Supporting Taylor and Hillary in rebuilding

Many of you have the privilege of having met my sister, Taylor, and her wife, Hillary and if not you have surely heard about them through knowing me. Family and community lean on each other in times of need and as such I am reaching out to share an update on mine and a request for support.

Taylor, Hillary (Taylor’s wife), and their little pup Otis recently relocated with their newly constructed tiny house that they owned outright to Canton, NC (A few miles west of Asheville). Taylor continues to work remotely and Hillary recently kicked off a new school year teaching at the Asheville Waldorf School. On Tuesday, August 17th, Canton, NC and surrounding areas experienced heavy rainfall throughout the day as tropical storm Fred made its way through Western North Carolina. Starting in the afternoon, this heavy rain quickly escalated to tornado and flash flood warnings that then began to ravage Canton and surrounding areas throughout the afternoon and evening with historic and catastrophic flooding . Canton was one of the hardest hit areas with over 200 homes being swept away by flood waters . 4 people have been confirmed dead and numerous still missing.

While Hillary was at work in Asheville, Taylor found herself and their pup Otis amidst the rapidly unfolding natural disaster of it all. From staying put, to seeking higher ground as a precaution, to navigating through high flooding with a neighbor to seek rescue, she found herself being swept away by the same floodwaters that were powerful enough to take homes and cars with them. After several hours, she was able to be rescued by a search and rescue team out of the flooding and transported to shelter where she was then able to be reunited with Hillary.  They are now both safe and staying with family in Asheville, NC. Due to the intensity of the flooding, a great deal of Canton, NC has experienced devastating damage. Their home and all others in their tiny home community were carried away in the flood and at the peak of the flooding completely submerged underwater. They have lost all of their belongings, their tiny home, and Taylor nearly lost her own life.

This is going to be a long and tough process for them to rebuild. Taking into consideration reimagining home ownership once more or renting, reaccumulating everything that made their house a home, and the emotional trauma of it all as well. Such a personal process has to be done on their timeline together, and in the interim the goal is to make them as comfortable as possible by starting to re-establish a sense of normalcy amidst the turmoil by supporting their both immediate needs and helping set them up, for when they’re ready, to decide on what and where home will be after the loss of the tiny home that they owned outright.

All that being said, I am reaching out to both my community and Taylor and I’s joint community to ask for support with getting her and Hillary back on their feet as they decide what will be next after this both devastating loss and traumatizing event they’ve experienced.

Ways to support:

• Direct donations through gofundme to be delivered directly to Taylor and Hillary’s bank account
• If you’d like to support beyond general funds in replacing something specific, such as a mattress, couch, replacing work clothes, etc or through gift cards to specific stores, please let Alexis know directly and she will coordinate with you to do so
• Messages of support, if you’d like to send your love through a written or voice message to Taylor and or Hillary, please let Alexis know directly and she will add your message to a document she is compiling several messages in

With gratitude and appreciation,

Alexis

A note: Taylor and Hillary are very low on bandwidth coming out of surviving the events of that day to say the least. So in efforts to mitigate any additional stress and or obligation for immediate responses to folx, I am with their permission, organizing on their behalf. Managing both donations and messages of support by collecting and delivering them to Taylor and Hillary in an organized and less one off way. Please feel free to reach out to me directly if you’d like me to pass along any messages of support during this time.