A Dispatch from Western North Carolina
Resilience and compassion in the mountains
Tomorrow I will post about organizations who are helping our southern Appalachian neighbors in the clean up, in finding work and homes, and in the restoration and recovery (there are several phases of recovery, so there will be several posts). These are groups you might want to support with either donations or time, and I also want to share the amazing work happening.
But today, a brief summary of last Wednesday, when I went over to Western North Carolina with some supplies for friends.
It’s been almost four weeks since Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida and then made its way up through Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia.
I know you’ve all seen pictures, but I have to say, the pictures don’t begin to capture this level of destruction. The damage is….unfathomable.
Whole streets washed away along with the houses on them. Homes, knocked off their foundations, now sitting in the middle of what used to be a busy road. Cars upended in piles and piles of debris. Silt everywhere. Businesses absolutely destroyed. And most heart-breaking for me at least: people’s personal effects - likely washed from miles upstream - sitting in hardening mud.
In NC alone, around 100 people were killed and dozens are still missing. Search and rescue teams have done an amazing and difficult job (spray-painted evidence of how many buildings and cars they searched is everywhere), but it is clear from looking at the sheer amount of silt and debris that some people may just not be found.
It’s a story that will be told for a hundred years, and the people who are going through this will be forever changed.
But….recovery is already happening, and incredible resilience, courage, and generosity are also part of this story.
Everywhere I went, there were power trucks, utility workers, dump trucks (so many trucks), clean-up crews from all kinds of organizations, water distribution sites everywhere, hot food at churches and under canopies in parking lots, mobile shower stations, locations with supplies of all kinds - including now coats, hats, and cold weather needs - all over the place, and neighbors with signs out front of their houses saying things like ‘Pond water for flushing. Take what you need.’
Outside one completely decimated business, I saw people happily handing out water and food. The stark contrast between a backdrop full of utter destruction and debris, and a foreground full of of generous, open-hearted human spirit could not have been more poignant.
People who are still very much in need, are helping those with less.
I don’t mind telling you I shed a tear several times that day - at both the wreckage and the beautiful, brave humanity on display.
The people of southern Appalachia stand as strong and as resilient as the mountains they love. It’s clear everywhere you turn.
I also saw humor: The ‘flush water’ someone had in their bathroom was in halloween candy buckets.
At this point, power has been restored to many, though not all. Water is running through some people’s faucets though generally only for flushing. It is still weeks away before many people will have drinking water restored. Internet is also gradually making its way back.
Schools are discussing when and how they can re-open, more roads and businesses are opening every day (click here for an interactive map of towns welcoming visitors), and even most parts of Pisgah National Forest and most of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are open again (though Cataloochee, which sustained a lot of damage, remains closed).
And of course, people are still hurting and grieving and in need, and the recovery will be years.
Tomorrow, I will share organizations big and small that you might want to support as they help this region.
PS. I’m only sharing one photo of the destruction, because in most cases, the photos show a part of real people’s wrecked lives, and it feels far too personal and tragic. But behind me, as I took this photo, is a destroyed motel with cars still in the parking lot up to their windows in mud.
I talked to a middle-aged man wandering around the front of the motel. He said, in a soft voice, that he used to be homeless and stayed at this motel many times. He said, people used to shout at him and throw stuff at him as he begged for money. “But now,” he added, “I think they realize how much we all need each other”.
Amen.
