On the recent morning of Sept. 27, a handful of early fall rainstorms rolled into the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. By late afternoon, sunshine had overtaken the high peaks and valleys in this corner of Southern Appalachia — a far cry from the chaos and destruction exactly one year ago.

“This morning, I felt fragile, but not to the degree I did a year ago when our whole existence was nearly swept away by the flood,” Lance Mills tells Rolling Stone . “Today, I observed the irony of looking out the windows of our new house at the wreckage of our old house, still frozen in the moment it could no longer be our home.”

On Sept. 27, 2024, Mills, a local singer-songwriter, was awakened by his son telling him the Swannanoa River in their backyard was coming over its banks. In

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