The outside of Emily Sluder’s recreational vehicle was all set for Christmas: a small tree wrapped with colorful lights, an inflatable Jack Skellington, her son’s favorite cartoon character, dressed as Santa Claus.
The inside of the RV felt like winter. If it weren’t for the two space heaters, the temperature would drop into the 40s and the floors were unbearably cold, Sluder said.
“ You step on the ground and it's so cold. So we got some slippers,” she said.
Hurricane Helene knocked a tree through the roof of her apartment in east Asheville, where she lived with her husband and two children. The rain that entered the home caused mold. The family stayed in hotels and eventually their blue Nissan sedan after debating with their landlord about repairs. Through a case worker at her son’s elementary school, Sluder was able to move into the donated RV.
Sluder is one the hundreds of people still living in an RV almost 16 months after Hurricane Helene damaged homes throughout western North Carolina. There is no official count on how many people are living like Sluder, only estimates from multiple counties.
Most recreational vehicles are not built for winter weather. In freezing temperatures the water lines that supply the campers can freeze up. Because the RVs sit about two feet above the ground and lack insulation, the temperature inside can match the temperature outside – and wind makes it colder.
Fueled by donations, volunteers and state grants, nonprofits throughout the region have been rushing to help the RVs prepare for winter weather in a process they’ve dubbed “winterization.” It includes insulation boards, heated hoses for water supply lines and lots of portable heaters.
About two dozen RVs neighbor Sluder’s on the grass lot outside the Covenant Community Church in Asheville. All are different models but each one is now bordered by a wall of teal foam boards held in place by masking tape, nails and two-by-fours.
Jordan Durham, who installed many of these insulation boards, said they are part of the fight to keep the inside of the RVs habitable during an unnaturally cold winter season.
“One of the biggest challenges that you face when you're trying to live year round in an RV is this sort of endless battle with convection,” said Durham, a construction manager with United Methodist Disaster Ministries. “The movement of air underneath these RVs just strips heat.”
After volunteers from the group installed the boards on Sluder’s trailer, she immediately noticed a difference.
“ It helps so much…because we didn't feel the draft coming through every other time,” she said, adding that since the insulation was installed her son sometimes complains about the heat in the middle of the night.
“But I'm not complaining. Before they did that it was so cold.”
Rural counties count hundreds of RVs
In rural counties throughout western North Carolina County, Mike Gucciardo leads a construction crew for the Beacon Network, a nonprofit working to insulate RVs. He and his crew of six have installed insulation boards along the bottom of dozens of campers.
Yancey County, where the Beacon Network is based, has an estimated 100 families still living in RVs, according to county recovery officials.
He spent more than two decades as a carpenter in New York City before moving to Pensacola, a rural neighborhood in Yancey.
“We're not building pianos here,” he joked, comparing the insulation work to his old gig. “This is a little more well worth it. People are freezing.”
He speaks from firsthand experience about the brutal conditions inside of RVs in the winter. The house he was living in was badly damaged in the hurricane, and he’s now living in an RV that he insulated himself.
Yancey County is full of stories like Gucciardo’s, said Jared Dubin, who leads the Beacon Network.
“An astonishing amount of the campers are not hooked up to power, water or sewer. They're just improvising with a generator,” Dubin said. “They're getting water from neighbors. They're using propane heaters because their furnaces and their electric are not hooked up.
“It's incredible what people are dealing with and surviving still,” he said.
Dream-home deferred
David Collins has been living in an RV in Yancey County with his wife and two young sons since Hurricane Helene hit nearly 16 months ago.
“ It gets below freezing, the water doesn't work, the floors are freezing 'cause there's nothing underneath. The walls are very thin, so they're much harder to keep warm,” Collins said, describing the conditions his family has lived with.
Before the storm the family travelled the country in a converted school bus. In 2021, they gave up life on the road and parked the bus on land they purchased near Burnsville with hopes to build a permanent house and farm. The bus was insulated, connected to solar power and septic making it “ much more comfortable than an RV.”
Collins’ children attended the public schools. Camille, their mother, started keeping bees and raising chickens. The family made plans for their new, permanent home, and homes for their extended family on the land they purchased. They even invited their family to live in temporary trailers on the land while the homes were built.
Then Helene hit. The Cane River, which borders their land, rose and washed away the Collins’ home and several structures on their property. Most of Collins’ family went to a shelter, saving their lives.
The destruction displaced the family of four, as well as their extended family who had been living on the land. It also delayed construction on their permanent home.
Collin’s parents, brother and in-laws are now also living in separate RVs on the property. Crews from the Beacon Network helped insulate the caravan of campers on the land.
“That's really been the biggest struggle going into winter, is keeping everyone's heat working, keeping everyone's water working. We've had multiple calls to RV repairmen for heater repairs,” Collins said.
The Beacon Network is one of several nonprofits in the region doing this type of winterization work, bolstered by a half million dollar grant from the state government. The grant, announced in November, sent money to nonprofits that are more “nimble” than government agencies in their ability to use resources, according to Matt Calabria, who heads the Governors Recovery Office.
“Volunteer organizations not only are cost effective, and can pull from volunteers and philanthropic resources, but they also can move very nimbly,” Calabria told BPR when the grant was announced. “The most important thing is not who does the work, but that it gets done and that we're serving people.”
Church housing helps ‘restore dignity’
The church parking lot where Sluder’s RV is parked is full of nearly two dozen other RVs, all with their own unique holiday decorations, including: Santa sporting a neon green acapulco shirt while sipping from a tropical beverage and sitting on a pink flamingo pool float.
There’s also a more traditional nativity scene surrounded by the word “joy.”
Covenant Community Church Pastor Sam Burleson said the decorations were set up by the church to help "restore dignity” to the people his church houses.
“Being able to share in joy is a way that we can tangibly reduce anxiety,” he said. “It can just be the twinkling of a light or a Santa sitting in a large inflatable with a flamingo that brings that joy.”
The residents of the RV lot are from different backgrounds and circumstances, but all lost their housing during the storm. Burleson kept the lot open only to families with children in school and in doing so has created a community of families sharing a similar struggle.
Before the storm, Sluder’s older son Maxim was enrolled at a local elementary school. She worried he wouldn’t be able to adjust if he had to move and switch schools after the storm. Living at the church put her mind at ease.
”He still has the same school, the same teachers, the same friends. Even though it was a little rough before we got in here,” she said. “He's happy. And that's all that matters.”
Maxim, who turned 9 years old last month, said his favorite thing about the camper is that “it doesn’t grow mold” like his old apartment did after water seeped in through a hole left behind by a fallen tree.
His biggest complaint about the RV is not about the temperature, but instead that his mom doesn’t allow him to stay up late to play videogames like Fortnite and Minecraft.
