Ally Kerr, a senior golfer at UNC Asheville, was rolling putts on the practice green Monday at Forest Oaks Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, when the club’s operations manager, Ryan Lee, walked up and handed her $200.
“He goes, ‘We know you’ve been through it. We wanted to give you this to help you out with food, gas, whatever you need,’” recalled Kerr, who along with the rest of the Bulldogs women’s golf team has been displaced by Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 storm that made landfall in Florida before striking western North Carolina, including Asheville, as a tropical storm late last week, bringing historic flooding and causing catastrophic damage.
The gesture tugged at Kerr’s heart strings.
“I started crying,” Kerr said. “People are just so kind.”
Kerr doesn’t know how long she’ll be in Greensboro, or when she’ll see her team again. Tentatively, students are allowed back on campus on Oct. 7, with classes slated to resume two days later, but Kerr is skeptical. She has seen the storm’s destruction firsthand – the downed trees, the mangled power lines, the Bulldogs’ practice facility completely submerged by a rising French Broad River.
The Bulldogs’ next tournament begins Oct. 14 in Charleston, South Carolina.
“That will probably be the next time we’ll all be together,” Kerr said.
LESS THAN A WEEK AGO, Kerr, four of her teammates and their two coaches, including head coach Ross Cash, were wrapping up a dream trip in Vail, Colorado. Among 16 teams in the field for the Golfweek Red Sky Classic at Red Sky Golf Club in Wolcott, Colorado, UNC Asheville was grouped in the first round with eventual champion Kansas and Pepperdine, an NCAA match-play qualifier two seasons ago. “That showed the girls that we can play with anybody,” Cash said. The three-day tournament, in which the Bulldogs finished 11th, also left plenty of time for post-round bonding, from fancy dinners to exploring the Bavarian-inspired village to hanging out at their rental house, where the players all slept in bunk beds in the basement.
“Nobody on our team had ever been to Colorado, much less Vail,” Cash said. “It was one of the most beautiful places in the world. They loved it.”
Added Kerr: “Probably the tournament of the year.”
Little did they know at the time that less than 24 hours later, their worlds would be flipped upside down.
The Bulldogs landed at McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville, Tennessee, around 4 p.m. Thursday. They had flown out of Asheville, though with the storm barreling toward them and its outer bands already moving through, getting a flight back there was impossible. A school administrator drove the team van to Knoxville to pick up Cash and his players, and then they would make the two-hour trek along I-40 back to campus.
About halfway home, they stopped in Newport, Tennessee. It was around 6:30 p.m., and with the bad stuff expected just after 8 p.m., they had reached an inflection point: Keep driving, or find a hotel and ride out the storm there.
“My GPS said I could have them back to campus by 7:30, and they all wanted to be together,” said Cash, who had four of his five other players still on campus; one had already left town.
The decision was quickly made – with approval from Cash’s athletic director, Janet Cone, and the university’s chancellor, Kimberly van Noort – to finish their journey while staying in frequent communication with Cone. By 7:30, the players were safely in their dorm rooms or apartments, and Cash was racing the 45 minutes north, up I-26, to his house in Jonesborough, Tennessee.
“There were a few points where I was a little scared,” Kerr said. “I couldn’t really see the road in front of us, but coach did a really good job of getting us back safely.”
Early that next morning, floodwaters washed out huge swaths of I-40, including portions of the eastbound lanes that the Bulldogs had taken home.
After the storm passed on Friday evening, Cash surveyed his property. He’d not lost power, and aside from some small debris, there was no damage. Of course, he couldn’t get in touch with any of his players or administrators. He then plugged his facility’s address, 838 Riverside Drive, into his phone.
The usually 47-minute commute was displaying over six hours.
“Then it said there was no way to get to Asheville at all,” said Cash, who even contemplated riding his bike down to check on his players.
“It was like the most helpless feeling I’ve ever had,” Cash added.
BACK ON CAMPUS, Kerr and a few teammates were venturing outside and were “hit in the face by all the destruction.” Two of the three exits to Kerr’s apartment complex, which is located right across the street from the university, were blocked by fallen trees. One tree had crushed one of the freshman’s cars. Kerr counted at least six downed power lines on a five-minute drive to the grocery store to get some muffins and crackers. They rode by the facility, too, but when they could only see the roof sticking out of the water a few hundred yards away, they turned back. For dinner that night, a bunch of students from Kerr’s complex got some grills to work and cooked up what was in everybody’s refrigerators in the parking lot.
“It felt like we were in an apocalypse,” Kerr said. “I couldn’t believe how dark it was.”
Van Noort sent out a schoolwide update on Saturday, saying, “Conditions at UNC Asheville are difficult. Significant tree damage has occurred, and parts of campus are inaccessible. Everyone is safe. Cell and internet coverage is nonexistent at this point. … We are providing security, food, water, and comfort to the students remaining on campus.”
Nearby universities were impacted as well. Appalachian State, located in Boone, North Carolina, about two-and-a-half hours northeast of Asheville, also sustained heavy flooding. “We are all OK,” Mountaineers women’s golf coach Chan Metts said. “It may be a while for things to return to normal, but the school and community are really rallying around everything.” The Mountaineers men’s team is currently competing in Greenville, North Carolina, and will wrap up the Ironwood Collegiate Classic on Tuesday. Where they will go after that is uncertain. Classes are canceled at Appalachian State through at least this week; same goes for Western Carolina, which sits just an hour west of Asheville in Cullowhee.
“Our players all got off the mountain shortly following the storm,” said Catamounts men’s golf coach Tim Eckberg, whose nine-man squad is now split between Charlotte and Atlanta – their home golf courses suffered significant damage – as they prepare for their next tournament, the Carolina Cup, which begins Sunday in Spartanburg, South Carolina. “Thankfully, campus was mostly safe throughout. Some flooding and down trees. The loss of power, cell service and wi-fi was the hardest part, making communication with each other and parents during these events impossible. But we are blessed.
“However, our hearts break for our community. Western North Carolina has been devastated by this storm in ways that will not be seen for weeks or even months.”
As of Tuesday morning, the death toll in Buncombe, Macon and Henderson counties had reached 47.
BY SATURDAY MORNING, Kerr and some teammates had found wi-fi at the local fire station, where they also, by chance, reunited with the freshmen who lived on campus and didn’t travel to Colorado. They contacted Cash through the team’s group chat, and a few hours later they were all packing up to head to Charlotte, where they would scatter from there until it was safe to return to school. Luckily, Cone had their cars towed from the facility to higher ground, otherwise they would’ve been washed away.
“It was kind of a panic to get out,” said Kerr, who was crammed in one of two vehicles. “We didn’t know what roads were open. We initially went south, but then we had to turn around. We got lost. We didn’t really know where we were, we just kept driving.”
Meanwhile, Cash still can’t get to Asheville because of road closures. He’s been asked to start compiling a list of expected losses at the facility, from hitting bays to an indoor putting green, for insurance purposes. Cone had sat the team’s FlightScope launch monitor on top of the lockers, but that likely did little in what Cash estimated was 15 to 20 feet of rushing water.
The only items Cash anticipates salvaging from the building are the golf balls – if those didn’t wash away, too.
“The river hadn’t flooded that high in over 100 years,” Cash said. “The rain, the water, there was just nowhere for it to go. The damage is just remarkable. I grew up in Boynton Beach (on Florida’s east coast) and have had eyewalls churning right over us, and my father and I sitting with our backs to the car with our feet against the garage door because the braces had failed, a foot of water in our neighborhood, stuff torn up.
“But this, this is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
Cash has also never seen a closer team.
Though connectivity issues have hindered video calls, the group chat has been filled with love and praise, lauding how every player banded together to ensure they all were safe and accounted for, both during and after the storm.
Now, somehow, the Bulldogs and other area golf programs must find a way to play through, literally and figuratively.
“We’ve already sent a few texts back and forth about how proud we are of each other,” said Kerr, who transferred from Idaho as a sophomore. “Coach really has done a great job of recruiting just wholesome people, and we have such a great group of girls. Moving forward, it’s going to be a tricky situation, but we are a very good team, and we all look out for each other.
“This has strengthened that even more.”
