Unicoi Chamber reflects on 2024 Apple Festival cancellation

Nearly a year after Helene, Unicoi County Chamber of Commerce officials looked back on the difficult decision to cancel one of the community's biggest traditions — the 2024 Unicoi County Apple Festival.Chamber Executive Director Amanda Delp said the choice to call off the festival came only days after the storm."It was a very difficult decision that we had to make, but it was also an obvious decision that we needed to cancel at the time," Delp said. "We knew first and foremost we had community members at that time that were still missing, that search and rescue and officials were still actively searching for. We did not want to divert any attention or any efforts away from that."The festival, which Delp said has drawn more than 100,000 visitors to downtown Erwin in previous years, relies heavily on local emergency services and municipal departments. Delp said it was clear those resources needed to remain focused on recovery."We rely heavily on our first responders, as well as our police department, fire department and street department," she said. "We knew moving forward with the festival would put an additional burden on those folks."She said transportation issues also factored into the cancellation."I-26 was essentially closed, even over in western North Carolina," Delp said. "We knew that just getting people to the festival would be difficult. And then once they got here, there were so many affected areas, parking would have been an issue."Despite knowing it was the right call, Delp said the loss carried a heavy emotional and economic toll."We know what an economic impact the festival has on the community, on the vendors, on the businesses, and we knew the flood was going to cause all those businesses and organizations to take an economic hit," she said. "We knew losing the festival would have an added economic cost, and we wish we could've avoided that, but looking at both sides, we knew the decision had to be made."The chamber also shifted its role in the weeks following Helene. Delp recalled she and Tourism Director Cathy Huskins set aside festival preparations to join local relief efforts."The morning of the flood, we were here in the office preparing for the festival," Delp said. "It was going to start just six days later. Once we got out and saw the devastation, we knew we had to help in some way, so we tried to fill in wherever we were best needed."She said their first stop was at the county animal shelter, which had been evacuated."The animals had been brought up to Food City, and we helped get the animals in homes and placed so they would be taken care of until they could find permanent homes," Delp said.She said the chamber team also worked at the county's emergency command centers and continued filling gaps where needed, but on a personal level, she said the cancellation was "devastating.""We knew in our heart that that's what we needed to do, and we knew in our minds it was the best decision for our community, but actually writing out that press release, posting it, getting up and making the announcement at the press conference — it broke my heart," she said.Delp worried about the impact on the festival's reputation after a previous cancellation in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but she said vendors responded with overwhelming support after the storm."They knew that our county and our community was really hurting after the flood, and they understood the reason for the cancellation," Delp said. "That eased the hurt just a little bit, knowing that our vendors were so gracious."Delp said the anniversary of the storm will also be marked by reflection. The Unicoi County Apple Festival will return this year on Friday, Oct. 3 and Saturday, Oct. 4.