Industry Nine Owner Shares Update on Employees, Factory, and Recovery Efforts After Hurricane Helene
Industry Nine has long prided itself on the fact that each and every one of its wheels, rims, and other bike components is manufactured and hand built in Asheville, North Carolina. "We are all-in on everything we do—people, products, and our community," the company states on its website.
This week, that ethos was put to the test as Hurricane Helene pummeled its way north from the Florida coastline into the steep mountains of western North Carolina. The Associated Press (AP) is currently putting Hurricane Helene's death toll of above 150, with at least 50 of those fatalities occurring in the mountains surrounding Asheville.
Clint Spiegel, the founder and owner of Industry Nine, is a life-long resident of Asheville, and says the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene is still hard to fully fathom. As he and his company began to pick up the pieces, BIKE caught up with him and his Director of Operations, Isaac Presson, for a quick status update on their employees, the greater Asheville area, and what's next for recovery efforts.
In the immediate aftermath of the storm, Spiegel says that his only concern was to make sure all of his over 100 staff members were safe. Presson similarly expresses relief that everyone in the Industry Nine family has at this point been accounted for - but acknowledges that they are still very much in an active search and rescue mode in the greater Asheville region overall.
"I've been spending 10 or 11 hours a day with the missing persons searches," Presson says. "The first day, I was on bike," he shares of putting his recreational skills to very different use. "There were seven volunteers and we were just biking, because there was no gas at first, and a lot of the roads were inaccessible for driving, so we were biking to do wellness checks on people."
Since then, Presson says more than 300 folks have swelled their volunteer ranks. "So I've now been working on data collection, because there's a much bigger bottleneck on that side. As reports have come back, I'm trying to aggregate that data, but we're basically trying to build an airplane that's already taken off in terms of the process," he shakes his head.
The terrain around Asheville is playing a large role in the chaos: steep mountains tower over deep creek and river valleys, with small communities tucked into back hollows. The National Weather Service reported anywhere from over 17 inches of rain in Asheville proper to upwards of 24 inches in Spruce Pine, a town in the Blue Ridge Mountains some 50 miles northeast of Asheville.
"When you put that in perspective," Spiegel says, "24 inches of rain falling off all those mountain ranges is just a torrent into the creeks, and the creeks are steep. So it builds up a lot of force." That force was what had the biggest and most devastating impact on towns downhill of all that water, taking out bridges, roads, and whole homes.
"We were prepared for our main river to flood," Spiegel admits, "Maybe not as much as it did, which is the highest ever recorded, but the level of rain was just staggering. And the wind and the trees down is on an order that no one around here has ever seen. They've blocked roads like crazy and taken out all the power lines."
Presson adds that while the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers in Asheville proper did flood, and in historic fashion, "what borders those rivers are mostly businesses. So there's a huge financial hit - Asheville's business infrastructure is destroyed - but very few homes were lost. It's the areas outside of town, where people live more on rivers and creeks, where stories are still just coming out. Sounds like a lot of those creeks flash-flooded within minutes, to the point where people couldn't even get out of their houses in time."
As Presson continues to help with missing person identification systems, Spiegel says he's turn his attention to what he knows best: mechanization and industrial-level solutions. "Our buildings handled the storm," Spiegel says, somewhat amazed. "Where I'm standing right now at our factory is just one of the oddly un-hit places."
With limited power and cell service back by midday Tuesday, Spiegel says he is working to increase the amount of assistance he and his team can offer. Water, food, and comms are still in short supply throughout the Asheville area, so Spiegel said he's been sending trucks out to pick up what supplies they can to bring back for distribution out of the Industry Nine headquarters.
Potable water remains one of the biggest concerns for Asheville and surrounding areas. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper confirmed with the AP on Tuesday that more than 12 water plants in the state remained inoperable. "The flooding took out tons of pipes at the reservoirs, so we have no idea when they're going to get water back to us," Spiegel says. As Presson puts it: "They're essentially trying to build an entire water infrastructure from the ground up at this point."
Initially, Spiegel says he had hopes of retrofitted Industry Nine's miraculously intact machinery to sanitize water from the creek flowing past their factory. "We anodize our hubs, so we've got a big ionizing system for our water because it's got to be super pure." Initially unsure if the process would work, Spiegel says he was nonetheless optimistic: "We usually figure out how to make things work; we've got a lot of good, smart people, for sure."
Industry Nine out of Asheville, North Carolina specializes in anodized hubs, spokes and other mountain bike components.
Photo courtesy of: Industry Nine
And even though, as of Wednesday, Spiegel and his team did discover that they would not be able to remove enough pathogens to give their first idea legs, they remain undaunted: "Now, we're trying to find and buy big water tanks to fill at wells connected to generators, and distribute that way," Spiegel explains.
"He's a psychopath in the best possible way," Presson laughs of Spiegel and his indefatigable nature. And that, more than anything, might be what both Industry Nine and their broader western North Carolina community have going for them: "good, smart people" with just enough creative energy to figure out immediate solutions.
One Industry Nine employee, Anna Barton, for example, has found herself unexpectedly managing distribution of Venmo donations in the form of food, water and assistance to area residents, even though Barton said she hasn't been to her damaged (but not destroyed) home in days, after a lack of food and water forced her, her husband, and their young child to evacuate.
Other employees, Spiegel said, are banding together to form chainsaw brigades; as mountain bikers in a thickly forested region, they've had to hone the skill after years of encountering downed trees across their trails. "There is literally an infinite amount of chainsaw work around here right now," Spiegel says, "So we've been having a bunch of people going around just chainsawing everything up."
And Presson points out that, despite the tragedy surrounding them all, "there's been a ton of positives - the people willing to check in on their neighbors, community cookouts when maybe one person in the neighborhood has a gas stove, everyone being so generous with their time and resources. We're definitely seeing the community prop itself up on one another."
Because at this point, addressing the most immediate tasks at hand and going from there feels like all anyone can do. Spiegel said he's sure more cohesive recovery efforts will evolve over time, hinting that Industry Nine will likely be adding related information to the company's website at some point soon. And Presson admits he has given thought to just how long the trails cleanup and rebuild will take, once the initial crisis phase of hurricane clean up has passed. "I imagine they are going to be inoperable for months and months."
In the meantime, when asked what the greater mountain bike community can do to help, both Spiegel and Presson are slow to respond. "I honestly don't know," Spiegel admits. "I'll tell you when we find out more, but heck, we've barely been able to talk to anybody; we are setting up a Starlink system at the factory, so we'll be able to have better communication, and then maybe we'll figure some more stuff out."
Presson agrees: "It's hard to help from afar. It's very kind of people to be giving money, but there's no shortage of people wanting to provide food and water at this point. I think the work that will really begin and be especially specific to the mountain bike community will probably begin in a few weeks or more." He mentions the Pisgah Area SORBA, the greater Asheville area's IMBA chapter, as a place to turn to when that happens. "They're heavily volunteer based and they're going to have a massive, massive need at some point in the coming weeks."
Pisgah Area SORBA Executive Director Natalie Narburgh confirmed Presson's suspicions in a brief email response to a BIKE inquiry: "I have been in contact with our local USFS and their personnel are out volunteering in the community right now. Our next step will be a coordinated trail and infrastructure assessment, followed by organized efforts for rehabilitation. I'm not sure when to expect these assessments to take place, as many of the roads in our area are washed out as well. We imagine we will be facing hundreds of downed trees, washed-out tails, and destroyed bridges, but we really have no idea and only time will tell."
Narburgh, like Spiegel and Presson, says that her only concern for now is on "focusing efforts and energy on the most immediate need: caring for our friends, family, and community. I never thought we would be in the situation we are right now - where active rescues and recoveries are taking place, and where we are constantly thinking of getting immediate and basic needs to our community."
As more information becomes available about how the mountain bike community can help those affected by Hurricane Helene, Bike Magazine will provide updates whenever possible; for now, you can read our original article about Hurricane Helene's impact on the southeast and Appalachia, which includes information on donating to current recovery efforts.
