Hurricane Helene: When Things Fall Apart
Some things can’t be fixed. Some things lost, are lost forever.
“The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
BURKE COUNTY, North Carolina—Power and cell service were restored to my house a couple of nights ago. So I’m still catching up on news, both local and national, checking in with friends and family, and trying to become more informed about the broader situation.
Each time I’ve gone into town for cell service, I’ve turned to social media feeds to gauge how other towns further west are doing. And I’ve sobbed every time as I scroll through my feeds, seeing video after video of what is happening here.
There are few words for the blanket of devastation Hurricane Helene has unleashed upon our region. At best, I have fractured thoughts of nearly identical scenes repeated throughout towns and counties across southern Appalachia.
(Swannanoa, NC a few days after Hurricane Helene.)1
Helicopters, many of them flown by private pilots eager to assist, fly over my home every thirty minutes on their way up, presumably, to the washed-out counties of Avery, Buncombe, McDowell, Mitchell, Watauga, and Yancey.
(An aerial rescue crew saving an elderly couple. )2
Bat Cave. Chimney Rock. Lake Lure: these places are gone from the map, piled debris fills their century-old reservoir with casualties—some likely human, but most of it roofs, walls, windows, fences, cars, furniture, and materials recognized by the locals who built these communities. It’s practically a landfill now. Some people can identify exactly which business or homes originated from which piece of mountain flotsam and jetsam.
(A resident recounting the devastation around Lake Lure.)3
We’re not supposed to experience disasters like this. These mountains have long been the refuge for coastal dwellers escaping the major hurricanes that bombard their low-country towns. The mountains are supposed to be a haven.
100-year floods. 1916. 2024.
These events are occurring more frequently throughout the world, and we are only the most recent victims. There will be many more as the earth and its vast oceans continue to heat up.
Climate change is here.
Concerned Appalachians eager to help load up whatever mode of transportation they can to tackle sunken roads and almost impassable terrain that didn’t exist a week ago—Hurricane Helene has terraformed our region. The rivers and creeks now flow differently. The very hills and mountains have moved.
(A man explains the destruction of a home he has known for decades.)4
Goats. Horses. Mules. ATVs. Tractors. Backhoes.
People are traversing newly formed topography with whatever means available to get clean water, baby formula, dried food, hygiene products, pet food, generators, toiletries, and medical prescriptions to the thousands of isolated homes in these sparsely populated communities.
(A group delivers insulin by horse.)5
“I need a hundred pounds of Benadryl,” I overhear one community organizer say. It sounds absurd, and the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. Hurricane Helene has left hornets, wasps, and bees without homes, too. Like us, they’re scared and desperate, stinging rescuers trying to provide relief to others.
(The tragic aftermath in Avery County, NC.)6
Our losses are broadcast to the rest of the country via TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, made available as soon as our people can find a power source and cellular service or Wi-Fi. Thousands of first responders, good Samaritans, National Guard members, and family from elsewhere pour into our region.
People want to help but face the paradox; the more helpers that come here the more difficult it is for emergency specialists to move and coordinate supplies and disaster relief on these limited and very temporary causeways and roads.
In town, churches gather essential supplies to go higher up the mountain. Local businesses band together to offer clothing exchanges for those who have lost their homes, hot meals, free showers to clean their anxious bodies, power outlets to recharge their sole means of contact with the outside world, and Wi-Fi to broadcast it to loved ones who fared better or live beyond the zone of destruction.
A guild of potters on Main Street organizes in front of their studio to feed neighbors meals cooked in crock pots with what canned foodstuffs they can find. “How much does it cost?” one woman whispers. “It’s free,” volunteers say, returning a kind look to a frightened face. “We’re just trying to help where we can.”
Another woman with two children steps up. The look in her eyes tells you she’s barely maintaining composure. What has she just lost? Where will she get the money to feed her family? Will she still have a job in the wake of this disaster that has annihilated our economic infrastructure (something slowly built over the years that has only just started to rebound following the pandemic)?
Those were “unprecedented times.” These are unprecedented times.
We’re still in rescue and first-response mode. The recovery will take years.
People appear in places with their chainsaws and tractors to cut and remove trees that have fallen on homes, roads, and power lines. Local tree trimming companies and those with bucket trucks offer their services for free.
This is not a time to charge your neighbors a dime for their needs.
Misinformation abounds; there is no federal aid coming, they say; supplies are being turned away, don’t go up the mountain, somebody says; FEMA is only sending aid to big towns like Asheville, they say. Marauders and looters are aplenty, they say.
Political temperaments continue to color what people believe is fact or propaganda, even in these times of disaster. Perhaps especially so.
A thought occurs to me only a week after Hurricane Helene unloaded herself on western North Carolina: What about those hiking the Appalachian Trail?
Nobody with immediate access to weather updates thought the storm would be so powerful. Twenty-something-foot walls of water drowned mountain villages. To hikers carrying their lean packs the hundreds of miles through mountains, many with minimal communication with “civilization,” it must have felt like the end of times.
A friend is tender and inconsolable learning that a loved one in Asheville didn’t make it through the tropical storm; another friend of hers remains missing.
A few days later, I’m camped out at Waterbean Coffee for the morning, sitting on its patio because the interior is full, everyone borrowing its internet and power outlets, when a friend rolls up beside us. Power has been restored to his house but he’s purchased a power generator for us to borrow.
”I’ll drop it off at your house. Let me know if you need anything,” he says.
School is canceled. It’s football season and Freedom High School’s field, situated next to the Catawba River, has been heavily flooded. Nobody knows what will happen to their season. “I hope somebody had the foresight to move their football gear from the storage room near the field and to a drier location before the storm hit,” a parent tells me.
(Before-and-after footage of Chimney Rock, NC.)7
People who depend on constant power for their medical devices are stuck in their homes, either without electricity or holding their breath until an energy source can be delivered. Some people are struggling just to find oxygen.
In Marshall, mud cakes every structure and what remains of a historic downtown positioned next to a river that is never supposed to rise to these catastrophic levels. I hear people are dressed in hazmat suits because the mud has mixed with flooded sewage from water treatment plants and other industrial facilities.
The very soil and air are toxic.
Elsewhere, someone was able to free up their horses, so they could flee the flooding. A shorter donkey gets stuck in its pen and is unable to escape the rising waters.
On the fortunate side, I’m told the local animal shelters in Burke County were able to foster cats and dogs out to safe places; otherwise, they might have shared a similar fate.
We are not supposed to receive this type of flooding. Something like one percent of homes and businesses in western North Carolina have flood insurance. What do they do now? How does one recover from this financially, to say little of the emotional damages that ripple out?
(The destruction in Marshall and Old Fort, NC.)8
A simple truth: Some things that break cannot ever be repaired.
On a tablet charged in town with media downloaded while within cell service, The Rings of Power season two finale plays. This episode aired exactly a week after Hurricane Helene descended upon southern Appalachia. While the fantasy TV series based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s books serves as a form of escapism for many, it also maintains several storylines with apocalyptic stakes and what we are to do with loss—when hope seems so meager.
Very Tolkienien themes.
In the wake of a small community’s destruction by a powerful antagonist, the harfoot Poppy Proudfellow consoles her friend by drawing upon the memory of past trauma. It struck me as I thought of all these mountain communities wondering whether and how they can build back their lives in places that have stood for several generations.
Poppy says to her friend:
“Mr Burrows sat me down and told me, ‘Some things can’t be fixed. Some things lost, are lost forever. No matter how hard we fight, how much it hurts, or how much our hearts yearn to put them back together. Cause this world is so much bigger than any of us, and sometimes the winds blowing against us are just too strong. At those times,’ Mr Burrows said, ‘We’ve just got to accept it. What’s broke is broke and won’t fix. And all anybody can do is try and build something new.”
Admittedly, Burke County has fared much better than those to the west of us, higher up in the mountains. A week later, we’re much closer to returning to some semblance of normalcy.
Other Appalachian communities face difficult decisions, whether they should move away (like folks in the nearby abandoned town of Mortimer, NC, did after a great flood in 1940), build anew, attempt to restore what’s been lost, or some combination of the three.
They’ll find a way, as their families have for centuries in these rugged hills and forested crags.
“Mountain people are resilient,” has been my wife’s refrain to me during the few moments we’ve had to communicate via phone or text during her deployment as a park ranger to communities near the South Toe River. “These people are so self-sufficient. You'd love seeing this community in action, most of the time I feel like I'm just in the way ‘cause they're so damn resilient.”
Posted by @aaronrigsby on FB: “Different town, same destruction. Just when I think I've seen the worst. It gets worse. Nearly all of the immediate downtown area of Swannano [sic] has either been destroyed or severely damaged along the river front. Blocks away cars sit stacked and mangled on top of each other littered through town, and trailer homes and houses sit who knows how far from their original resting place. It truly looks like a tsunami hit this town. Yeaterday [sic] a TFR went up for a few hours, so I utilized my truck rental to deliver supplies to those in need and can't drive to get supplies. Truly a disaster movie in the Carolinas.”
Originally posted by @AerialRecovery on FB: “🚁💪 On Wednesday, Aerial Recovery mobilized to rescue an elderly couple stranded after a landslide. Our team navigated through thick brush to reach them, despite high winds grounding helicopters. After securing their black lab, we coordinated with other rescue teams and a Blackhawk helicopter for a hoist extraction. Within hours, the couple and their dog were safely evacuated. We’re proud of the teamwork and strategic teamwork that made this mission a success!”
Posted by @CardinalandPine on FB: “Chimney Rock and the surrounding areas were among the communities hit hardest by Hurricane Helene. Watch as Lake Lure resident Eric Kunath and Bat Cave resident Cara Brock talk about what they experienced.”
Posted by Shawn Severt on FB: “What do you see when you see this man.. the first thing I see is my grandfathers [sic] face. Sitting on his land and talking. My dad’s side of the family partially comes from Avery, and my mom’s from Spruce Pine. Both my grandfathers farmed, grew produce, and were real men of the land. It’s hard seeing these stories. Just like Bob, my grandfather Avery and my grandfather Roger always got up and kept going, because that’s what they knew to do, how they were wired. God is working, and we are all coming together in the most amazing way helping our neighbors!”
Video credit: NPR. “A group of mule drivers assisted in the delivery of medical supplies and other essentials to Storm Helene flood victims in inaccessible parts of western North Carolina. This footage, captured by Cajun Navy 2016, a Louisiana-based search-and-rescue nonprofit, shows volunteers on mules transporting insulin supplies to David Neel, a Black Mountain resident whose road was washed out. The delivery was coordinated between Cajun Navy 2016 and local group Mountain Mule Packer Ranch, according to the ranch. More supplies, including food, water, batteries, lights, work gloves, and brooms, would be delivered to people in the Black Mountain area, the ranch said on Facebook. ’The devastation in the mountains has broken all of our hearts,’ they added.”
Video credit: Tanner Breckenridge. Originally posted by @mountaingroundsnc: “The damage all across Avery County is absolutely devastating. It cannot be understated that it will be a long recovery. Thank you to everyone who has stepped up to help this community. ❤️ These images were taken by Hayden during a recent convoy trip from Banner Elk to Roaring Creek for a supply delivery. Please consider helping us in our mission to build back Avery County. Together, we are #AveryStrong 💪”
Posted by @Travel_BuggedNC: “The absolute devastation in Chimney Rock North Carolina. A once beautiful little mountain town. Words cannot describe the heartbreak that has been inflicted by Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina. Pray for everyone affected by this tragedy. Helene is officially the 2nd deadliest hurricane in the last 50 years. Video credit to Ella Dorsey.”
Our hearts are breaking over here.
Thank you, Jeffrey, for writing about this. I lived in the town of Marshall for decades, until almost exactly one year before Helene hit. I still live in WNC. My heart is broken. My sweet beloved town is in ruins. My friends there have lost everything, yet are so incredibly resilient. Those who lost everything helped others dig out. These mountain communities are tough!