Haw River floods historic Saxapahaw, home of giant Paperhand puppets

Just before midnight, Mary Radulescu heard the knock on her apartment door and the insistent voices telling her to move her car.

The Haw River had flooded downtown Saxapahaw, rising so high that it completely covered the bridge.

By sunrise, every car left in the parking lot was sunk up to the roof, and the water filled the lower floor of her historic brick building. Radulescu could reach out the window and dip her hand in it.

”It was a pretty crazy night,” she said. “My poor cat is tormented. This is all so shocking. I feel like I’m on an ark.”

All around the historic mill town, residents gawked at the river that had hit historic heights while they were sleeping.

No casualties were reported, and the popular Haw River Ballroom appeared to stand on high enough ground to escape damage.

A fitness studio had water halfway up the front door. A koi pond flooded, and everyone wondered if the ornamental fish had been doomed or liberated.

By 10 a.m., the Haw dropped low enough to see the bridge covered in logs, along with the stranded cars whose drivers had tried crossing.

”My friend had to go out by police boat,” Radulescu said.

Near the bridge, the Haw still raced past splashing against the bridge pilings and lapping onto dry land.

On its banks, volunteers with the Paperhand Puppet Intervention that makes Saxapahaw its home hauled out the 6-foot figures well-known at festivals around the Triangle and set them out to dry in the sun. One of them, a sort of troll with an oversized nose, was visibly dripping.

”Papier-mache doesn’t like water,” said Barb Ford, a puppeteer.

The damage is too recent to size up, but for now, residents are sitting in dark, damp spaces, without air-conditioning in 90-degree heat, feeling lucky that nature spared them its worst.

This story was originally published July 7, 2025 at 11:46 AM.