YANCEY COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY HOMETOWN) — Thousands of acres of farmland across Western North Carolina were destroyed by hurricane Helene.
In Burnsville, an entire farm that had been in operation for more than 20 years was wiped out in hours.
“It was just very strange because everything just looked different. It was like you were home, but it felt like another planet. Nicole DelCogliano said. “It still feels like that sometimes.”
For 20 years, DelCogliano and her husband have poured their hearts and souls into their Burnsville farm.
“Being in the second story of the barn and looking out onto the field, it was very lovely,” she said.
Today, no barn. No plush fields—just land still covered in sediment surrounded by a graveyard of trees and debris.
“We deal with micro disasters every year like the deer will eat thousands of dollars of our product or the groundhogs or…,” Gaelan Corozine said while looking at his wife.
“Equipment breaks down,” she said.
“Yeah, like those things we are used to juggling,” Corozine said.
“But something like this, you couldn’t even prepare for,” DelCogliano said.
Instead of spending the last six months making a living off the fruits of their labor, the husband and wife have been starting over.
“Someone said to us, ‘Are you going to keep farming? And I was like, ‘oh, should we think about that?” Like, should the answer be maybe ‘no’? And then we talked about it, and the answer is not no, the answer is yes,” she said.
It started with clearing debris, removing sand, and scavenging what they could from their mangled barn. The couple, with help from friends, tackled one acre at a time.
“It’s a strange opportunity to rebuild the farm and think about what we want the next 20 years to be. We are 50 and hope to do this at least until 70 plus. Like, what does that look for us, how can we make it new and different to be sustainable for us as people and also honor the community that helped us through this rebuild?” DelCogliano said.
But if there is anything farmers know to be true, it is that growth starts small. Like carving out the foundation to a barn or a seed adapting to new soil.
“We are trying to be on schedule, so we will see,” she said.
Eventually, with enough determination, hope will bloom.
“Because as a farmer, it is inevitable, like you are never not going to succeed in some way, so yeah, I am proud of the inevitability of growth,” Corozine said with a smile.
The couple planted their first seeds in early March and are hoping to be selling at market by mid-April.
