Helene forced a North Carolina restaurant owner to leave his home. He just lost his ‘Cabin of Hope’ in recent wildfires

Months ago, a washed-out bridge damaged during Hurricane Helene’s flooding temporarily blocked Matthew Rogers from returning to his beloved North Carolina cabin. The recent wildfires in the state have now destroyed his home.

Months ago, a washed-out bridge damaged during Hurricane Helene’s flooding temporarily blocked Matthew Rogers from returning to his beloved North Carolina cabin. The lakeside property in Flat Rock that has been in his family for around 40 years – and has come to represent healing and hope, Rogers says – became a casualty of the recent wildfires in the state. After seeing the home he affectionately named the Cabin of Hope now smoldered to the ground, there would be nothing left for Rogers and his wife, who safely evacuated the wildfires, to return to. Over 6,500 acres have burned in the latest round of wildfires in North Carolina fueled by the lingering fallen trees and wood scattered across the ground after Helene, the deadliest hurricane to strike the US in nearly 20 years, slammed the state in September 2024, according to the North Carolina Forest Service. Rogers’ Cabin of Hope, named after a quote from 1994 film “The Shawshank Redemption,” survived Helene’s flooding last year. “(From) the movie, (it) struck me that hope is … a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good things ever die,” Rogers said.