Help Lila's Family Recover from Hurricane Damage

Hello, I am Lila and I am from Avery County, NC which is in Western NC. For reference we live in Plumtree, and that is about 45 minutes southwest of Boone. Hurricane Helene has greatly impacted my home and I am fundraising for my parents to help with property damage and our destroyed bridge. All funding will go towards replacing our bridge and landslide damage that occurred on Roaring Creek Road. Attached are some photos to show some before, during, and after. We are not able to receive FEMA funding to replace our bridge since we are not the current residents of the home (however, it is still our property and access to our family farm/business). This bridge grants access to our property, our home, our Christmas tree farm, and our family cemetery. However, since my parents are landlords of the property, we cannot be considered for FEMA funding and have been asked to take on a small property disaster loan. This is an additional cost/burden that we are currently unable to take on without other assistance.

My parents are small farmers and this grants access to half of our farm. The other half is at our current residence, 5 minutes up the road, which has also been impacted by Hurricane Helene and has incurred other costs. Thankfully, FEMA has been able to help with some of these expenses, but we still greatly need aid to cover all the damage costs associated with this property. This is crucial for us in the coming months as we sell Christmas trees, and half of our Christmas trees are at this location. We also face issues with landslide damage that has washed away Christmas trees and left damage to the road that leads to the cemetery. This repair is also crucial to the current residents of the property who have lived there for 10 years. They are currently accessing the property through a footbridge.

This bridge was rebuilt back in 1998 when another storm washed it away. Both the steel beams and boards have washed away, and this bridge will need to be built from scratch since the shape of the road and river have also both changed and expanded.

My parents have never seen this kind of damage and are expecting the bridge replacement to be around $40,000. We are currently waiting on a definitive repair estimate but this, along with other property damage from the landslide is why we are asking for this amount.

Any help is greatly appreciated.