Rising Above the Flood: Resilience in Asheville's River Arts District After Hurricane Helene

On Friday, September 27, 2024, record-breaking floodwaters from the French Broad River surged through Asheville’s low-lying River Arts District (RAD), reaching over 16 feet before noon. Water poured into the district’s southernmost string of buildings on Foundy Street, including Marquee, an enormous warehouse that, until two weeks ago, functioned as a bustling marketplace for 240 makers and antique dealers. When Hurricane Helene roared through the mountain enclave of Western North Carolina midway through Atlantic hurricane season, Marquee vendors and RAD artists were left to sift through soggy paintings, textiles, and prints in the storm’s aftermath.

Approximately “80 percent of [the RAD] is dilapidated walls, rubble, and gone,” says Jeffrey Burroughs, president of the River Arts District Artists Association (RADA), in an interview with ArtsvilleUSA. Jeffrey, a jewelry artist who relocated to Asheville from NYC after a near-fatal case of COVID, occupies one of few shops in the RAD that survived Helene’s onslaught. “We are very lucky; we’re part of the 20 percent of the district that’s still here,” they say of their eponymous luxury bodega on Artful Way, where roughly 20 RAD artists gathered for an emergency meeting on Saturday, October 5. “The turnout was incredible,” says Jeffrey, who was among the first on-site to survey the storm’s damages. “I couldn’t leave,” they continue. “This is my home. The RAD is a place where dreams are built and realized.”

Before the River Arts District: Asheville’s First Industrial Hub

The RAD wasn’t always a mecca for artists’ dreams to unfold. In the late 1800s, factories and mills lined the banks of the French Broad River, producing cotton, crackers, and flour for Asheville’s booming population. Three decades later, a series of storms battered Asheville with torrential rain for weeks, resulting in what’s been called "the worst natural disaster in the recorded history of Western North Carolina”—until recently. The “Great Flood” of July 1916 wreaked havoc on Asheville, destroying roads, railways, and multiple businesses in the area now known as the RAD. “Along the riverfronts in the Swannanoa and French Broad valleys, industrial plants have been submerged and wrecked,” the Asheville Citizen Times newspaper reported on July 16, 1916.

While many factories near the French Broad shuttered permanently after the Great Flood, others persevered well into the 1930s before being abandoned during the Great Depression’s economic downturn. In the 1960s and ’70s, “urban renewal” initiatives uprooted and displaced cherished Black-owned businesses and communities in Southside and the East Riverside area, which includes what is now the RAD. It wasn’t until 1985 that artisans and craftspeople moved into the region, attracted by low rent and ample warehouse space. Over the past four decades, they’ve transformed the formerly industrial area west of downtown into a vibrant creative hub that comprises 27 buildings and hosts over 350 artists and craftspeople.

Then, Hurricane Helene swept it all away.

The River Arts District After the Storm

A week after the skies cleared and floodwaters subsided, a group of artists gathered at Jeffrey Burrough’s RAD shop to assess the damage, commiserate, and create a plan. “Our short-term goals are to make sure everyone is safe; the second thing we’re focused on is recovering any art that we can,” says Jeffrey, adding that hundreds of volunteers from all over Asheville arrived in the RAD mere days after Helene to salvage artwork from the district’s storm-ravaged buildings. While area landmarks like the North Carolina Glass Center, Odyssey Ceramics, and Mark Bettis Gallery escaped mostly unscathed, the RAD’s warehouses weren’t so lucky. Floodwaters filled Marquee, Trackside Studios, Riverview Station, and Curve Studios with mud, toxic sludge, and debris, displacing scores of artists in four buildings alone. Jeffrey estimates over 150 RAD artists lost their studios in the storm, adding, “People are managing not just the loss of their businesses but the loss of their homes.”

While many of these artists evacuated Asheville after the storm, those who stayed behind sprung into action. Volunteers served meals and donned heavy-duty boots and masks to protect themselves from mold, mud, and other environmental hazards. “If it's cloth or paper or those kinds of mediums, they're gone,” says Jeffrey. “Whatever's left might be toxic unless it's ceramic or glass at this point.” As for the salvaged artwork, still-standing RAD studios and businesses have offered their neighbors temporary storage until Jeffrey organizes a more permanent solution. Until then, RADA board members are developing plans to distribute relief stipends and emergency funds to qualifying artists.

Reconnection and Resilience in the River Arts District

Despite the recent flurry of activity in the RAD, Jeffrey stresses the difficulty of planning long-term goals when large swaths of Western North Carolina lack electricity or water. “The [artist meeting] was about coming together as a community,” they say. “It was the first time we saw each other since the hurricane, not covered in mud.”

They continue: “We could share our stories and listen to where people were. That was a big part of the meeting, just creating space for people to reconnect because we've had no cell service.” While Jeffrey concedes that the RAD’s road to recovery is long and winding, their faith in the district’s community of artists, craftspeople, and business owners never wavers. “Where else can you find a community if you're an emerging artist or a professional? [The RAD] is a place where we can all lean on each other.

“I don't think there's anything like it in the country—maybe the world.”

Donate to River Arts District flood relief efforts here. All donations go toward artist rent and supplies.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. All photos published with permission of Michael Freas Photography.

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