BURNSVILLE, N.C. (WGHP) – Roads are washed away. Pieces of crumpled road lie in muddy piles. It's an area that used to be a paved road before Hurricane Helene turned it into a rushing river. Now, all that is left is a big pile of mud. The houses that are still standing along the roads need repairs. “It’s broke in two somewhere. That's why you ain’t got no water,” said Joe McCool to his sister, Angie. “... I’ve done plumbing for 15 years, and she actually has a line that is broke under the house. It is an electrical line, not plumbing, which is thankful, so we can run a new wire to get her water fixed.” Swannanoa church becomes disaster relief hub as western North Carolina contends with Helene aftermath It took Joe several days to get in touch with his family members, including his sister in Burnsville. “I didn’t see my brother until that Sunday," Angie said. "He come down here and found me. There is no way to get to them at the top of the mountain.” Now that the McCool family is reunited, they're working to assess the damage and make repairs. “Pipes and electrical lines that are broke in the house, not just overhead. They are like, 'OK, we got your power back on.' Then they are good, but then these people don’t have money to pay somebody to come out and fix it,” Joe said. Those pipes are just the start. “It took off my driveway, road. The mailbox is probably on the other side of the world. I don’t know where it went to, and then digging out from the back to see how much structural damage is back there, but, other than that, a day at a time,” Angie said. As water rushed by, Angie saw her dog get pulled down into the water. “Pretty scary. I thought she was dead because I watched her go under and I watched her go under the culvert. I grabbed my stuff and my little dog and hiked up the mountain and come out up to the four-lane,” Angie said. After the water receded, the support showed up. “We are really grateful for these people coming in here helping us find our friends and family and all that, so it is just wonderful people care that much,” Angie said. After Joe gets the repairs done at Angie’s, he plans to help other people. “People don’t have flood insurance. Hardly anybody does. Nobody has landslide insurance from my understanding, so what do you do about that? How do you help people with that,” Joe said. It will be a scary road ahead, but it is a road they will go down together. The road right outside of her house is gone, but there is this temporary makeshift gravel road that a lot of locals have helped to put down. Many of them have big equipment. Short-term temporary fixes are in place, but there is still some concern for the long term. Many of these people did not have flood insurance. And, of course, much of this infrastructure has completely washed away. These small towns like Burnsville want to remind everyone they're going to need your help for months and even years into the future.