HENDERSONVILLE – Brice Molton and his wife, Lexis, purchased their home in Henderson County just over two months ago. The couple had married in 2021, and it was the first house they had owned together.
“We loved the house. We feel so good here. It’s such a good energy. We want to have a family here,” Brice Molton told the Hendersonville Times-News.
On Sept. 27, just months after purchasing their home, the Moltons found themselves in a situation they never imagined — paddling out of their house in kayaks with their two cats, Willow and Luna, and their English bulldog, Tater, as Tropical Storm Helene flooded their neighborhood.
“At the height of it, we were using the gutters as armrests,” Molton said.
Brice and Lexis had seen minor flooding at their home before, “But it’s never, like, reached the top of the basement, or never reached this level,” Molton said.
The night before, Lexis had the idea to pack “go bags” so that they would be prepared to evacuate if necessary.
Molton, who works as a detective with the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office, agreed.
“And I’m like, ‘Hey, I work for the sheriff’s office. I’m all about go bags and preparation and stuff’,” he said. “We’re both Type 1 diabetics, so we packed insulin, some of the durable medical foods and supplies we need. Packed some first aid stuff, one of my guns, some battery packs, some food and snacks for, like, low blood sugars, a couple days worth of food for the animals.”
Lexis suggested using the kayaks.
“She said, ‘I know we don’t need to do this, but we have the kayaks. We’ll put two cat carriers on one, put the dog carrier on the other, use these industrial trash bags, … to kind of shield them and shelter them a little bit. And we’ll just, we’ll ride it out,'” Molton said.
“We really didn’t think that we would need that, especially waking up that morning,” Molton said. “I was ready that we were going to have trees hit the house, because that’s what most of the county had. That was their problem. I did not even begin to think that we’d start seeing water.”
But the water began creeping in.
“The most surreal part was seeing the water coming through the walls and bubbling up through the floor,” Molton said. “Because, we were like, I mean, you know, movies, whatever, you think, OK, it’s going to come through the doorways and the thresholds.”
The couple tried putting items of value up higher in their home, but when the water was knee high, they decided to leave. Brice opened the door, letting in a rush of water and pulling in the kayaks. It was around 10 or 11 a.m.
“So once we got everybody in their crates, my wife got in her kayak, and I handed her the two cats, handed her the dog while I got in mine, and then passed that off,” Molton said.
The couple sat in their kayaks as the water rose around them.
“We kind of just floated there for a little while. The water kept coming up, and I said, ‘OK, well, once the water gets too high, we’ll go outside,'” Molton said.
And that’s what they did. As the water continued to rise around them, the couple paddled out of their new home, leaving most of what they owned to the floodwaters.
“We kind of paddled a little bit out the front door to stay under that awning as long as we could, because it’s a little higher. And then once it started getting too high for that, we moved kind of just outside this window, pretty much,” Molton said, referring to a window at the front of the house.
Outside their house, they waited for the water to drop, sitting in their kayaks for five or six hours.
At one point, a supervisor from the County Sheriff’s Office called Brice, telling him that if they paddled down the road, they could get picked up.
“It wasn’t like a rapid or anything, but there was a current pushing down towards the cul-de-sac. And I said, ‘Man, I really don’t think I can. I mean, I don’t know if I can paddle that anyways, but also, my dog has been freaking out, and I can’t paddle and keep her safe and secure at the same time,'” Molton said.
Eventually, a swiftwater rescue team showed up.
“And I told them, ‘Hey, can you guys push me somewhere safe? I can’t paddle with my dog,'” he said “I’m glad that I waited for them, because between things moving and seeing new potential friends in the rescue squad people, my dog was like, freaking out, and so it did take all of my effort to hold her steady.”
Molton said that he and Lexis haven’t fully absorbed all they have lost.
“It was really heartbreaking and just devastating to see just the state of the house, because, like, we had just moved in here,” Molton said. “It felt like a different place. Like. I told my wife when I came back, I’m like, ‘it feels so sad in there now. … There’s like a layer of mud, like, pretty thick everywhere, and that like silty, sludgy, foamy type mud from creek water and everything.”
Few of their belongings survived the flood.
“Like, surprisingly, my wife had just bought a bunch of yarn from I think Joanne’s or something, to crochet. She just bought it, like, three days before. I guess because it was sitting on a blanket on the couch, and the couch kind of floated a little bit, that was dry,” Molton said. “I mean, so she has stuff to crochet with.”
Some of Lexis’ musical instruments may be salvageable, and some of Brice’s video games survived.
“I tried to get some of, like, my old classic video games that I grew up with that I like playing with my nephew, and it seems like most of those work, as far as I can tell,” Molton said.
Unlike many in Western North Carolina, the couple did have flood insurance, and they intend to rebuild.
“We’re getting quotes, doing all kinds of stuff with insurance and all that,” Molton said. “But … I’m sure it’ll feel weird in a lot of ways. I’m sure that it’ll be a little scary, especially once it rains.”
He said that he and Lexis are staying with his parents now, and he is grateful for the support they have received from their community.
“I think we’re both pretty hopeful, and we’ve had a lot of support from the community, from my job, from my wife’s job, people from all over the state, country, even have offered to help,” he said. “
The whole thing has been very devastating, but we’re just glad that we made it out alive and that our animals are alive, and that we have the opportunity to rebuild.”
Kara Fohner is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network.
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Hendersonville couple, pets escape Tropical Storm Helene in kayaks
