Regeneration Station, After the Storm - Asheville, North Carolina by Katie Linsky Shaw

News

Regeneration Station, After the Storm - Asheville, North Carolina

katie linsky shaw

Dec 6, 2024

Location: Asheville, North Carolina

Summary

A warehouse full of antique vendors near the Swannanoa River in Asheville, North Carolina that was destroyed when floodwaters reached record levels after Hurricane Helene in September.

Floodwaters from Hurricane Helene in Asheville took lives and destroyed homes and businesses as waters reached record levels during the storm in September. One area in Asheville near Biltmore Village and along the Swannanoa River was hit especially hard. Before the storm, the industrial area housed popular antique and thrift store spaces, a brewery, and an animal rescue group. Now it's empty with streets covered in debris and empty shells full of mud where businesses once operated.

A week after the storm, Michelle Hensley drove to the area to survey damage inside the Regeneration Station - a large, bright green warehouse that housed vendors selling antiques and refurbished furniture. Hensley had several mid-century furniture booths inside. The warehouse was destroyed when floodwaters rushed in and left everything caked in thick mud. Hensley, whose booth was on the front end, searched that side of the building to see if anything was salvageable. She found a few lamps, some glasses that somehow survived the storm, and a print. A beautiful divan she said she’d just reupholstered before the storm - that she’d frantically moved from the Antique Tobacco Barn, that sits closer to the river, to the Regeneration Station the night before the storm, assuming it would be safer there - was also destroyed.

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