Back home in Beacon Village

Volunteers and neighbors celebrate post-helene return to Edwards Avenue

Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
May 24, 2025

Melissa Butler, left, will be the first resident on Edwards Avenue, in the lower section of Beacon Village, to return to her home after Tropical Storm Helene. The Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders, who remodeled the house, hosted a block party, May 23, to celebrate the occasion. Photo by Fred McCormick

The once-thriving block of Edwards Avenue in Swannanoa was rendered eerily quiet in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene, when a devastating flood left around 20 homes in the neighborhood uninhabitable.

However, as several lower Beacon Village neighbors mingled with volunteers from the Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders and other local nonprofit organizations, May 23, the block party celebrating the return of the first resident, Melissa Butler, offered a hopeful glimpse into a brighter future.

Like many homes along the street, Butler’s cottage-style residence was submerged beneath the raging waters of the Swannanoa River, which runs along the north side of nearby four-lane highway, U.S. 70. None of the structures in the neighborhood, originally constructed in the 1920s as mill housing for employees of Beacon Manufacturing, Co., were located within a 100-year floodplain.

The scenario was one Butler never imagined when she purchased her home in 2023.

“Nobody here thought any of this was possible,” said Butler, who, along with the remainder of the residents on Edwards Avenue, survived the natural disaster. “From that morning through at least November, it was really just about survival.”

As she navigated the unfamiliar terrain of a post-Helene world, Butler was quickly overwhelmed by her new reality.

“When I retired from teaching, I sold my house in Austin, Texas, and made some money. I put a chunk of that into this house,” she said. “That was my retirement plan, to have a place I could own some day. But, after the flood, I still owed more than $100,000 and I knew if I had to file for bankruptcy I would never own another house again.”

With her house filled with mud and debris, Butler, unsure of what to do next, turned to her community for guidance. A friend and fellow tutor in Black Mountain told her about the Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders. The nonprofit organization, founded in response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, has restored 17 homes in Western N.C. since late last year, and more than 200 in the New Bern area in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, in 2018. Their efforts in tornado-ravaged areas of Western Kentucky continues to this day.

The faith-based Christian organization has relied on donations and grants to respond to “most major hurricane disaster areas” in the past 20 years, according to its website.

“You have to find someone you can trust, and since the storm, a lot of people around here have been scammed,” Butler said. “But, I heard about the Fuller Center from a friend, and then our neighbor connected with all of these community groups and legitimate relief assistance organizations and did a fantastic job of sharing resources with all of us. I knew this was a good organization I could count on.”

Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders has organized and facilitated the efforts of around 1,000 volunteers in WNC since Helene, according to Nathan West, the director of operations in the region.

Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders volunteers and staff host an Edwards Avenue Block Party, May 23, marking the completion of the first house on the lower Beacon Village street to be rebuilt after Helene. Photo by Fred McCormick

“We connected with Melissa very early,” he said. “There had been a foot of water above the roof line of this house, and we were actually came to muck it out in the early days. This was the first home we started working on, on Edwards Avenue.”

Heather Westcott, a founder and current member of the board of directors of Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders, was moved by Butler’s story when she arrived in the days after the disaster.

“We sat down with her to review her application, and when you do that, you hear the whole story,” Westcott said. “We focus on helping people who don’t have the means of rebuilding, whether it’s low-income, uninsured or under-insured, because a lot of people have home insurance but not flood insurance. So, with Melissa, you have a single woman living in a place where she couldn’t have expected this to happen, without the ability or resources to take on a project like this..”

Federal assistance and home insurance were not enough, she added.

“We use volunteer labor, along with our staff, to help people build back at a fraction of the cost,” Westcott said. “We also function as the general contractor, and in the first six months after Helene, we had over 850 volunteers here, so that’s really how we’re able to do what we do.”

The Fuller Center’s effort to restore six homes in the lower section of Beacon Village received support from multiple community organizations, including ReGroup WNC and the Black Mountain Presbyterian Church. Like many houses on the block, the work required to rebuild Butler’s was extensive, according to West.

“One of the great things about the Fuller Center is their commitment to rebuilding homes that leave homeowners in better shape than they were before the disaster,” he said. “This project was a ground-up restoration, from floor framing, HVAC, plumbing, electrical and all of the things that go along with being under 10 feet of water.”

The nonprofit organization celebrated the milestone with the block party, which was attended by more than a dozen Edwards Avenue residents, Fuller Center volunteers and staff and others doing work in the neighborhood.

“With this being the completion of the first home on this road, we wanted to have a party and feed the neighbors,” West said. “We wanted to bring a little life, and hope, back to this part of Beacon Village.”

Melissa Butler, center, eats lunch with Heather Westcott of Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders (left) and neighbor, Gloria, May 23. The gathering celebrated the completion of Butler’s home, which was severely damaged during Tropical Storm Helene. Photo by Fred McCormick

Butler, who has lived in four different residences in the eight months since Helene, is eager to get back home and anxious to welcome her neighbors when they return.

“I’ll be on my front porch, greeting all of them when they come back,” she said.

As she celebrated the completion of her new home, Butler was filled with gratitude for the Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders and the volunteers who are working tirelessly to support area residents facing similar challenges in the wake of the disaster.

“It’s been a lot for me, and I know it’s been harder on so many other people. But, today, I look around at all these people and I can see a silver lining,” she said. “It feels nice to be back here. I didn’t know a lot of my neighbors before, but now, even though we’re all living in different places, we get together every two weeks. This whole experience has really brought this neighborhood closer together. We really are like a family.”