Asheville Humane Society expands program into three Housing Authority communities

Photo from previous Community Pets dog washing event courtesy of Asheville Humane Society

Press release from the Asheville Humane Society:

Asheville, NC – Asheville Humane Society, in partnership with PetSmart Charities, is proud to announce the expansion of its Community Pets Program in three additional Housing Authority of the City of Asheville communities, with the help of a PetSmart Charities grant for more than $50,000. The Community Pets Program is a branch of Asheville Humane Society’s Community Solutions Department, a collection of programs that provide resources and services to pets and their people in underserved areas of Buncombe County. To celebrate the expansion of this vital program, Asheville Humane Society is hosting an event at the Deaverview Apartments Community Center on Tuesday, June 26.

What: Community Pets Expansion Celebration and Celebrity Dog Wash

When: Tuesday, June 26, 3 – 5 PM

Where: Deaverview Community Center, 275 Deaverview Road (corner of Deaverview and North Bear Creek Rd)

In October 2015, the Community Pets team began door-to-door outreach in their first community with funding from PetSmart Charities. Since then, they have served 799 clients with 1,827 pets, and altered 559 pets to prevent unwanted litters. Their expansion into the Deaverview Apartments and surrounding community in January 2017 has greatly increased access to essential pet services for these residents.

Their proactive approach has been so successful that the Housing Authority of the City of Asheville asked AHS to broaden their presence into additional communities. Through the support of PetSmart Charities, this month the Community Pets team was able to start outreach in Hillcrest Apartments and Pisgah View Apartments, and they will be adding a third community in the next few months.

Residents of these communities are living at or below the poverty line in “resource deserts” with little access to services for themselves or their pets. As a result, many of them are at higher risk of surrendering or rehoming a pet due to medical or behavior issues. By approaching families in their own neighborhoods, the Community Pets team is able to work with pet owners who may not have otherwise reached out for assistance.

Emily Gelb, community solutions manager at Asheville Humane Society, is excited to expand the reach of this program thanks to funding from PetSmart Charities. “Through the Community Pets Program, we provide a range of resources and services including veterinary assistance, pet food, vaccines, spay/neuter vouchers, behavior assistance, and more,” said Gelb. “But our work goes beyond transactional services – we are building relationships based on the shared love we have for our pets, and impacting the lives of both pets and their people long term.”

“There’s nothing like the human and animal bond, and at PetSmart Charities we are passionate about supporting programs that bring people and pets together.” said Sima Thakkar, regional relationship manager at PetSmart Charities, the leading funder of animal welfare in North America. “Thanks to our donors nationwide, we can support programs such as Asheville Humane Society’s Community Pets Program that are designed to engage community partners to help more people and pets in the greater Asheville Community. We are proud to partner with the fantastic team at Asheville Humane Society and look forward to seeing the expansion of this critical program.”

Join representatives from Asheville Humane Society and PetSmart Charities for the official launch of the Housing Authority expansion. Residents of the Deaverview Apartments will bring their dogs to participate in a “Celebrity Dog Wash” and free bags of pet food will be available.

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Walking in Montford

HOWDY NEIGHBORS: Caroline Knox and her children, Adeline Lindow (on bicycle) and Jensen Lindow, greet fellow walkers on Pearson Drive. Photo by Carol Pohlsgrove

On the Ground is a new occasional series that will showcase locals’ love of walking in Western North Carolina’s varied neighborhoods. From Black Mountain to Shiloh, from Hendersonville to Canton, we welcome inquiries from readers who’d like to share their favorite urban jaunts in a personal essay.

Author and journalist Carol Polsgrove kicks things off with a paean to her personal walking nirvana: Asheville’s Montford neighborhood.

by Carol Polsgrove, ccpolsgrove@gmail.com

I’ve been walking neighborhoods for several decades but never with more pleasure than in Asheville’s Montford. In winter, children pull sleds down barely dusted streets at the first hint of snow. In spring, pink phlox spills over garden walls.

And in most seasons, you’ll find me and other walkers out walking. We walk with friends, we walk with dogs, we walk alone.

Some days we walk down Pearson Drive to Patchwork Urban Farms to see what green things are sprouting or chickens scratching, then circle round Hibriten Drive to see what new house has appeared on the steep slopes.

Some days we walk on Zillicoa past the 1927 English stone “castle” Homewood and sprawling yellow 1895 Rumbaugh Mansion — and if it’s a Fourth of July night, we pause on that hilltop to watch the fireworks.

Some days we circle around the Byzantine-style Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church on Cumberland and work our way down to the Reed Creek Greenway that winds along Broadway to the Botanical Gardens and UNC Asheville.

As a friend walking with me said just the other day, “Every street is an adventure.”

While some Montford streets turn here and there and trail off in intriguing ways, three parallel streets offer straight treks through the neighborhood: Cumberland Avenue, Montford Avenue and Pearson Drive.

Of the three, Cumberland Avenue has the least traffic — it’s a quiet, broad street lined with brick sidewalks and ornate early 20th-century houses with fancy gardens to match.

Montford Avenue has more and faster traffic than Cumberland but also has three popular restaurants — Nine Mile, Chiesa and Tod’s Tasties. Bus shelter picture panels feature grand houses lost to fire or demolition, the African-American presence in Montford and other places and people of the past.

Then there’s Pearson, with more bungalows than the other long streets and a side route down Birch Street to Riverside Cemetery, where woodchucks scamper over the grass into their culvert homes. Pearson feels closer to nature than the other long streets: It was there I once saw a mother bear with two cubs scampering after her.

Montford has more bears than some Asheville neighborhoods. That may be because we have woods, though fewer trees than we did six years ago when I moved here, as hillsides are cleared to make way for new houses.

Changes are happening in Montford, but change has happened before in Montford.

REST AREA: A Montford pedestrian takes a break at the corner of Magnolia Avenue and Flint Street. Photo by Carol Polsgrove

Friends who’ve lived here longer than I tell me about changes they’ve seen — friends, for example, like Annie Morgan. I met Annie not long after I settled in Asheville. She had paused on a spot near the Montford Community Center, and as sometimes happens when two walkers’ paths cross, we fell to talking. I asked her if she’d known that part of the neighborhood back when it was the African-American community called Stumptown, which sprang up early in the last century next to the upscale residences built for well-heeled whites.

Indeed, she did remember the Stumptown area before much of it was erased by urban renewal in the 1970s. She pointed where a candy store stood, just there, and over there, rooming houses. Those elements of a thriving community and others were replaced by what we see there now: ballfields, the theater where Montford Park Players performs Shakespeare on summer nights and the community center — recently renamed for African-American midwife Tempie Avery, whose home once stood on the site.

We started a friendship that day, and from time to time we walk together, sharing our walkers’ curiosity about what’s happening in the neighborhood — houses sold, built or transformed.

As Asheville’s hot housing market raises prices and rents, we both fear that Montford is losing some of the diversity and flavor that make it interesting. All the more, then, we savor the pleasure of meeting our neighbors, exchanging words of greeting, sometimes falling into conversation — a way of knowing our place and the people who are part of it.

As in other neighborhoods in Asheville, pedestrians have suffered assaults in Montford — purse-snatchings, muggings and other forms of meanness. Some of us daytime walkers avoid walking at night.

Montford is walkable not only because it’s an interesting place to walk in, but also because from it we can walk to downtown’s restaurants and drinking spots, library, theaters and more. But to get downtown via Montford Avenue, you must run the gauntlet of a busy intersection near the Asheville Visitor Center at 36 Montford Ave. Two stoplights just before the Interstate 240 overpass appear close together — confusing some motorists, who run the first, driving across the crosswalk or stopping right on it (under the impression, I suppose, that the second light is the one that really counts). That spot needs better signage, along with signals that will give pedestrians an exclusive green light to cross Montford Avenue without cars coming from any direction.

Carol Polsgrove is the author of a memoir, When We Were Young in Africa.

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Alberto flooding: Asheville, West North Carolina faces more rain from lingering storm

Business owners in Biltmore Village share concerns after the area was completely flooded by heavy rains. Matt Burkhartt, Asheville Citizen-Times

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ASHEVILLE — Rain and thunderstorms are expected to continue this week, adding to the misery unleashed on Western North Carolina as the remnants of subtropical storm Alberto on Wednesday forced evacuations, flooded roadways and pushed dams to capacity.

Parts of WNC saw as much as 7 inches of rain over a 24-hour period, leading Gov. Roy Cooper to announce he would declare a state of emergency. Some areas have seen nearly 2 feet of rain since May 15.

With 14.09 inches of rain recorded at Asheville Regional Airport, the month of May is now the wettest month on record for Asheville, according to the Southeast Regional Climate Center. The previous top mark was August 1940, with 13.75 inches.

Both the French Broad and Swanannoa rivers were slowly receding Wednesday evening. As of 8:15 p.m., the Swannanoa River at Biltmore was at 8.84 feet, according to USGS readings. It peaked at higher than 14 feet; flood stage is 10 feet. The French Broad at Asheville was at 9.26 feet; flood stage is 8 feet.

But the rain is expected to continue Thursday. The National Weather Service forecast calls for showers and thunderstorms to continue, with up to a quarter-inch possible, more during a thunderstorm.

Residents briefly evacuated after Lake Tahoma Dam warning

Thousands of people experienced power outages and some 200 people stayed in a shelter opened by the American Red Cross, the governor’s office said.

The city of Asheville warned residents late Tuesday of potential flooding after releasing water from the North Fork Reservoir outside of Black Mountain to make room for floodwater. Heavy rains refilled it in a matter of hours.

About 2,000 McDowell County residents downstream of Lake Tahoma Dam north of Marion were evacuated beginning at 1 a.m. Wednesday for fear the dam’s integrity had been compromised. The mandatory evacuation order was rescinded about nine hours later after an engineer deemed the dam safe.

Mudslide slammed into five vehicles

A mudslide between Old Fort and Black Mountain slammed into five vehicles and forced lane closures on Interstate 40. No injuries were reported. The state Department of Transportation said the lanes should be cleared by midday Friday.

Two DOT workers clearing a mudslide from Catawba River Road west of Old Fort became the subject of a rescue effort themselves.

The two were using a snowplow blade on the front of a dump truck to push debris out of the roadway when a second slide pushed it into the Catawba River, DOT spokesman David Uchiyama said.

Read more:

Here’s an WNC flooding update: Cooper’s state of emergency, rivers begin to crest, 2 shelters close

The truck landed on its side in about 10 feet of water. The workers climbed out through the passenger window and stood on the side of the truck. Rescue workers with the Old Fort Fire Department tossed them a rope and life vests and pulled them to safety, Uchiyama said.

The 33,000-pound truck was found more than 1,000 feet downstream, pushed there by the force of the current, he said.

A dump truck pushed into the Catawba River by a mudslide ended up more than 1,000 feet downstream, the state Department of Transportation says.

The men were unharmed. Had they attempted to swim, "I think we would be writing a different story," Uchiyama said.

Several streams in McDowell County flooded and swift boat rescuers pulled five people to safety.

Black Mountain firefighters evacuated some 75 people Tuesday night, including residents of the Soundview Family Care Home and a mobile home park off Portmanvilla Road.

There were no reported injuries, Deputy Chief John Wilson said Wednesday.

“The creeks came up very fast,” he said. “We patrolled a lot of them an hour before (at about 9 p.m.) and they were fine.”

Flooding closes more than 40 roads
Flooding at Flat Creek in Black Mountain. (Photo: Photo courtesy of Nathan West)

Cooper’s declaration allows the state to coordinate storm response and prepare for any additional impacts. Cooper also was expected to issue a transportation waiver to expedite the movement of utility vehicles and others engaged in relief efforts.

At midday Wednesday, DOT said more than 40 roads were closed because of flooding in 10 WNC counties.

Uchiyama said it does not appear that any will be closed long-term, but that DOT was still assessing conditions.

"In some areas across Western North Carolina, it could be a week or two," he said.

Most roads in the French Broad River valley that flood frequently will reopen as soon as floodwaters recede," he said

Two state workers were clearing a small landslide in this area Tuesday night in McDowell County when a larger slide pushed them and their truck into the Catawba River.

A flash flood watch was to remain in effect for WNC through Thursday morning. There also were several flood warnings for areas by the French Broad River near Fletcher, and at Blantyre affecting Henderson and Transylvania counties.

A flood warning for the Swannanoa River at Biltmore in Buncombe County was to remain in effect until Thursday afternoon. While the river has crested and more potential heavy rain was possible Wednesday afternoon, the National Weather Service said the river levels should continue falling.

Flooding closed several popular parks, including Carrier Park and the Bill Moore Community Park, formerly known as Fletcher Community Park. The WNC Nature Center also closed because of flooded roads. The animals were safe, the city of Asheville said.

The French Broad River floods into the Craven Street Bridge Access Area on Wednesday, May 30, 2018.

Biltmore Estate remained open but directed visitors to alternative entrances. Its main entrance, located in flood-prone Biltmore Village, was closed due to rising water.

Blue Ridge Parkway, state parks impacted by storm

Rain caused trees to topple across the Blue Ridge Parkway, closing the roadway Wednesday from Milepost 382 near the Folk Art Center in Asheville to Milepost 355 at N.C. 80. Parkway spokeswoman Leesa Brandon said park staff are assessing potential hazard trees and removing fallen trees.

The parkway was also closed from Mileposts 305-298 while repairs continue on the Linn Cove Viaduct. Heavy rainfall also forced closure of the original detour route on a section of U.S. 221 around the viaduct due to a road washout between Linville and Blowing Rock.

The Nuwati and Cragway trails at the nearby Grandfather Mountain State Park were closed indefinitely until repairs can be made.

Mount Mitchell State Park remained open, but the main access from Asheville, the Blue Ridge Parkway, was closed up to the park’s entrance at Milepost 355.

Lake James State Park in McDowell County remained open, however the mountain bike trails and the swim beach at the Paddy’s Creek Area were closed due to flooding.

Chimney Rock State Park in Rutherford County was closed at the Chimney Rock attraction entrance after a retaining wall in its upper parking lot collapsed Saturday. The Rumbling Bald access remained open.

WNC’s dams are being watched

Cooper’s office said local and state officials are closely monitoring the dams at Lake Lure, Lake Tahoma, Lake Tuxedo and North Fork Lake and are sending state dam safety engineers to areas of concern.

Macon County officials said spillway gates were operating at the Nantahala Dam to release water because of excessive levels, but there was no problem with the dam.

More than 50 search and rescue technicians were deployed by the state overnight to assist, and a combination of swift water rescue and urban search and rescue teams from across the state were sent to McDowell, Rutherford and Jackson counties to help with potential rescues.

The American Red Cross said Wednesday afternoon that four shelters would remain open:

Swannanoa First Baptist Church, 503 E. Park St., Swannanoa.Glenwood Baptist Church, 155 Glenwood Baptist Church Rd., Marion.YMCA, 348 Grace Corpening Drive, Marion.Bill Creek Baptist Church, 1475 Bills Creek Road, Lake Lure.Polk County Middle School.

A shelter was closed in Old Fort, and another operating out of the YMCA in Marion was placed on standby after residents evacuated were allowed to return home.

People may check shelter availability and whether a shelter is open on the Red Cross Emergency App. It may be downloaded via the mobile phone app store, or text “GETEMERGENCY” to 90999.

Citizen Times and Black Mountain News staff contributed to this report.

Rainfall totals

Here are rainfall totals reported in WNC counties for a 24-hour period ending at 8 a.m Wednesday:

Asheville: 0.98 inches

Swannanoa: 2.3 inches

Black Mountain: 6.59 inches

Waynesville: 0.39 inches

Hendersonville: 4 inches

Franklin: 1.3 inches

Linville: 3.6 inches

Marion: 3.3 inches

Old Fort: 7.81 inches

Bryson City: 1.5 inches

Highlands: 6 inches

Lake Lure: 4 inches

Source: National Weather Service

NWS forecast for Asheville

Thursday: Showers and thunderstorms likely after 9 a.m. Partly sunny, with a high near 81. Chance of precipitation is 60 percent. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Thursday night: Showers and thunderstorms likely before 5 a.m., then a chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 64. Calm wind. Chance of precipitation is 60 percent. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Friday: A chance of showers before 8 a.m., then a chance of showers and thunderstorms between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m., then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 1 p.m. Partly sunny, with a high near 82. West northwest wind 3 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60 percent.

When the rivers will crest

The National Weather Service reported the following river levels Wednesday:

– Swannanoa River at Biltmore peaked Wednesday at 14 feet and was expected to greatly taper off beginning Thursday. Flood stage is 10 feet and levels between 10 and 14.5 feet are considered minor flooding.

-French Broad River at Blantyre will peak at 19 feet Thursday with moderate flooding. Flood stage is 16 feet.

-French Broad at Asheville will peak at 10 ½ feet late Wednesday through Thursday with minor flooding. Flood stage is 9.5 feet.

-French Broad near Marshall will peak at 9 feet late Wednesday. Flood stage is 8 feet.

-French Broad near Hot Springs peaked Wednesday at 6 feet. Flood stage is 9.5 feet.

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