God Willing and the Creek Don't...

Appalachia in the Aftermath #7

Today I learned that Helene is now categorized as a geological event by the U.S. Geological Survey. This did not shock me. I’ve seen the evidence, and wrote about it in a recent post. But it did feel somewhat validating. I think all of southern Appalachia feels seen by this acknowledgement that what we have just been through has not only destroyed our manmade things and disrupted our short human lives. It has altered the very landscape. The storm caused over a thousand landslides, permanently altering the slopes of mountains. The flooding diverted waterways and changed the shapes of the riverbeds. Day before yesterday I drove twenty miles down River Road by the French Broad, and the river looks nearly twice as wide as it used to be. Twice as wide means half as deep. Helene has left her mark, and in a hundred thousand years or more, when all human memory of her is gone, that mark will be seen plainly in the geological record.

Late last week, I took a tour of the River Arts District in Asheville. This area was an old industrial area turned funky arts mecca through years of reclamation, of starving artists living and working in their unheated factory-floor studios until the investors came along and “revitalized”. The galleries, restaurants, and cafes that used to line the streets are now destroyed, damaged, or just closed until they can figure it all out. Many artists lost their studios in the flood. But as you can see, art is still happening.

The downtown acupuncture clinic where I take my daughter for treatments has re-opened on a limited schedule since some of the acupuncturists have been displaced. They got water back last Wednesday. “It’s the wrong color,” said the acupuncturist. “But it flushes.”

The city of Asheville’s Water Resources Department says that water service has been restored to 85% of its customers around Buncombe County, though it still is under a boil warning. People are tired of hauling potable water in jugs for drinking and cooking. “I’d rather live my whole life without electricity than one more week without potable water,” a co-worker from Asheville remarked today. I nodded in sympathy. As long as you have four walls and a roof, it’s not too hard to be without power. But not everyone has four walls and a roof.

In the past two days, North Carolina’s official death toll ticked up by two, from 95 to 97 confirmed dead. That’s after nearly a week of no change. State officials—whether through dishonesty or incompetence—are playing a game of limbo, and national media has yet to pick up on the major discrepancies between on-the-ground reports and official statements regarding deaths. Locals are beginning to get antsy about it on social media, and I can’t say I blame them. But clearly, our legacy media has more important things to report on:

Here’s an update on the power outage situation in the three-county area served by my local electric membership co-op. It really paints a picture of how insane and unprecedented the storm damage is in our mountain communities. And of how committed our local and visiting linemen are to getting the job done, even with all the decks stacked against them.

Here we stand at the one-month anniversary of Helene’s havoc. Emotions are running high. We’ve taken thorough stock of the damage and subjected ourselves to the reality check of how much time and money and time and resources and time and manpower and TIME it’s going to take to repair and recover.

There’s a feeling of burnout in the air. Folks are bones-tired, grieving, nursing whiplashes from the sudden and drastic changes in scenery. The mark Helene left on us is just as indelible as the mark she left on our mountain home. Not just the emotional scars. Each one of us carries a curious new knowledge about ourselves, about this community. This knowledge will take some time to fully propagate. It will need to be reflected on, turned over, looked at from different angles. But it has already begun to take root. We know now how powerful we are, how resourceful, how coordinated we can be. It is possible, to paraphrase one Hot Springs volunteer, for us to restart society from scratch with stuff we have in our barns.

And a lot of love.

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Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your donations, your prayers, and the love you have shown us southern Appalachians over the past week. If you would like to donate to a trusted relief effort and make sure 100% of your donation goes to the people who need it, consider the organizations on this list.

If you feel so inspired, you can support my work by becoming a paid subscriber to this Substack for $5/month or making a one-time contribution through the Buy Me a Coffee link below. I am publishing updates on Helene recovery in southern Appalachia twice per week. In addition, my Prayer of the Week comes out each Sunday and I am working on new content focused on spirit-filled, heart-centered responses to the wider dystopia.