When Damian Fern谩ndez first moved from Florida to Swannanoa, North Carolina, last year, he thought he鈥檇 come to a "climate sanctuary."
For a while, Warren Wilson College was the weather safe haven Fern谩ndez expected. The storms he initially saw as president of Warren Wilson College were nothing like the hurricanes he was used to navigating in St. Petersburg, Fla.
That was until September of this year, when Helene hit North Carolina.
The tropical storm-turned-hurricane brought unprecedented destruction to the western part of the state. It flooded homes and businesses, crumbled roadways, and led to the .
Warren Wilson is located in one of the areas that was hit the hardest 鈥� Swannanoa Valley. It鈥檚 among several small private colleges in the mountains. Recovery has been challenging as it has limited funds and ongoing enrollment struggles.
The Swannanoa river, which borders the 750-student campus, broke a new flood record at the height of the storm. The river crested at 26.1 feet, surpassing a record from 1916 by over five feet. That means since North Carolina became a state, according to the state climate office.
Helene shut down Warren Wilson鈥檚 campus for nearly a month. Flooding from the storm put bridges underwater, felled over 100 of the college鈥檚 trees, and knocked out the power 鈥攍eaving the campus community for two weeks.
It made for the toughest month of Fern谩ndez鈥� more than 30-year career.
"We did not expect the destruction to be so catastrophic that we would be cut off for a couple of days," Fern谩ndez said in a recent interview. "The pressure I felt was 鈥� do we have enough water? Do we have enough food? Do we have sanitary conditions? And how do we communicate?"
Returning to campus
Warren Wilson is a , which means its students "learn by doing" through internships and community service. So, it was important to get students back on campus as soon as possible, Fern谩ndez said, even as other local universities like UNC Asheville decided to move their semesters online.
Students at Warren Wilson returned for in-person classes by the last week in October. Repairs are continuing on campus this month.
About half of the campus鈥� structures 鈥� 46 buildings in all 鈥� needed roof repairs. Flooring in some buildings was damaged and trees had collapsed on several.
Residence halls were fully functional, but students had to take showers with untreated water from the local dam. The vast majority of the college鈥檚 students live on-campus.
Helene hit Warren Wilson鈥檚 farm the hardest. The storm completely flooded the bottomlands, taking the college鈥檚 crops, animal feed, and barn. Most of the livestock survived, but workers had to temporarily relocate them to a neighboring farm.
Other projects that remain include clearing sediment leftover from the flood water and repairing roads, Fern谩ndez said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is set to restore the Swannanoa river. The federal agency was also responsible for helping .
In October, Fern谩ndez first approximated the repairs would cost about $7 million to fix. That value climbed to about $10 million by December and still isn鈥檛 final.
"We鈥檙e working to understand how we, a small college with a modest endowment, how we address the financial burden that something like this places on an institution like ours," Fern谩ndez said.
Unlike public universities, Warren Wilson can鈥檛 rely on taxpayer dollars to help it pay for repairs.
The college鈥檚 insurance will cover about $7.2 million of its expenses. Fern谩ndez said they鈥檝e also raised about $2 million in a post-Helene recovery fund, some of which will go toward the repairs.
Enrollment challenges
Warren Wilson has faced enrollment declines in recent years, between 2007 and 2017. Undergraduate enrollment has increased since 2020, totaling 733 students this fall.
The college has 750 students overall, which is a nearly 6% decrease from its 2023 numbers.
After Helene, Fern谩ndez said there鈥檚 been less time than normal to recruit students and applications have slowed compared to last fall.
Last year, the college announced it was cutting several majors in an . The cuts included philosophy, chemistry, history, political science, global studies, and math. It also came with about two dozen faculty and staff eliminations.
Addressing enrollment declines by cutting academic programs has become a trend in North Carolina and , both for public and private schools.
Still, he said the college is resilient and he鈥檚 hopeful it can bounce back. It will be helped by a recent that will go toward supporting Warren Wilson鈥檚 academic programs and scholarships. None of the money will be used for Helene repairs.
"I call this a double recovery," Fern谩ndez said.
Lessons learned from Helene
As the campus continues to recover, Fern谩ndez is thinking about how to prepare for future storms.
"Before Helene, we thought we lived in a climate haven," Fern谩ndez said. "Now, we know that there are no such things鈥� We hope that there will never be another Helene, but our students need to be ready."
Moving forward, his goal is to be better connected to local emergency management and make sure there鈥檚 a contingency plan in place to communicate with the campus community during major storms, Fern谩ndez said.
There are also plans to use Warren Wilson鈥檚 experience with Helene via the college鈥檚 Masters of Applied Climate Studies program.
Fern谩ndez also plans to share the lessons he鈥檚 learned with other colleges in the area.
"I think we're going to be in a stronger position than we were before the storm," he said. "Despite how challenging it is to rebuild, despite the pressures and the tensions, we are ending in a brighter position for the future. It was a lesson in leadership and recovery."
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