Faith on Higher Ground

Teirsa Lane, Director at Camp Linn Haven, sits on the steps of a cabin that once stood under eight feet of floodwater.

Teirsa Lane sat in the dining hall at Camp Linn Haven with her daughter, Courtney, on a rainy Friday morning as Hurricane Helene soaked western North Carolina. The camp had lost power overnight, so they walked the soggy grounds from the staff housing to the kitchen to make breakfast with the gas appliances.

They had just finished eating when Lane, the camp director of 20-plus years, looked through the window towards the bridge leading to U.S. Route 221.

“It was like a tidal wave,” she recalled. “That’s when I said we need to get to higher ground.”

Her daughter started putting chairs on the tables. As water crept into the building, they ran back to the office, located on higher ground. When they turned to look from a safe distance, the land they had just crossed was flooded. And the water was rising fast.

‘WE MIGHT BE MISSING A CABIN’

Hundreds of volunteers came to Camp Linn Haven after the devastation to assist with cleanup and recovery.

From the office, the Lane family watched as the water rose to unprecedented levels.

“We stayed there for about two hours and just watched everything float away,” Lane said. “The propane tank; we watched my office lift up; we saw a bunk bed floating down through the field in the water. And I said, ‘How’d the bunk bed get out of the cabin door?” And then it was like a light switch: we might be missing a cabin when we come out here.”

Though nearly 40% of Camp Linn Haven’s 52-acre property lies in a floodplain—surrounded on three sides by the Linville River—the camp had never experienced anything like this in its 85-year history. Past floods brought just a couple of feet of water—enough to damage lower cabins, but nothing like the eight feet that submerged the grounds.

“At that point, all we could see of cabins one through six were the roofs,” Lane said.

The water receded almost as quickly as it rose, carving a muddy trail of destruction through the valley. In the days that followed, the people of western North Carolina leaned on their faith and the love of Christ as they took careful, difficult steps forward.