The emotions were, at times, overwhelming, March 13, when a crowd assembled around the front yard of a cottage on Edwards Avenue in Swannanoa.
As Zoye Gloria Miller became the latest Beacon Village resident to return to her home since Tropical Storm Helene, dozens of volunteers, friends and neighbors gathered to join Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders for a ceremony blessing the residence.
Miller was among the vast majority of residents on the street in the neighborhood, often referred to as Lower Beacon Village, displaced from their homes when the Swannanoa River rose to submerge U.S. 70 and nearly all of Edwards Avenue. At the highest flood stage, only the peaks of roofs along the small dead end street remained above the water…