‘Heaven on earth’: Beloved Lake Lure Flowering Bridge was among the landmarks wiped out by Helene

LAKE LURE, N.C. ( QUEEN CITY NEWS ) – Hurricane Helene severely damaged a place with priceless sentimental value.

The Flowering Bridge in Lake Lure was once an idyllic setting.

The day Helene blew through the Hickory Nut Gorge, the anxiety mounted. Photographer Calvin Sneed of Chattanooga, Tennessee, worried about a place close to his heart.

“And all of the sudden pictures of that destruction down the Rocky Broad River started showing up, the first thing that I thought of was The Flowering Bridge,” Sneed told Queen City News.

The photos of what’s left of the Lake Lure landmark are heart-wrenching, especially to those who have been there. There are no signs of the glorious gardens that drew hundreds of thousands of people each year. The Flowering Bridge’s Facebook page shared pictures taken by volunteer Alice Garrard as she and her husband evacuated Chimney Rock.

“The first thing I wondered was … ‘Lord, why did you let this happen, to something that beautiful? It was a little piece of heaven on earth,” Sneed says.

He photographed The Flowering Bridge at the height of its beauty, with some 2,000 species of plants.

We met the bridge hunter in the summer at High Shoals Bridge in Gaston County.

Calvin preserves such structures with a camera in hand.

“If you don’t save history right at that moment, it’s gone,” he stressed in September.

Those words resonate after the fate of the Flowering Bridge and its incredible array of flowers.

“That arranging of the flowers, that level of care that’s given to something that God has given us,” said Sneed.

“We really don’t know what’s ahead for us,” says Linda Reandeau, a Lake Lure Flower Bridge board member.

Losing a labor of love just adds to the anguish of the community.

“What I would say is that all of our volunteers are residents, and many of them are dealing with their own issues,” Reandeau said. “We have several who are homeless.”

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