Every road cleared and bridge rebuilt represents a neighbor helping a neighbor. Explore the stories behind the work.
Projects
Green River Cove Recovery
Overview
After Hurricane Helene destroyed over 30 homes, Jake and his team navigated washed-out roads to clear debris, demolish unsafe structures, recover belongings, and deliver donated campers — all at no cost to residents. Debris removal (RVs, automobiles, septic tanks, personal belongings, and other harmful debris), home demolition, home site preparation, facilitating delivery of donated campers, recovering personal property for the residents of Green River Cove. This project spanned several days and multiple property owners.
Home Demolition and Site Preparation / Asset Recovery
Highlighted here is work completed for Fred Ruddock (aka “Fast Fred”). Fred has been a key member of the Green River Cove Community his entire life as his property was once owned by his late grandmother, Katie.
In Jake’s own words….. “Fast Fred I teared up tearing down your home today. If there would have been a way to pick it up and put it back on a foundation I would have. On the positive side, I was able to build you a new homesite pad and regrade your yard to give you a nice view as well as easy access to the river.”
As of today, Fred has a graded site, a storage shed, a camper, and several containers that were recovered from the raging river.
Fred’s Testimonial
“My name is Joseph Fred Ruddock Jr and I live in Green River Cove Rd, Saluda NC 28773. Like many in the Green River Cove, I lost my house and belongings to the flood waters of Helene. This is my testimonial of the efforts of Jake Jarvis and his Precision Grading Company on behalf of the flood victims.
I met Jake Jarvis the day after the storm and flood. I was hiking out the lower end of the cove to make contact so kin fold would know that I and other members of the home folks in the lower cove had survived. Jake was driving his side by side with a friend and large chainsaws to survey the damage and help. They cut through tree falls to reach the lower bridge and gave me a lift on my way back in.
As soon as it was possible to reach the lower bridge with heavy equipment Jake Jarvis was back. He brought in a bulldozer and tracked excavator by forging the river. In places along the washed out road he had to use the riverbed to reach us. Once I arrived he immediately began helping us free of charge. My house was a total loss but it was lodged on trees along my property line and al large pile a debris that held it in place during the peak of the flood.
Jake Jarvis used his excavator to move the debris from the remains of my house. Ultimately, he deconstructed the ruins of my house into a pile with the debris along the right of way and road. This took more than a few hours. He spent additional time in the following days grading my property that had significant sand dunes and debris from the storm. This work required more than a couple of full days of work. He did all of this work without charging me any money.
Then Jake continued working upstream helping folks remove debris and destroyed homes from their properties. Over thirty homes were washed away of destroyed in the Green River Cove. He did not charge anyone for these services. He also did a lot of grading to help restore the river and folks property along the river.
Later Jake went out of his way to recover my two twenty foot cargo containers that I used as storage buildings or tool sheds on my property. One washed a mile downstream while the other washed about three miles downstream. Help brought both of them back to my property using his heavy equipment and a dump truck and trailer in the later case. All of this work was done freely for myself and others impacted by the flood.
He has also been helping folks in Bat Cave and Black Mountain. He has even built bridges in addition to the work described above. All of this while volunteering his skills and equipment. Donations are helping fund the bridge materials and such.” (SIC)
Bat Cave/Chimney Rock Recovery
Overview
Precision Grading rebuilt bridges, stabilized riverbanks, and restored access for families cut off from their homes. In one major project, they saved a home from collapsing and gave the owners safe access for the first time in months.
The Gonage’s Story
Projects in the Bat Cave/Chimney Rock area include but are not limited to restoring riverbanks, building private bridges to restore homeowner access, reinforcing retaining walls and foundation repairs. The project highlighted here has been completed for Mr. and Mrs. Gongage and has also benefited other residents in the community.
The project is a large-scale stabilization project to prevent the Gongage’s home from falling into river and to restore access to the main state maintained road. The elderly couple live in the home full time and spent their life’s savings to build their dream home. After the storm, the couple had been hiking out to the road for approximately three months.
The couple had two unscrupulous builders (one of which took $80k and disappeared) and three painstaking years to finally complete the home last summer. The process left the couple with limited financial resources, but happy to have their forever home completed. During the storm, Helene dumped over 30 inches of rain, a tornado went right by the home, completely eliminated their 60-foot bridge, and eroded their yard to the footings of their house. It left them with no access to the main state-maintained road and their house dangling 40 feet above the river.
The Precision Grading, LLC team completed their access project, and they now have a safe driveway and a stabile home. The project was labor intensive requiring large, heavy boulders to be lifted and placed below the home and riverbed. This pushed the limits of the Precision Grading, LLC machines. There was also a significant amount of backfilling required to gain height and stabilize the mountainside and home.
This project also addressed the landslide across the driveway and reflowing the water back to its original creek bed. The neighboring residents also have safe access now as well, allowing multiple families to benefit from these repairs. The pictures below highlight a small portion of the work done and show the homeowner being able to drive out of their driveway for the first time after access was restricted for 83 days.
Lidya’s Testimonial
“It's hard for me to express my feelings for what Precision Grading is doing for us.
We did not even know if we had a home to come back to till five days after the storm. We had spent the night with our daughters in Fletcher. 64 was mostly impassable. Where the road ended it was about 2 miles to our house and the way we made it was with a local lady and her ATV that drove me there. The damage was incredible. We had 4 mud slides to both sides of our house. The bridge to the property was completely gone and the creek had turned into a raging river bringing down houses, bridges, boulders, cars and trees banging against the front of our house had deteriorated half the property and exposed our septic lines. But amazingly our house was still there and livable.
4 weeks later when electricity was restored we decided to move in. Not an easy task as we had to leave our car on 64, climb down the embankments, cross the creek and walk 1/4 mile through a gravel road full of down trees and debris, but better than roaming around with family and friends. It was during that first day of figuring out how we would get our items across the river that a man named Larry stopped to ask what we were doing. When we told him our plans he said "no way you are doing that" and next morning he met us at the creek with 7 very strong men who carried our belongings to the house, cut down the trees on the gravel road and made a path for us and brought us non perishables. That night he told us that one of the men helping us was with Buckey Bridge and they were going to build us a walking bridge (no more waddling in the water).
A couple of weeks later he brought Jake to us and a miracle happened. He built us a temporary bridge we could drive over and for the past 10 days he has been working on restoring the front of the house. His company rerouted the river back to the way it was before Helene, he has moved huge boulders at the bottom of our property and he is now filling it with soil. I am in awe of what they are doing for not just us but so many people in the Bat Cave area. While here they cleaned out the hill for our neighbor Linda across 64 and her driveway to the house. They also helped our neighbor to the left with culverts and gravel.
Thanks to Jake we can now drive our car to purchase supplies and even go and visit our grandchildren more often. We can sleep in peace during stormy nights knowing that the front of the house is safe and our septic fixed.
Jake has had some slack about why he is helping people with a nice home but his attitude is he is helping anyone that needs the help. This house is our retirement investment. Yes we are comfortable but we don't have any extra money. The bridge alone is over $200K and there are just two of us living in the community. To fix the front of the house we got estimates as high as $400K. There was no way we could come up with that kind of money. Fema max amount to help out is $42,000 and we are still fighting to get that. SBA told us they are out of money for us to get a loan. The bank will not lend us the money because according to them if the house is not accessible there is no worth to it.
Jake and Precision Grading are our angels. The work they are doing can only be described as miracles and God's hand helping us all. We now have the hope we will be able to fix our problems here.
We moved from Florida to get away from hurricanes (hi hi hi). We had a hard time building this house with lots of unscrupulous builders in the area but we have found out through this terrible disaster that the locals are the best friends you can have. That churches and the American people from all over the USA are all we need in times like this (forget about government) and that neighbors are always here to lend a helping hand.
Anything we can do to help them get a grant, they more than anyone else deserves it. Call me anytime.”
--Lidya (SIC)
Pearson Falls Recovery
Overview
In Pearson Falls, Jake and two volunteers rebuilt a resident’s destroyed bridge, regraded properties to prevent flooding, and helped multiple neighbors return to their homes safely — all through donated labor. Projects in the Pearson Falls area include but are not limited to restoring riverbanks and building bridges to restore homeowner access. The project highlighted here is the Precision Grading, LLC team building a bridge to restore a resident access to his home.
A Testimony from the Pearson Falls Resident
“My name is Michael Phillips, and I live in a small home on Pearson Falls rd Saluda, N.C. As a witness to the destruction of Hurricane Helene I can share the following facts about Jake Jarvis and his tiny crew of volunteers two volunteers Matt and Stefan. Shortly after the hurricane Jake and his men came to Pearson Falls rd with their dump trucks, bulldozer, and excavators, looking for people and homes that were in great need of help. They restored the culvert that acts as a bridge for my neighbors KC & Liz. Jake regraded the property surrounding the Brown's house so water would no longer run through their basement.
Jake and his crew tore the porch from my neighbor Buffy's house because it was about to pull the house out of square.
Jake and his men also used their machinery to regrade the property for my neighbors Sam & Scott, and this diverted the water around their house, saving their home from heavy water damage.. keep in mind that these homeowners weren't even home or able to live at their homes until this work was done. I could go on and tell you about other neighbors of mine that Jake helped, never asking for payment or reimbursement. As for me, the bridge to my home was washed away. My bridge being gone is a big deal. I was unable to live in my home because of it.
But then Jake Jarvis and his tiny crew of volunteers came into my life and built me the most magnificent little bridge connecting my home to Pearson fall's rd again! That little bridge would have cost over $50,000 to build, yet there was no charge from Jake and Precision Grading!
I have to say that the most impressive thing about Jake Jarvis, and his volunteers Matt and Stefan is THE WAY THEY GIVE! During the entire time they were building my bridge they were smiling, cheerful, greeting me with hugs and saying with hugs at the end of the day, never once asking for anything.
My experience with Jake, Matt, and Stefan has been life changing! God bless them.” (SIC)
