The Aftermath

Monday, October 14th

It’s been 18 days since the hurricane. Our power was recently restored but we are still without WiFi or water and school is scheduled to be out for no less than a month. We have friends who have lost houses, friends who lost businesses, and friends who lost houses and businesses. We don’t know anyone personally who lost their lives, but we know many people who do. And we question how much of our wider social circles have been accounted for in the wake of Helene. With so much shut down, it’s still hard to know who exactly is missing.

When the storm hit, water poured into our basement through the window frames and a vent in the ceiling. A large tree fell beside our driveway and another splintered our fence in the backyard, but our house was spared. When the rain and wind stopped and we ventured out. There were trees everywhere. On roads. On houses. Over power lines. It looked like a giant had come through and dumped a game of pickup sticks on our neighborhood. 

We climbed up, over and around downed trees to reach the nearby ridge. When we looked across the valley, I had the immediate sensation of being punched in the gut. There was a brown lake where the Swannanoa River should have been. We knew Biltmore Village must be under water. Later that day, I walked down to see for myself. I still don’t know if witnessing  in person what most of the world watched on the news was helpful or hurtful. What I do know is that it was hard. The village was filled with brown rushing sludge that pushed buildings, cars, buses, and shipping containers towards the confluence of the French Broad. 

For the next three days, our internet and cell phones were useless. We could not reach out to loved ones nor could we watch the news to understand the scope of what was happening. I’m not sure if that was good or bad either. What I do know is that in the absence of modern connectivity, neighbors helped neighbors. People pulled their outdoor grills into the streets and the community began cooking food that would have otherwise soon spoiled. In the midst of loss and damage, Asheville also pulled off a series of wide-reaching, impromptu block parties. 

By now the sirens were blaring. The sirens of first responders and the hum of helicopters overhead would fill the soundscape of the first week before eventually transitioning to a cacophony of chainsaws and beeping utility trucks.

Time has passed and some places and scenes look normal while other spots will never look normal again. For more than a week, we couldn’t access our home on public roads but the driveway of a private apartment complex provided a tenuous escape route under a leaning utility pole. We have been able to leave town and come back. Our life is a mix of trying to stay and help with escaping to take showers and do laundry.

We are built for this more than most; we have backpacking gear and a gas stove. We are used to going without showers and washing dishes by hand. We tell our kids this is like camping- and they tell us camping is not fun when you are living at home. They are right. 

I said that no power was the least of our concerns, but I also cannot express the relief I felt when I put milk back in the fridge or when our  heat came on just before the first frost advisory of the fall. 

We have developed new routines around water. There is a wall in the garage filled with gallon jugs and bottles of drinking water and another with gray water for flushing toilets. We encourage our kids to wear clothes more than once (which my our usually does anyway) and we avoid exercise to avoid sweating to avoid wanting a shower more than we already do. 

I am teary. Still. Because the places I love are a mix of mud-covered trees, debris and gaping earth wounds. Because of the long lines of people waiting for relief supplies. Because of the people who can’t stay. And the people who can’t leave. And, for different reasons, because of the volunteers and response teams who have shown up to help. Because of the nurses and first responders who are working extra shifts. Because of the churches, nonprofits, and community centers stepping up, living into who they say they are. It is the best and worst time to be here. 

I haven’t sobbed. Not yet. We are still in a state of emotional triage. We have all been impacted. But it’s not time for those of us who are better off to sit in our feelings when our neighbors need us to dig in and help. 

Just this morning, I finished distributing my third shipment of Sawyer filters to places where water will be gathered out of streams and creeks or collected from faucets with boil water advisories for weeks and possibly months to come. We have used Sawyer filters while hiking and camping and we traveled internationally as a family to distribute them to rural villages in a developing country. I never dreamed I would be handing them out to neighbors and nearby towns in the wake of a natural disaster. 

The filter distribution has channeled my post-disaster adrenaline and offered a sense of purpose. It has also provided pictures and firsthand accounts of the destruction to small towns and rural communities in Western North Carolina. Each one another gut punch.

Now the filters are all in the field, the adrenaline is fading and I am starting to process what has happened and what the future holds. 

Our community will never be the same. The landscape has forever been altered, the damage to our infrastructure - including major interstates - will take years to replace or repair. There is already a steady exodus of residents whose houses and apartments cannot safely see them through the winter and of employees who lost their jobs, particularly within the tourism and service industries. We are working towards a new normal. And hoping to rebuild better. But it will take time and a lot of work, and it will include many setbacks.

If you know me, you know I bleed whatever mix of color comes out when you combine the blue mountains, green forests, and worn gray rock of the Southern Appalachians. I have never felt that more than right now.

Our relationship to the place where we live is more than an address on a mailing envelope. It is the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the community that surrounds us. It is not causal, it is not intellectual, it is holistic. Hurricane Helene caused physical damage and stirred and swirled a myriad of emotions. It caused pets to cower and children to crawl the walls with anxiety. And it left many of us feeling hollow or hurting inside. 

And it’s hard; it’s hard when you feel hollow and hurting and your kids are anxious and asking when school will start back and if their friends will move back and if we have enough water in the garage. There is a strong pandemic reverb happening right now. This is the second time in recent memory that overnight, the world we know has been altered. And, when you are only eight years old, that is very unsettling.

We are trying to find activities, make connections, do anything we can to help our kids translate their current concerns into long-term resilience. Asheville City Parks are closed and there is a large tree that crashed on top of the fence at our nearby public tennis courts. But with limited options we are going rogue and sacrificing  fuzzy yellow balls to the pine tree gods to let our kids feel the therapy that comes with hitting something really hard.

I have been trying to teach our son the rules of tennis and recently we decided to play a set. 

“Say the score before you serve.”

“Zero. Zero,” He said. 

“Yep, or you can say, ‘Love. Love.’”

“That doesn’t make any sense! Why ‘love, love’?”

“We’re starting over. That’s just what you say.”

“Why do you say that you both have love when you both have nothing.”

“I don’t know. I guess that’s just what’s left.”

It’s been disorienting to hear national news talk about the aftermath of Helene like it’s an equation that can be summed up with numerical data: 228 dead, 92 missing, estimates of $30 to $250 billion in damage. I was born and raised in Western North Carolina and my plan is to live here ‘til I die. There is an overwhelming sense of loss and starting over but there is only one score in these mountains right now. And it's Love, Love. 

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Several folks have asked where/how to give. Here are a few causes close to our hearts.

Blue Ridge Hiking Company - Our former business is raising funds to try and pay all their  hiking guides for the trips that have been canceled due to Helene

Ninjaville - Our sons Ninja gym was washed away and the owner and coach is raising funds to purchase new equipment, relocate and reopen his  gym.

Our  friend - One of Gus’s best friends was sent to California to live with his dad because his mom lost her job when the flood washed away the restaurant where she worked. She is looking for a new job and hoping to bring her boys back soon. If you venmo me we will pass along the love, @jennifer-davis-354

Sawyer Foundation - I have never loved the Sawyer filter, team, and foundation more. They have donated 20,000 filters to help with Helene Recovery. It was incredible to see the impact. Donations are tax-deductible.