HARTFORD, Tenn. (WATE) — The impact of Hurricane Helene is still being felt in Tennessee, but one woman is finally turning the page on one of the most difficult chapters of her life. Now, Christy Miller finally has a place to call home.
“I’ve been living out of storage totes and trash bags with my clothes because I just didn’t have space. And so now I can find the clothes that I’m like, ‘oh yeah, I knew I had this but I forgot I had a kind of thing,'” said Miller.
Miller spent a year living out of her camper. She talked about how much water she had in the tank of her camper and even went without power for two months. She was at times forced to sleep on the couch at the home of those in her life.
“Takes a toll on you, mentally exhaustion-wise. You just can’t recharge after work. And it’s just hard after you get off your daily day of work and you come home and you just gotta still fix your property,” said Miller.
Miller’s new home was built and furnished by God’s Pit Crew, a nonprofit disaster relief organization. She said she still has to think about which of her belongings were destroyed when her old house in Del Rio flooded.
Now, Miller said it’s the little things about having a home that make the biggest impact on her life.
“So, some of my first thoughts moving in here was the excitement to be able to just take a nap on a couch,” she said. “I found that to be just a great way to recharge, which was really hard living in the camper life.”
Miller moved into the camper a week ago, and the road near her home was finished a month ago, but the road ahead remains uncertain for many in Cocke County.
“One of the things that fell through the cracks through all of this is the small businesses and the small businesses didn’t get help from anybody,” said Miller. “But where’s the county helping out with them?”
Two businesses near her home have permanently closed, but Miller’s experience shows sometimes the things we lose don’t stay lost forever.
“I was helping a neighbor down the street, muck out their house a few days after the flood, and I found my helmet inside their house in the mud, down the street. And I was like, that’s just wild.” said Miller.
Miller is an avid whitewater rafter, so she knows how to navigate rocky waters, and that won’t change anytime soon. Her home is elevated due to its proximity to the river, and Miller hopes to have grass on her front lawn by next spring.