Trapped with 54 horses for 4 days: Biltmore Estate staff fought to find water after Helene

ASHEVILLE - For two days after Tropical Storm Helene struck Asheville Sept. 27, Elizabeth McLean cut through three miles of downed trees and shrubbery to reach the nearest road.

McLean had been sheltered at the Biltmore Estate and had one goal: reach the Biltmore Equestrian Center. Four of her crew members and 54 horses were stuck there beyond the fallen trees after the French Broad River rose within feet of the stables.

“It was just one right after the other, after the other,” McLean, Biltmore’s director of equestrian activities, recounted to the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. She estimated there were 60 toppled trees just on the gravel road leading to the barn.

Before the storm hit, four volunteers from the equestrian team made beds in the main stable’s offices and breakroom to ensure the horses had enough food and water to make it through Helene. They had planned for one night, which quickly turned into three.

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By the morning of Sept. 26, before the team’s overnight campout began, two paddocks near the river were already flooded, McLean said. The horses that were not moved to pastures on higher ground were placed in barn stalls, windows closed tight to block out the raging wind and rain.

Between passing out water and hay for the horses, the crew’s leader, Caroline Wright, kept checking flooding predictions from an online river gauge. That Thursday evening, the prediction shot up to 29 feet.

“We were all just like, ‘What does that even look like?’” Wright told the Citizen Times.

With the horses secured as much as possible overnight, the team awoke “with the sun” to a barn without power and the French Broad River in their parking lot, Wright said. The river kept rising through the day, falling shy of the barn by mere feet, according to Wright.

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“I was just watching the river level and trying to see if it’s gonna go into the barn or not and if we’re gonna have to take all the horses out,” Wright said.

The moment that scared Wright the most was when running water cut out that evening. Blocked in by fallen trees and floodwaters, the crew needed to somehow find enough clean water for 54 horses — each needing 5 to 10 gallons per day — or risk a colicky horse without access to a veterinarian.

“The river road was under 30 feet of water and the back road had probably 50 trees down on it, Wright said.

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"We were just isolated here. We had enough water for Friday, but then we did a lot of brainstorming Friday night."

The group brought in several troughs from outside, now filled with enough rainwater to last the first day. On Saturday, they "miraculously" found a water tub in one of the worker's trucks, Wright said. With a dwindling water supply on Sunday, Sept. 29, they started hauling buckets of water from a nearby creek that was untouched by the French Broad.

"In between tasks, we would be trying to figure out if our friends and family were OK," Wright said. "We would just be standing by a Starlink, where we could maybe get reception of some kind."

Some of them didn't hear back from family members for at least 24 hours.

"We were insulated from a lot of it for a while, and slowly started hearing about the rest of the area and realizing just how lucky we had been," she said.

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On the fourth day of their isolation, Wright suddenly heard screaming from the barn. Turning around, she saw McLean pulling up in a truck. While her team worked to keep the horses fed and alive, McLean had made it to the road and met a coworker, who helped her clear a path to drive into the stables.

"I was elated. We all hugged each other so much. Best hugs we've had in a long time," Wright said.

Having received help carrying water buckets and clearing trees from Biltmore employees that live nearby, Wright said she feels the four days of being stuck with the horses was "a miniature example of what's been happening all across the area."

"Community happens, and you just take care of each other," she said.

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Ryley Ober is the Public Safety Reporter for Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Email her at rober@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter @ryleyober