AVERY COUNTY, N.C. — In the months after her mother, Kim Ashby, disappeared in the floodwaters of Helene, Jessica Meidinger went up to the Avery County land where Ashby was last seen. The healing of the earth in the time since September 2024 was not lost on Meidinger.

“My brother and I went up there for Mother’s Day,” Meidinger said. “We walked a lot of the river, a lot of the areas that we had searched, and it’s just crazy how quickly Mother Nature takes over.”

For Meidinger, moving forward is not as simple.

“The reality that a year is coming up and that this thing that still doesn’t feel real,” she said. “I mean, I still catch myself trying to pick up the phone to call her.”

On the morning of Sept. 27, 2024, Meidinger’s mother, Ashby, and stepfather, Rod, woke up inside their brand new retirement home in Avery County. They had gone up to the High Country to secure the property and the nearby Elk River had swollen overnight with rain before Helene even arrived in the Carolinas.

“They heard a crack,” Meidinger recalled. “Something had hit the house, and one of the footers of the house became dislodged. At this point, the whole house kind of slid into the river.”

As their home careened down the swollen river, Rod tried desperately to save Ashby and their dogs.

“He managed to kind of crawl across the debris to her,” she said. “They hit this very large tree, and they went in opposite directions. That’s the last time my mom was seen.”

Rod survived the ordeal, but Ashby was lost to the raging waters.

In the days that followed, family, neighbors, and complete strangers joined together in an extensive search effort. Thousands shared her picture online and donated recovery funds for the family. A GoFundMe page, which remains active, raised $78,000 out of its goal of $100,000.

“Just so much beautiful humankind, caring-for-one-another kind of people came out,” Meidinger said of the community response. “A lot of western North Carolina — they took care of their own 100%.”

But week by week, every search turned up empty-handed.

In November, the family made the difficult decision to hold a celebration of life for the teacher of more than 20 years, knowing she was still out there somewhere.

“Some of her students came out, which is wonderful, and other teachers,” Meidinger said. “We wanted it to be a celebration of life, of all the good and all the kind things that she put out in the world and how much she helped kids grow.”

Just before Thanksgiving, on the property where her mother once dreamed of having her first white Christmas, Meidinger and other loved ones decorated a tree. The gesture was an effort to make a loss that Meidinger calls “surreal” more tangible.

“It felt emotionally like it wasn’t a real thing because to be able to see a body or to be able to know that that exists, I think, unlocks something in your brain, unlocks something emotionally that allows you to kind of process in a different way,” she explained.

Now, on the first anniversary of the day her mother was taken from her, closure feels complicated for Meidinger, much like the mountain land that brought her family so much joy and loss.

“Maybe this is meant to be her final resting place,” Meidinger said. “If we were to find her in the future, great, but if not, we can be at peace knowing that she’s in a place that she loves.”

As of April 2025, a report from the National Hurricane Center showed at least five people remained missing in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee due to Helene.

Vanessa Ruffes: Contact Vanessa Ruffes at vruffes@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.  

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