MARSHALL - Officials have declared a state of emergency in this Madison County town after the French Broad River rose 7 feet in about 12 hours. Data from the U.S. Geological Survey show the river’s surface waters in Marshall climbed from three-and-a-half feet at midnight to nearly 11 feet by noon on Friday.

The fast-rising waters swept an RV parked in the Rollins community downstream around 1 p.m. Marshall Mayor Jack Wallin, who lives in Marshall neighborhood located right along the banks of the French Broad River, said no one was in the vehicle at the time.

“That was just sickening,” Wallin said. “It was brand new.”

Wallin said that though his neighbors are now taking precautions to get their vehicles to higher ground, the residents are familiar with the threats flooding can bring.

“We get anxious, but we’ve been here for a long time,” he said. “If you live on a river, you’re going to spend a few days of the year with trouble, but the rest of the year, it’s beautiful.”

Blannahassett Island floods

By noon Friday, high waters washed up to the front steps of Madison High Studios. Located on Blannahassett Island in the middle of the French Broad River in downtown Marshall, the longtime high school now serves as artist studios.

Sculptor Nina Kawar arrived at the bridge that serves the roughly six-acre island to find the parking lot completely flooded by 2 p.m. With water rising high enough to nearly cover the wheels of cars stranded on the island, Kawar could not get inside the building to collect her works inside her studio.

“I can’t do the show,” Kawar said of a two-day exhibition planned in Asheville. “Literally everything is in there.”

With her first-floor studio standing about 6 feet above the flood waters, Kawar said she wasn’t too worried about any possible damage to her pieces. Still, missing out on the opportunities the weekend show would bring would have an impact.

“It’s a big chunk of money,” she said, before finding a silver lining. “I guess I’ll spend more time with my family instead.”

For Dave Schmucker, who works as the facilities manager of the 1920s building, the flooding threat marked a new experience.

“In 11 years at the studios, I have not seen anything like this,” he said as he looked over Blannahassett Island from the bridge that connects it with downtown Marshall. “The basement is flooded already.”

Longtime Marshall residents compared the flooding to storms they’ve seen in the past.

Chris Worley stood along the riverside railroad tracks and remembered how flooding on the island kept him out of elementary school more than 40 years ago. “I was in school on the island in ’77 and we missed two weeks because of flooding,” he said. “The basement was full of mud.”

Addressing any damage done to the building by this round of flooding will now fall to Schmucker. “It’ll be a massive cleanup,” he said. “This is going to cost some money.”

By late afternoon Friday, as river levels slowly receded, Marshall authorities said they would continue to monitor flood waters. “We’ll be watching and manning things throughout the night,” Town Administrator Nancy Allen said.