"They had a path through there."

For 44 years, Ted Baker has called this place home.

"In 1981, this was here."

But when Helene's floodwaters tore through these mountains, the driving bridge that connected him to the outside world was swept away.

"It just rained so hard and the river came up so fast.

The river went from two feet deep to 31 feet deep in a matter of hours."

All that's left of the original structure are the washed up slabs of concrete and twisted steel.

With the bridge gone, Ted and his wife were cut off.

"When that flood was happening, it was just astounding, the stuff that was just going by.

And it was so fast.

And it was going 20, 30 miles an hour.

And there's a sawmill up the road that had 50,000 logs, which became battery rams, that let loose all within the space of an hour or two.

And here come these logs.

Here come the trees.

Here comes the 500 gallon propane tanks.

Oh look, there's a car.

Look there, there's a truck.

Well there, look, there's a whole house."

For days, friends and neighbors feared the worst.

"We were on a missing list, and then some people came over in kayaks.

Are you the bakers?

Yeah, we're the bakers.

Well, you're good, you're good, thank you.

You're not a, you're not a, you're still alive.

We'll see you later."

They spent months living elsewhere.

Then, determined to return, Ted built a makeshift crossing, beams stretched over a boulder in the river.

It's just enough to park across the water and walk across to get home.

"We're only here temporarily until we get safer access, because that bridge is going to become impossible.

It's right next to the river.

It's going to ice up every day.

It's cold.

And it's too dangerous."

To see just how much damage one washed out bridge can cause, we flew over Ted's property in a helicopter.

From the air, we see his home sits stranded on the far side of the river with no safe way in or out.

That bridge once served two families.

Now, only one remains.

Just weeks ago, Ted's neighbor's house burned to the ground.

Fire crews couldn't reach it in time.

"If we would have had a bridge, they could have gotten the fire out in time.

But we don't have a bridge."

In the mountains of western North Carolina, many families rely on private roads and bridges.

And when Helene hit, thousands were washed away.

"How common are stories like this similar to Mr.

Ted's?"

"They're not the exception.

They're the norm here.

You have to imagine, there was 30 inches of rain dumped on the North Carolina mountains, and that rain has to go somewhere.

So the flooding was obviously biblical.

It was catastrophic."

According to the governor's office, more than 8,000 private roads and bridges were damaged during Helene.

Today, over 7,000 are still waiting for repair.

Eric Robinson leads Operation Hilo.

It's a non-profit that's been on the ground since the storm.

They help families with shelter and long-term recovery.

"When you start to look at it, it's not somebody's home, per se.

Mr.

Ted still lives here.

The fact that he has to walk three-quarters of a mile just to get out, or heaven forbid something happened to where he needed EMS or he needed fire, that's a real challenge.

And I think that's what people don't really think about is, okay, they do have a house.

They have power.

They have water.

They don't really have access to it.

But they also don't have access to those life-saving services should something happen."

When Helene hit, FEMA moved in to repair highways and public roads.

But for private bridges like the Bakers, recovery often falls into a gray area.

Families can apply for FEMA's Individual Assistance Program if a private road is their only access to a primary home.

But the payments are capped and often cover just a fraction of the actual cost.

As of July 2025, state officials say FEMA has given out $24.4 million to North Carolina households that reported private road or bridge damage.

Thousands more families are still waiting for help.

To speed things up, Governor Josh Stein signed an executive order allowing North Carolina Emergency Management to fast-track repairs.

Lawmakers also approved an additional $100 million specifically for private road and bridge recovery.

This is also alongside a new reimbursement program that covers half the cost of rebuilding.

But recovery is slow.

Each project requires engineering assessments, contracts with state-approved builders, and legal agreements from all property owners along the road.

With thousands of families applying at once, even paperwork can take months.

Not to mention contractors are in short supply.

They're often tied up on public highway projects, and mountain terrain only adds to the challenge.

As repairs are delayed, erosion makes projects even harder and more expensive.

What does it look like to get a driving bridge like that replaced at a place like this?

Well, number one, to get somebody to quote it in general is tough.

So in a situation like this, it's tough to get somebody to quote it.

But when you do, it's a lock in a price.

And now we're looking at a solution for a driving bridge that's up around $800,000, $900,000.

It started at $500,000 10 months ago.

So non-profits and neighbors are stepping in to fill the gaps.

For the Bakers, that help has come in the form of donations through a GoFundMe campaign and support from groups like Operation Hilo.

Personally, I had no idea there were this many people in the world.

They were willing to open up their hearts, sometimes their wallets, sometimes risk their lives to help other people.

And people really stepped up to the plate.

There's been an amazing number of people from charities and churches and Christian groups and from not just all over America, but people from all over the world.

With the cost of a full driving bridge out of reach, the best hope now is a steady walking bridge, a safer, more affordable way for Ted and his wife to get home.

Helene destroyed the bridge that connected Ted's home to the outside world, but it didn't take away his connection to this place or the memories he's made here.

I hate to keep coming up with another old song, but home is where the heart is.

And our heart's here.

And it always has been.

It was our dream to have a 50-acre farm.

And we shared that dream.

And it's been wonderful that way for us.

I mean, this is a beautiful place here.

And across western North Carolina, thousands of families are holding on the same way, waiting on the roads that don't show up on maps to be rebuilt.