to returning the favor to the world,” he said.