Courtesy of Atomic Furnishing & Design
Megan Walsh is the cofounder of Atomic Furnishing & Design, a 10-year-old vintage furniture company located in Asheville, North Carolina, which she owns and operates with her husband, Todd Walsh.
This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Megan Walsh, 37, after Hurricane Helene ravaged the couple's business. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Todd and I started Atomic from nothing, and we've been in business for almost 11 years now.
We had a dream and a vision and started selling vintage furniture out of garage sales. We quickly moved to a 500-square-foot space and kept growing from there. It's been a lot of dedication, but Asheville really comes in for local businesses, and we would not be here without our community.
When we leased our current space near Biltmore Village along the Swannanoa River in 2018, we brought in other vendors to help them start out just like we'd done. We had about 20 vendors selling alongside our own inventory when Helene hit — everything from paintings to Persian rugs to Danish furniture to rare vintage records.
We live about 45 minutes north of Asheville, and during the storm, I noticed our security cameras at the store went off, which was not a good sign.
Once it stopped, we went into town to try to get a view, and saw that the water was up to the roof of a nearby Lowe's. I'd parked my car there the night before because I didn't want to drive home alone in the storm. It was completely unreal, and I was just gutted.
Inside the store, the water reached about 15 feet. It came in so strongly from the back of the building that it pushed everything to the front in a sort of stack. A few were items miraculously untouched, but about 95% of everything was destroyed. By my calculations, we lost over $230,000 in that building.
Courtesy of Atomic Furnishing & Design
That also includes the computers, the POS system, speakers — all the little things it takes to run a business that start adding up. On top of that, there was about $15,000 worth of product that was already sold, which has to be reimbursed.
We felt so much worse for our vendors than we did for ourselves. I think I've heard from 80% of them, and they haven't even mentioned themselves whatsoever. They just said they're so sorry about what happened.
We're trying to find a new space in Asheville that's big enough for us and our vendors to rebuild, but don't think we could ever be at a location near a river again.
We had basic insurance — and I did file a claim — but not a flood policy. I'd been trying to get one since early August, after we had some water issues due to rain over the summer, but I'd been still going back and forth with insurance companies.
Courtesy of Atomic Furnishing & Design
In the meantime, we can't sit still. We're trying to help others by delivering food and water to people who can't make it to aid stations.
We also have some unfinished inventory at workshops on our home property, where we refinish and reupholster items. As soon as we get power back, we're going to try to sell online and maybe even offer free delivery.
We'll do whatever we have to do to make it work. We have two little kids and have put our blood, sweat, and tears into this business for the last 10 and a half years. It's just too hard to walk away from it.
And even though we are going through so much, we're just holding onto the small moments of joy and resilience in our community.
