Charlotte man reflects on neighborhood changes since Helene

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Despite his neighborhood being hit by Helene last September, Christopher Olivares feels blessed.

“As much as it kind of sucked for us, we are the lucky ones. We could rebuild, and it was expensive, but we have a home,” Olivares said.

The neighborhood on Riverside Drive on Mountain Island Lake in Charlotte was once filled with dozens of homes and a sense of strong community. It now stands with some empty lots, damaged homes and only a few families who decided to rebuild and stay.

“I mean you feel very alone, it’s quiet, which has its pros and cons,” Olivares said. “But at the same time, it’s so empty that you’re kind of the last man standing.” 

It’s been 12 months since Helene’s impacts swept through this neighborhood. Olivares says he had no idea what was coming.

“You never expect it to be as bad as what they were saying. We ended up having from the base of our garage to the height 11 feet, 8 inches of water, so almost 12 feet from the bottom of the garage,” Olivares said. “Not including the elevation of water depth in the yard where the river normally is to the house. There’s probably another 6 feet there.” 

This neighborhood flooded before in 2019, so neighbors warned him it was best to evacuate.

“More than anything though, I’m a husband and a father and trying to get everybody out of the house, but also not panicking and trying to reassure everybody that it’s going to be OK, that was the primary goal in the moment,” Olivares said.

It took eight months to rebuild, but there’s still work to be done in his backyard.

“Coming up on the one-year anniversary, everybody has their own way of dealing with stuff. For me I just didn’t want to think about it,” Olivares said. “I’m ready to just move on.”

As for what’s next, there’s still some uncertainty.

“We’re still dealing with it truthfully. I mean the fact that there’s still houses standing that are going to go down. We have to think, how long until it doesn’t feel like a post-disaster area down here. I don’t know. Is that going to be another year? Is that going to be three more years?” Olivares said.

One year later, his neighborhood is different.

“Now there’s no community, except your like one or two neighbors that you’ve gotten really tight with and that’s great. But the community that was here won’t exist again,” Olivares said.