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Daughter’s six-week search for missing parents marked by miscommunication, false sightings, DNA samples • Asheville Watchdog

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avlwatchdog.org – SALLY KESTIN – 2024-12-04 06:00:00

Asheville Watchdog is bringing you the stories behind the staggering loss of life from Helene, the children, parents, grandparents, multiple generations of a single family, all gone in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the mountains of western North Carolina. This is the ninth installment.  

The sorrow and torment are sadly familiar by now: A daughter desperately searching for her missing parents only to discover they were never coming back.

Nola and Robert Ramsuer died when floodwaters overtook their Swannanoa riverside trailer in Tropical Storm Helene.

But for daughter Shalana Jordan, getting to that agonizing answer took six weeks and included multiple searches through mud-caked debris, repeated calls to aid agencies, false sightings from well-meaning strangers, and a bureaucratic labyrinth that often appeared inept at tracking the missing and the dead.

Read previous installments of The Lives We Lost.

The Ramsuers, both 70, were among the 43 officially lost in Buncombe County to the Sept. 27 storm.

For loved ones left behind, navigating a chaotic disaster even with help pouring in from across the U.S. can be frustratingly slow and painful.

For Jordan, 40, of Winston Salem, it meant days of scouring social media posts and helicopter footage for clues about her parents, sending friends and relatives to shelters to see if they were there, providing DNA samples not once but twice, and waiting six weeks for confirmation that remains found within 10 days of the storm were those of her mother and father.

Jordan, mother of two boys, Aiden, 8, and P.J., 9, had to juggle their school needs and her own chemotherapy for a genetic disorder while searching for answers.

Nola Ramsuer with her grandsons, P.J., 9, left, and Aiden, 8. // Courtesy of Shalana Jordan

Holding onto hope amid the wreckage

On the morning of the storm, Jordan texted with her mother as she usually did. Around 7:30 a.m., her mother reported the power had gone out.

“She said it, like, almost funny…‘It’ll come back on again later,’” Jordan said. “She stopped texting me around eight.”

Jordan assumed her mother had gone to work at her custodian’s job at the Black Mountain Neuro-Medical Treatment Center. Her father, a Vietnam War veteran who had been in declining health, still worked a couple of days a week in maintenance for Cracker Barrel.

Shalana Jordan scoured helicopter footage and found this aerial image showing the remnants of her parents’ trailer park, including their home, which she circled. // Courtesy of Shalana Jordan

When Jordan couldn’t reach them that night, she figured they’d gone to bed early. The next day, images of the destruction began appearing on social media.

“I messaged all my family in Asheville, thinking maybe they called one of them and were with them, or maybe they didn’t have their phones,” Jordan said. 

Over the next hours and days, she searched a Swannanoa Facebook page, scanning photos of water pickup and donation sites for any signs of her parents. She watched hours of helicopter video footage and finally spotted her parents’ trailer park on Avery Wood Drive. Many of the trailers were gone. 

Benjamin Larrabee, the Ramsuers’ next-door neighbor, recorded videos of the floodwater surging through the trailer park, sweeping up semi-tractor trailers and pushing them downstream past the Ramsuers’ home. 

“Man, the whole trailer just moved,” Larrabee can be heard saying on one video as the water carried two semis past the Ramsuers. “Oh man, I hope these guys are going to be all right.” 

One of the trucks eventually crashed into the Ramsuers’ trailer, ripping off one end, Jordan said.

(Editor’s note: This video contains profanity.) Neighbor Benjamin Larrabee captured semi-tractor trailers floating by the Ramsuers’ trailer, right. // Courtesy of Shalana Jordan

Inside, she said, the water came up to the hood above the stove; a couch had been lifted off the floor and landed on the kitchen counter.

Neither of her parents could swim. But their home was still standing.

Jordan held out hope that maybe they made it to a shelter but determining that proved no easy task.

“During all of the first three weeks, we were checking shelters,” Jordan said. “There weren’t any lists of who was in the shelters. I had to physically send people there while I was in Winston Salem.”

Neighbor Benjamin Larrabee took this photo of Robert Ramsuer during the flood, believed to be the last image of him alive, his daughter said. // Courtesy of Shalana Jordan

Jordan posted about her parents on social media and gave interviews to national media in hopes of generating leads. Her phone pinged non-stop with hopeful, but false tips.

“People message you and comment on your posts all day, every day, from six in the morning until 2 a.m. at night,” she said. “‘I think I saw them here. I think I saw them there.’”

Jordan made the two-hour trip to her parents’ home four times, traipsing through mud and debris outside and inside the trailer with relatives and her fiance, Edward Jordan. “The mud was so thick in one of the back bedrooms, I was like, what if they’re in here in the mud, and we’re walking over them?” she said.

Her own health made searching difficult. Jordan’s legs and ankles swell, and chemo leaves her weak and in pain, she said.

At one point, she injured her ankle in the remnants of the trailer. “I fell through the floor,” Jordan said, “because it was getting soft from all the mud and the moisture.”

Jordan called every government and aid agency she could think of to report her parents missing.

Part of the Ramsuers’ home was ripped off when a semi-tractor trailer floating in the floodwaters crashed into the trailer. // Courtesy of Shalana Jordan

“Nobody would take a description of them. No one would take photos. It was crazy,” she said. “I know that it was an unprecedented situation, but FEMA, [the American] Red Cross, like they do this every day. Disaster is their only job.”

An arduous wait for confirmation 

Sixteen days after the storm, Jordan said she received a call from a Buncombe sheriff’s executive asking for a description of the clothes her parents were wearing.

Three days later, “I got a call from the medical examiner in Raleigh saying that they think they found my parents,” Jordan said.

She did not know then, but death certificates completed later showed her mother’s body had been found Oct. 4, and her father’s Oct. 7, more than a week earlier.

“We were hunting and wasting resources this whole time,” Jordan said, “if we could have been allowed to identify bodies, or if someone had been in charge of missing persons, to say we recovered X, Y and Z bodies.

Shalana Jordan with her mother, Nola Ramsuer, and fiance, Edward Jordan. // Courtesy of Shalana Jordan

“How many resources did I waste that could have been used helping someone else or finding someone else because we had tons of community help, people searching on foot, cadaver dogs, people shoveling out mud for us?”

Dr. Craig Nelson at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Raleigh told Jordan the bodies believed to be her parents still had to be transported to Raleigh for examination and confirmation, she said. 

Around the same time, the Buncombe Sheriff’s Office had been in contact with Jordan and sent a Winston Salem police officer to her home to collect DNA samples to match them against the remains.

The same day, about 20 minutes later, Nelson called to arrange to collect her DNA. Jordan told him, “They already came, and he was like, ‘What are you talking about?’”

Nelson said he would look into it and called back to say the first sample was headed to a Buncombe County lab, and results would take three to six weeks, Jordan said.

The Raleigh medical examiner’s lab could match the sample faster, in about a week, but she would need to provide a second round of DNA, “so more officers came and got samples,” Jordan said.

In early November, Nelson delivered the results.

“He said, ‘I’m so sorry,’” Jordan said. “My parents remains’ broke down too much during this process, and they couldn’t even get anything from their DNA samples.”

More samples were collected from the remains, and the medical examiner’s office conducted another round of testing. “We had to wait another week,” Jordan said.

She said Nelson “went above and beyond” and kept her updated daily. 

The medical examiner’s office did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

On Nov. 12, more than six weeks after the storm and five weeks after her parents’ bodies had been found, Jordan received official confirmation of their deaths.

By then, the family had already held a memorial service. Jordan said she did not want to wait with unpredictable winter weather approaching.

And she said she knew in her heart her parents were gone, especially after the discovery of a plastic bag inside their trailer with her mother’s purse, her father’s wallet, debit cards and mementos. She thinks they were planning an escape.

Also inside the bag: her mother’s cell phone, the same one she’d been texting and calling for days.

“She didn’t even have her phone,” Jordan said. “We were all just texting no one.”

Memorial brings unexpected costs, tributes

The Ramsuers’ funeral and cremation costs totaled more than $3,000 and included a “transport fee” to drive their remains from Raleigh to a funeral home in Swannanoa, Jordan said. “It’s $3 a mile to transport a body,” she said.

Cracker Barrel, her father’s employer, catered the memorial service and paid a portion of the costs, she said. The Red Cross paid the transport fee and other expenses.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency declined to pay, she said, because her father was entitled to funeral benefits as a veteran, about $300. With community donations, Jordan said the family expects to be fully reimbursed for the funeral costs.

Jordan said she’s heard from many of her parents’ friends, neighbors and co-workers, “the only good thing out of all this,” she said. “Not a handful, not dozens, but hundreds of people.”

Robert Ramsuer, a Buncombe native, served in the U.S. Army. “He saw a lot of crazy stuff” in Vietnam and served two tours after the war, his daughter said.

She described him as a spitfire who always had a story to tell. He loved fishing and hunting.

“People messaged me saying, ‘Your dad taught me how to fish 40 years ago; your dad taught me martial arts 30 years ago,’” Jordan said.

Nola Ramsuer was “very soft spoken and sweet,” she said. She baked cakes for friends’ and coworkers’ birthdays and hosted Christmas for their extended family.

Nola and Robert Ramsuer with their daughter, Shalana, during a 1988 visit to Ghost Town, a Wild West-themed amusement park in Maggie Valley. // Courtesy of Shalana Jordan

One former coworker told Jordan how he’d talked to her mother about the many medications he was taking for lupus, an autoimmune disorder Jordan also has. Her mother went online and researched alternatives “and sent him these printouts of holistic things he could try to be able to get off all the medication,” Jordan said.

‘Life is so fragile’ 

Jordan recently collected her parents’ ashes from the Penland Family Funeral Home in Swannanoa. She said she purchased two memorial boxes, each a size large accommodating the remains of a 300-pound person, more than enough for her 140-pound father and 110-pound mother.

But Jordan said a funeral home representative informed her that her mother had been found in the mud. 

He said, “‘We tried to remove as much material from her as we could, but there still was a lot mixed in, so all of her doesn’t fit inside of the box,’” Jordan said.

She said she received two boxes with her mother’s remains. 

Funeral home representatives did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Jordan said that while her father had been ill, she expected to have another 20 or 30 years with her mother, who came from a family in which women lived well into their 90s, one making it to 104.

“I thought I had more time,” Jordan posted on Facebook. “Life is so fragile and can be gone in an instant.”


Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Sally Kestin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. Email skestin@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

Hanig will vie for 1st Congressional District seat of Davis | North Carolina

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-09-05 09:01:00


State Sen. Bobby Hanig announced his Republican primary candidacy for North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, aiming to challenge Rocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson and incumbent Democrat Rep. Don Davis. Hanig filed with the Federal Elections Commission, while Roberson plans to run. Hanig emphasizes conservative leadership aligned with the America First agenda. The district, covering 22 northeastern counties, was highly competitive in 2024, with Davis narrowly winning. Hanig, an Army veteran and former state representative, chairs key legislative committees and runs two Outer Banks businesses. He supports tax cuts, border control, pro-life policies, and Second Amendment rights, aligning with former President Trump’s agenda.

(The Center Square) – State Sen. Bobby Hanig will enter the Republican primary for North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, hoping to defeat Rocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson and eventually second-term incumbent Democratic Rep. Don Davis.



Rep. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck




Filing with the State Board of Elections is in December. Hanig has filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Commission. Roberson said he would run in April.

“I’m running because northeastern North Carolina deserves true conservative leadership that will fight for our community and the America first agenda,” he said in a release.

The seat was the most competitive between Democrats and Republicans in 2024 and figures to again be so in the 2026 midterms. Davis outlasted Republican Laurie Buckhout 49.52%-47.84%, winning by 6,307 votes of more than 376,000 cast.

Twenty-two counties are touched in the northeastern part of the state.

Hanig, R-Currituck, is a veteran of the Army. He has served the Board of Commissioners in Currituck County, and was in the state House of Representatives for two terms. By trade, he began as “the pool guy” and operates two businesses serving nearly 400 properties across the Outer Banks.

He’s chairman of the State and Local Government Committee, and serves as chairman within the Committee on Appropriations for General Government and Information Technology. He’s vice chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Local Government.

Four other assignments are Agriculture, Energy and Environment; Education/Higher Education; Regulatory Reform; and Transportation.

“I believe in President Trump’s America First Agenda and my record in the Legislature backs it up,” Hanig said. “I’ve cut taxes for North Carolina families, toughened border control in the state, stood up for life, and defended our Second Amendment rights.”

The post Hanig will vie for 1st Congressional District seat of Davis | North Carolina appeared first on www.thecentersquare.com



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Right

The article largely reports factual information about the candidates entering the North Carolina 1st Congressional District race, including their backgrounds, election filing status, and statements of political positions. It mainly quotes Sen. Bobby Hanig’s own words and campaign messaging, especially his alignment with “America First” and conservative values. The coverage uses neutral language without editorializing or explicitly endorsing any viewpoint. However, the focus on Hanig’s quoted statements about tax cuts, border control, pro-life stance, and Second Amendment rights, along with an absence of equivalent direct quotes from the Democratic incumbent or the other Republican candidate, subtly frames the narrative from a conservative perspective. This leads to a slight center-right tilt, as the piece highlights Hanig’s positions without presenting counterpoints or Democratic viewpoints in comparable detail. Overall, it functions as informational content about the race rather than overt advocacy, but the emphasis on conservative policy references indicates a modest center-right leaning.

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Longtime NC political reporter Laura Leslie named NC Newsline’s editor

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ncnewsline.com – Staff – 2025-09-05 06:00:00

SUMMARY: Laura Leslie, a veteran North Carolina political reporter with 21 years of experience, will become the new editor of NC Newsline on September 29. Leslie, currently WRAL’s capitol bureau chief, led the innovative NCCapitol project covering state politics across multiple platforms. Previously, she was capitol bureau chief at WUNC public radio and authored the award-winning blog “Isaac Hunter’s Tavern.” An Emmy winner recognized nationally, Leslie replaces Rob Schofield, who retired in August. She expressed gratitude to WRAL and enthusiasm for joining NC Newsline, part of the expanding States Newsroom nonprofit network. Leslie’s last day at WRAL is September 5.

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The post Longtime NC political reporter Laura Leslie named NC Newsline’s editor appeared first on ncnewsline.com

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Crops bountiful on NC farms in ’25, but recovery from ’24 still lags

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carolinapublicpress.org – Jane Winik Sartwell – 2025-09-04 08:57:00


North Carolina’s 2025 crop season shows promise with healthy corn, soybeans, cotton, and apples, a major improvement from 2024’s drought and storm damage. However, challenges remain: Tropical Depression Chantal caused flooding, wet conditions hurt tobacco, and relief payments from last year’s disasters are delayed. Farmers face financial stress due to low crop prices, rising input costs, trade tariffs impacting exports, and labor shortages exacerbated by strict immigration policies and higher wages. The USDA relocating operations to Raleigh raises hopes for better local support. Despite struggles, a bountiful harvest is expected, supporting the state’s agricultural resilience and fall agritourism.

The news about crops out of North Carolina farms is good this year: the corn is tall, the soybeans leafy, the cotton fluffy and the apples ripe. 

Compared to last year’s disastrous summer, when it seemed flooding was the only relief from extreme drought, this summer has left farmers feeling hopeful. In Wayne County, extension agent Daryl Anderson says this is the best corn crop the county has seen in 50 years.

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That’s a major turnaround from last year, when dry conditions decimated cornfields from the coast to the mountains. 

Still, no year in the fields is free of struggle. Rainy weather, delayed relief payments, market conditions and dramatic federal policy shifts have kept farmers on their toes.

Crops lie ruined in fields in Person County after Tropical Depression Chantal, which passed through the area on July 6, 2025. Provided / Person County Cooperative Extension

It’s been a wet year — at times, too wet. Tropical Depression Chantal flooded fields in Central North Carolina in early July. Unusually wet conditions all summer hurt the tobacco crop across the state. 

Plus, state relief money for the tribulations of 2024 is coming slow. The legislature just approved an additional $124 million to address last year’s agricultural disasters, but farmers still haven’t received the money originally allocated to the Ag Disaster Crop Loss Program in March. 

For Henderson County extension director Terry Kelley, the money is an urgent matter. In Kelley’s neck of the woods, apple farmers are still recovering from the devastation Helene wrought on their orchards. Finances are starting to spiral out of control for many. 

“Our farmers are really anxious to get that money,” Kelley told Carolina Public Press

Rains and flooding from Tropical Storm Helene create a massive washout in a Mills River tomato field in Henderson County in 2024. Provided / Terry Kelley / Henderson County Extension

“They’ve got bills due from last year. They’ve used their credit up to their limit and beyond. We need that money. It’s been a long summer of waiting.”

Though Helene upped the ante in the West, Kelley’s anxieties are felt across North Carolina. In Bladen County, where many 2024 crops were devastated by Tropical Storm Debbie, extension agent Matthew Strickland says there’s been a dearth of information about how the program works. 

“We are not sure when those payments will be issued and exactly how they will be calculated,” Strickland said. “We were told they’d go out mid-summer. There’s been no update. Who knows when they’ll go out? Nobody really knows.”

The financial pressure extends beyond those delayed relief payments. North Carolina farmers find themselves at the whim of unexpected shifts in both the market and federal policies.

Though both quality and yield are high for field crops this year, the price of those crops at market is low. Meanwhile, input costs continue to rise. This makes for an unsettling financial equation for farmers. 

Plus, President Donald Trump’s tariffs have made American crops less desirable overseas, according to Strickland. Before recent tariff hikes, lots of North Carolina corn, soybeans and tobacco made its way to China. Now, not as much. 

“With the political trade wars, we’re really worried when it comes to our soybeans and tobacco,” Surry County extension agent Ryan Coe told CPP. “A lot of farmers are still waiting to see what’s going to happen. We don’t have a crystal ball.”

The tariffs haven’t been all bad, though. While some crops suffer, others have found opportunities. Kelley says the lack of Mexican tomatoes on the market has created a higher demand for local Henderson County tomatoes, for example.

Labor, too, is giving farmers pause. Many rely on legal migrant workers, but the Trump administration’s strict immigration policies have tightened the market.

“It’s more difficult now to get labor, even with legal workers,” Kelley said. “It’s not available as it once was, and it’s terribly expensive.”

That’s because wages for migrant workers on legal H-2A visas continue to rise. In North Carolina, farmers must now pay migrant workers $16.16 per hour. This number is called an Adverse Effect Wage Rate, and it’s designed to ensure that wages for American workers don’t fall.

A cornfield at Trask Family Farms outside Wilmington on Aug. 29. Jane Winik Sartwell / Carolina Public Press

There’s a chance, however, that going forward, North Carolina farmers may have a bigger say in American agricultural policies. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is moving major operations to Raleigh, in an effort to bring the department closer to the nation’s farming hubs. Some North Carolina farmers are excited about it.

“Having the USDA in this area will be good for all farmers in North Carolina,” said Mikayla Berryhill, an extension agent in Person County, where farms were flooded by Chantal’s heavy rains. “We will be able to show them what specific problems we have here in North Carolina and get help with those.”

In the meantime, it looks like it will be a bountiful harvest of crops here in North Carolina. This fall’s agritourism attractions, from corn mazes and county fairs to hay rides and apple markets, should reflect that agricultural resilience.

This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Crops bountiful on NC farms in ’25, but recovery from ’24 still lags appeared first on carolinapublicpress.org



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The content presents a balanced and factual overview of agricultural conditions in North Carolina, highlighting both challenges and positive developments without evident partisan framing. It discusses impacts of federal policies, including tariffs and immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, in a straightforward manner without overt criticism or praise. The article focuses on practical issues affecting farmers, such as weather, market conditions, and government relief efforts, maintaining a neutral tone throughout.

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