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Ingles faces long recovery from Helene's floodwaters

One day after Hurricane Helene, shoppers waited in lines that looped around the length of the Ingles at Highland Lake Road. [LIGHTNING FILE PHOTO]

By Jane Winik Sartwell, Carolina Public Press, Published: October 23, 2024

Ingles Markets, the Asheville-based grocery mainstay of Western North Carolina, sustained severe damage to its distribution center along the Swannanoa River and several supermarket locations when Hurricane Helene hit the mountains just over three weeks ago. 

The severe damage to Ingles’ Black Mountain distribution center will have a long-term ripple effect across the region, impacting Western North Carolinians’ food security, diet quality, unemployment levels, consumer behavior, and the viability of the company itself. 

Plus, Ingles locations in four Western NC communities remain closed: Spruce Pine, Morganton, Swannanoa and Newland. In some cases, these closures are creating new food deserts in a region that is difficult to traverse due to damaged roads and mountainous terrain. 

Loss of power, trucks and yes even loss of life

In the week leading up to Helene, operations at Ingles had already begun to falter. Storm anxiety caused waves of bulk-buying, and customers across the region were met with empty shelves.

Days after the storm hit on Sept. 27, U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-Hendersonville, announced that he had sent “an industrial-sized generator” to power the Ingles distribution plant in Black Mountain. Employees spent the night at the distribution center on Sept. 29 to await the arrival of the generator.

“This will allow the distribution facility to begin emptying its shelves to restock empty stores,” Edwards said in a statement. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.

The flooding of the Swannanoa River, and the damage to the town of Swannanoa itself, made for some of the most dramatic wreckage of the storm. The distribution plant is located on the bank of the river. Though some key preparations were made, no one was prepared for the strength and volume of the river water. It essentially negated the usefulness of Edwards’ generator.

“Ingles Markets is devastated by the catastrophic damage from Helene,” an Oct. 2 Facebook post from the grocery chain said. 

“Unprecedented destruction and tragic loss of life have touched every town, city, community, and business. Our hometown Black Mountain, North Carolina which houses our distribution center was one of these areas. We had loss of power, critical infrastructure, transport vehicles, inventory, and yes even loss of life.”

The damage to the distribution center is particularly devastating to the chain’s operations and bottom line, as well as to continued availability of food in the region. 

“Loss of a distribution center compounds losses because it expands the area impacted, which may extend to communities not hurt by the storm,” Michael Walden, N.C. State University professor of consumer economics, told Carolina Public Press.

“Rebuilding the damaged facilities will require a long period — months, maybe years — which implies temporary facilities may have to be erected to store the quantities required by the communities. Because grocery stores and supermarkets provide products essential for living, replacing and repairing them will likely receive priority.”

After the storm, Ingles parking lots across the disaster zone became food distribution hubs for both people and pets. Even though the store itself was closed, Chick-Fil-A gave out free meals at the Ingles store in Swannanoa on Oct. 7. The Red Cross and Samaritan’s Purse have done the same. Ingles also partnered with MANNA foodbank to distribute shelf-stable foods and essential supplies to storm survivors.

Ingles’ stock price dropped more than 18 percent between Sept. 30 and Oct. 7. There has been a slight rebound of 2.5 percent in the last five days, however.

Phone lines are still down at Ingles’ headquarters in Asheville, and company spokespeople did not respond to emails in time for publication.

Food and employment insecurity

The Ingles location in Spruce Pine is one of the four stores that remain closed. The store is one of the top employers of Mitchell County, leaving hundreds out of work. The deadline to apply for Disaster Unemployment Assistance through the state is Dec. 2. Remote parts of the county depend on this Ingles location for food just as much as the residents of Spruce Pine, and the closure of the Ingles has created or worsened food deserts.

“Here in Bakersville, there is no grocery store, so we travel to the Ingles in Spruce Pine for groceries,” Charles Bynes, chair of the economic development board for Mitchell County, told CPP.  “Now that Ingles is closed, we have the Dollar General store for groceries, or a 20-mile commute to the Ingles in Burnsville. Two of the three restaurants we had in Bakersville were destroyed in the flood.”

Many residents in counties with closed Ingles stores — Mitchell, Avery, Buncombe and Burke — are resorting to dollar stores for groceries, which notoriously lack healthy options. 

“The net effect of damage to Ingles’ distribution center is worsened diet quality in the mountains,” Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill, told CPP. “In the case where the only grocery option becomes a dollar store, it’s very bad. Dollar stores have zero produce and zero healthy options. It’s all highly processed food, whereas a normal grocery store like Ingles has fresh meat, produce, eggs, and other healthy options.”

But Matthew Metzgar, economics professor at UNC-Charlotte, points out that anything is better than nothing. 

“Areas that have dollar stores are probably a little better protected at the moment in terms of food security,” Metzgar said. “And even communities that have big grocery stores will take a hit on food quality in the short-term, because so much refrigeration went out. Perishable foods like meat, eggs, fruit, and vegetables are much harder to get across the board.”

Burke County’s Ingles location in Morganton sustained the worst flooding of any grocery store in town, according to city manager Sally Sandy. 

“Ingles’ temporary closure is certainly a part of our economic distress after the storm,” Sandy told CPP. “We had 55 businesses flood, and Ingles is one of those, and also one of our largest grocery stores. It is a regional draw for us too, with substantial employment.”

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