CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – When Fray Road collapsed due to high water, Sam and Ruth Fogelgren were at their home in Advance Mills Village. Their two young daughters were out with the children’s grandmother, on the other side of the road.

It took two days for them to reunite.

“We knew they were safe and OK, but it was very unsettling to be home without them,” Ruth Fogelgren told Cville Right Now. “Especially with all that was going on and no certainty of when or how they would get home.”

Heavy rains and flooding led to Fray Road collapsing on July 19. The private roadway is the only access point between Albemarle County and the 32 residences in Advance Mills and the people who live there are no facing a lengthy and expensive repair project.

After two nights in a Charlottesville hotel, the Fogelgren’s daughters – ages 11 and 13 – and the children’s grandmother were able to return home, catching a ride with a neighbor on an ATV.

Geoff and Julie Goss were out of town, in Richmond, when the road collapsed. They returned home, parked their car at a friend’s place in an adjacent neighborhood, and hiked through the muddy woods – using cellphone flashlights – to get to their house in Advance Mills.

Their situations underscore the challenges facing the community, with residents worried about issues as weighty as medical or fire emergencies to more mundane day-to-day chores – how to dispose of trash or receive mail.

Four families have school-age children who are set to begin classes next month, Ruth Fogelgren said, and have been in discussions with Albemarle County about where a bus could pick them up, providing the families can get them to a pickup point.

Geoff Goss said he worries about the area’s elderly residents, and said the community is working together to make sure everyone is safe and cared for.

Residents reached out to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management but, because the collapse occurred on a private road, there’s only limited help the state government can provide. VDEM was able to coordinate with the forestry department to help bulldoze an area for a temporary road, spokesperson Jason Elmore told Cville Right Now. Elmore said the department also looked into possible federal grants to help pay for repairs, but found those are earmarked for public lands.

By this past weekend, two temporary emergency roads had been created, pathways that can be passed by car in clear weather. The Advanced Mills Village homeowners association used reserved funds to pay to put down gravel and fabric to fortify that road, which Geoff Goss said runs through another resident’s property, meaning it may not be a long-term location for a permanent road.

Residents are being encouraged to use the temporary roadways as sparingly as possible, so they remain viable.

“It suffices as an access road for emergency access for people to get in and out of the neighborhood sparingly,” Geoff Goss told Cville Right Now. “If people start to use it too much, it’s going to get bad.”

Albemarle County Fire and Rescue has been in the neighborhood daily, helping residents prepare for possible emergencies, working “closely with the neighborhood to assess the situation, identify an alternate access point for residents, and ensure that the 911 center has rerouting information to guide responders to the affected homes. The Office of Community Risk and Resilience checked existing smoke alarms while offering no-cost smoke alarm installation for any homes in need, shared fire prevention tips, and provided basic emergency preparedness guidance,” county spokesperson Reagan Whitlow told Cville Right Now.

“They’ve literally gone door-to-door installing extra smoke detectors for people and coming up with individualized safety plans,” Fogelgren said. “Because they can’t get a firetruck back there if there’s a fire. They’re going to come give us classes on how to stop bleeding and do all these kinds of things because no one can get here. They’re making signs to put at the end of the road and they have just been going above and beyond.”

Last week, on behalf of the Advance Mills Village homeowners association, the Gosses launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for a temporary emergency road and then to permanently rebuild the main road, projects with estimated costs of $50,000 and $500,000 respectively.

As of Monday morning, the page had raised over $16,600.

“For me, I moved out here to the country to get away from people, but now I’m finding that this community is a lot more tightly knit now after something like this,” Geoff Goss said. “We’re coming together to do everything we can to help everyone around here.”