Swept away

WAYNESVILLE, N.C. — When Hurricane Helene stormed its way through North Carolina and Tennessee, it caused casualties, extensive damage and washed away people’s livelihoods.

Brothers Dan and Steve Ross own and operate Triple R Dairy Inc. of Waynesville, roughly 30 miles west of Asheville. Dan’s children, John and Miranda, and Steve’s sons, Phillip and Mark, also work on the farm.

“There are cattle lost, lives lost, and homes lost,” Dan Ross said. “It’s just overwhelming.”

Across the area, rain gauges read between 14 and 30-plus inches of rain Steve said.

Dan said rain from a few days before the hurricane hit combined to create the devastating flooding.

“What hurt us so badly was the ground and creeks were so saturated because it rained five or six inches before the hurricane came,” Dan said. “Most of the time, the ground doesn’t get wet until the hurricane comes.”

As the hurricane thundered down on the mountains, Dan, Steve and others worked to bring gasoline, feed, thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and equipment out of the areas they thought would flood. The animals also were fed at higher ground.

“I had the feed wagons on the other side of the field,” Dan said. “I have pictures where the feed wagons were. The water was not very deep at all out there.”

Had the cows stayed near the feed wagons, they would have been fine, Dan said. But, as he watched, a group of roughly 70 heifers and steers instead ran toward lower ground.

“Something came down the creek and spooked them, then they ran back towards the highway where the water was deeper,” Dan said. “They got in deeper water, then they turned their heads the other way towards the creek. It kind of just lifted them off. It was just like a whirlpool and they were fighting for their lives.”

Within seconds, the cows were gone.

“That’s something you never want to see,” he said.

Neighbors and community members have been calling the Rosses and sending texts to let them know where some of the cows have turned up. After almost two weeks, Triple R Dairy is still missing 35 cows.

“They found a cow, found two cows, found four cows,” Dan said. “You go here and you go there, and you’re so glad to see them. They are fine other than they’ve been in shock and scared. They are alright.”

Triple R Dairy cows have been found 2-5 miles away from home, Dan said.

“We’ve had a lot of neighbors call in saying they found our cows,” he said. “They will look after them until we can get there.”

Now, fencing needs to be put back into place to keep the cattle on the property.

“We’ve had to relocate and move a lot of cattle out, like the dry cows,” he said. “We had to relocate heifers and calves out of the barns. I was wading in water up to my knee, but I was able to save them. We’ve had to relocate all the smaller calves anywhere we could.”

Steve and Dan milk around 380 cows at Triple R Dairy and farm more than 300 acres of owned and leased ground. They grow silage corn, wheat, haylage and dry wheat.

“We had already cut some silage, around 130-140 acres,” Dan said. “There’s still a lot more. Some land we haven’t had a chance to see it to check on it. We’ve been busy.”

Along with crops that weren’t cut, Dan said haylage that had been wrapped up also received water damage, and topsoil has been washed away.

“This is not a 3- to 4-day problem,” he said. “This is an ongoing problem. It will take a year or two to get all the fields straightened out.”

Dan and Steve’s story is not the only one of its kind in the area.

“There’s been some mudslides,” Dan said. “I’ve got a good friend who had a mudslide come down by his house. It didn’t hit his house, but he heard it coming.”

While talking with community members and an older uncle, Dan said no one had witnessed anything like the flooding and devastation that followed.

“It’s overwhelming,” he said. “We’ll make it, but I feel for the families that lost lives. There is one family that lost all 11.” 

Steve also spoke about the situation in the area.

“Cattle are up on rooftops,” Steve said. “There are caskets going down the river. We’ve seen them. It’s indescribable. The Commissioner of Agriculture of North Carolina (Steve Troxler) was here. He is absolutely overwhelmed.”

Steve said a family member’s dairy barn, commodity shed, calf hutches, new milk tank and more were washed away.

“Luckily, he got all the cows and calves out,” he said. “He got them up to high ground. He had to move them to one of his cousin’s barns. He has now sold all his cows because he can’t build back. There is nothing to build back, it’s all gone. He lost 1,000 tons of silage he’d already cut and piled up. It washed it away.”

Hank Ross of Ross Dairy Inc., a cousin to Dan and Steve, said his farm is side-by-side with Triple R Dairy. It was damaged in the hurricane too.

“Good Lord willing, we’ll be able to get those crop yields back, but it’s going to affect yields for years to come,” he said. “It’s very much an economic impact to the dairy industry, to the community, and to North Carolina.”

Multiple farms in the area are using their tankers to send water to the milk processing plant to keep the facility running, Hank said.

“We’re fine where we’re at,” he said. “There are people who have lost everything. Words can’t even describe what people are dealing with down here.”

Both Triple R Dairy and Ross Dairy receive their feed from Athens, Tennessee. With road closures and bridges out due to flooding and mudslides, what would normally be a less than 3-hour trip is now taking approximately eight hours.

The dairies use grain from breweries to feed their cows. Due to the flooding and lack of clean water, the brewery was closed for a while.

“That has really affected our milk production,” Dan said. “The production is down and the change of rations has affected the cows on both dairies.”

Dan said putting the wreckage into words is hard.

“It’s just devastating,” he said. “But we will just keep working.”