Marble – July 27 was a dark and scary time for a handful of local residents.
A storm hurtled into Marble in the pre-dawn morning, and it was a wild thing. High winds accompanied by drenching rains held steady over the area, causing mudslides, falling trees and power outages. Several days later, as the full scope of the storm became clear, one house was left uninhabitable.
The micro-storm that dropped 8 inches of rain in two hours took no lives, but it did leave causalities of a different kind in its departure. Jerry Kilpatrick felt the storm’s impact in far-reaching ways.
“My wife and I were at home when the storm hit around 2 a.m.,” he recalled. “By 3 o’clock, our driveway collapsed, trapping us in the house.”
The house began its life in the 1930s as a cabin on family property. In 2010, Kilpatrick and his wife expanded its footprint, hoping to retire on the property. But through that first night, the storm battered the house, and they worried for their safety.
They could hear trees falling, one of them landing only 30 feet away from the house. A total of 75 trees would crash down that day, succumbing to winds registering 53 mph. With the driveway caved in, and giant trees blocking crucial exit routes, the storm damage trapped them in the house.
The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office couldn’t safely access the house, nor could the power company restore the electricity when it went out on the second day. The Kilpatricks’ generator kicked in to a tune of $1,200 worth of propane by the time the power company restored them.
The storm left them stranded for four days.
“Emergency services finally hiked in on the fourth day,” Kilpatrick said, “but they had no way to evacuate us” because the road remained impassable.
Worried over the loosening foundation and steady thump of falling trees, he decided to build his own escape route.
“I know how to get things done,” Kilpatrick said.
Through email, he spread the word to his community.
“That’s when the real hero, Scott Wike, came in,” Kilpatrick said.
Wike showed up in a Trackhoe Excavator 9. Five hours and 350 tons of dirt removal later, the Kilpatricks had a way out.
The new “road” was mostly mud, but Kilpatrick was willing to trust it as he packed up his own vehicle with necessary supplies and drove down the steep hill, making it safely to the bottom. After ensuring the stability of the road, he went back up to collect his wife.
“Just then, emergency services arrived on four Yamaha mules to evacuate us,” Kilpatrick said. Storm weary and frustrated, he told them he would evacuate himself because they felt “we were on our own.”
A new storm hit when Kilpatrick’s insurance company, State Farm, declared the event a flood.
“All of our damage was due to the storm water runoff,” Kilpatrick said. “But if they call it a flood, they don’t have to pay.”
The Kilpatricks rented a mobile home from church friends. It was here, in their temporary housing, that Kilpatrick put his business master’s degree to work.
“I contacted at least seven government agencies from county to state to federal,” he said. “No single person asked me what I needed. They spent their time telling me what they couldn’t do.”
FEMA gave Kilpatrick more bad news.
“They couldn’t help because the storm wasn’t called a disaster,” he said.
Andrew Bailey, legislative assistant to state Rep. Karl Gillespie (R-Franklin), said, “The rainstorm in Cherokee County did not meet the threshold of damage needed for the governor to request that the president identify it as a declared storm. Therefore, there are no federal funds available that I’m aware of.”
The Kilpatricks have abandoned their family home, as the damage to the house and property were catastrophic. They purchased a mobile home to place on new land and plan to start over.
However, it didn’t sit well with Kilpatrick that his efforts to find assistance or relief all ended badly.
“When few people are affected, there is no help for them,” he said. Mass community damage will elicit help, “but not if trees fall, or fires burns (on a smaller scale). There is no assistance; insurance will find loopholes and federal government will not help.”
He intends to change that. The Kilpatricks paid about $7,000 in sales tax for their new mobile home.
“I want to work with state Legislature to write a bill that, at minimum, waives that sales tax,” Kilpatrick said. Or, he added, “If they have to take money out of their IRA or 401K, waive federal income tax.” Kilpatrick estimates the storm cost him $200,000.
Until a bill is passed, Kilpatrick offered pragmatic advice for those who may suffer under severe storms.
“Have an emergency kit suitcase ready to go, and keep insurance policies and other documents in a safe deposit box off site,” he said.
Friends of the Kilpatricks have set up a GoFundMe account at https://gofund.me/1077e2b0.