Three Weeks After

It’s been over three weeks since Helene did her dirty work, leaving indescribable heartache and destruction in her path.

People ask me how I’m doing.

I am exhausted.

There’s physical exhaustion that comes in waves, despite my level of exertion of lack thereof.

There’s mental exhaustion that leaves me virtually incapable of complex thought, problem solving, or reading a book.

There’s emotional exhaustion that leaves me feeling everything and nothing, all at the same time.

I am angry.

I am angry that our tragedy has been used in service of a political agenda.

I am angry that the world out there has gone on spinning while we are here…with all this.

I am angry at the lack of information, leading to both intentional and unintentional misinformation, as people fill in the gaps the best they can.

I am angry at the failure of the emergency alerts, which were too little, too late, and inaccessible to those that needed them most.

I am angry at the insurance industry which seems to play a game at their benefit and the expense of those they supposedly serve.

I am angry that the cell phone provider that has always promised the best service has failed us terribly when we needed it most.

I am angry that people still don’t understand how to navigate an intersection where the traffic light is out. (Four way stop, people! Four.way.stop!)

I feel guilt. So much guilt.

Guilt that I haven’t lost more.

Guilt that I haven’t done more.

Guilt that I am physically incapable of doing more, due to my ls spinal limitations and lack of big, beefy muscles with which to hoist cases of water and piles of debris.

Guilt that I lack skill with a chainsaw or earth moving equipment.

Guilt that I didn’t warn my daughter’s neighbors to evacuate and wasn’t there to rescue them from their roofs with a canoe.

Guilt that it seems like I have given so little, mostly receiving from people’s kindness.

I am grateful.

Grateful that my daughter and granddaughter got to safety before the flood water engulfed their house.

Grateful for the hoards of volunteers and that people can actually pronounce Swannanoa now.

Grateful for the kindness of so many family, friends, and strangers in donations of money and food and water and goods and offers of help.

I am overwhelmed.

I am overwhelmed with all of the offers of all the good things.

I am heartbroken.

I am heartbroken that those that lost the most were, for the most part, those who had the least to lose and also have the fewest resources to rebuild.

But right now, right now I am afraid.

Afraid of what will happen to the local businesses.

Afraid that the world will go back to normal and not learn and not change.

Afraid that we will be expected to go on living as if none of this ever happened.

Afraid that we will be forgotten.

Afraid that we will forget each other.

Afraid that we will lose the connection and sense of community that have been our oxygen, our water, our source of life for 21 days.

And yet, I do have hope. I hope for so many things. But that is another post for another day.

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Why Didn't They Leave?

(On September 27, 2024, the remnants of Hurricane Helene, now a tropical storm, passed over the mountains of Western North Carolina and East Tennessee, dumping upwards of 30 inches of rain and resulting in massive flooding, landslides, washed out roads, and downed trees and power lines. The death toll in North Carolina is currently at 96 but many are still missing. This is Western North Caroina's Katrina.)

"Why didn't they leave?"

I see this question constantly when I do the stupid thing of reading the comments on videos and posts about the flood and destruction wrought by Helene. They ask that question as if everyone here is stupid. As if we just didn't know any better. As if all of this trauma and loss wouldn't have happened if we had just heeded the advice of the professionals.

Why didn't they leave?

The Rainfall

Days before they started telling us that we would get the remnants of Hurricane Helene. They said that we would likely get 6-10" of rain. They did say that this could be a catastrophic storm. When they said the same thing in 2018 with Hurricane Irene, we got drizzle. Most people in WNC are "I'll believe it when I see it" people because predicting the weather around here can be extremely tricky.

Instead of 6-10" of rain, we got around 14-15" at our house in Swannanoa. The areas around Mount Mitchell (highest point east of the Mississippi at 6684ft) got 24-30" of rain. All that rain has to go somewhere.

The Flooding

They said that the flooding could be bad. When I hunted and pecked I found that the rivers were expected to crest at higher that what we had with Frances in 2004, but lower than the historic Flood of 1916. They said that the rivers would crest on Saturday afternoon.

The flooding happened Friday morning. The Swannanoa River in Biltmore Village crested at 5.4 feet above the 1916 level.

We were expecting a lot of rain. We expected some flooding. Nobody was expecting this.

The Emergency Alerts

Well, some of us got emergency alerts. I say some of us because my husband, sleeping beside me, his phone on his bedside table, did not get those alerts. My phone did. But the alerts didn't say exactly WHO should evacuate (our house is high on a hill). And when I tried to read more information, assuming that this alert was in my text messages, the alert would disappear into some unknown alert stratosphere. Or sometimes the alert would say "For more information, go to buncombeready.gov" which you cannot do if you no longer have cell service or internet. I have heard other people saying that they never got an alert.

The Timing

The flooding started in the wee hours. Even when our daughter texted and then called us around 6-6:30am, it was still dark. Who can see where the water is in the dark? Who wants to venture out into flooding roads when they can't see anything?

The original plan with our daughter was to wait until a bit of daylight for her to try to evacuate or for us to try to go get her and our granddaughter. We didn't wait and, as we discovered, daylight would have been too late. By the time there was any daylight, her road was impassable. Her neighbors were trapped. Within 3 hours they were on their roofs, the water to the eaves.

So why didn't they evacuate? Because nobody expected this. Nobody expected the 2-2.5 FEET of water to pour down over our watershed, fill our reservoirs to the point that the spillways activated, flooding our rivers which overflowed their banks well beyond the 100 and the 500 year floodplains.

Nobody expected houses that had never seen water to be wiped off their foundations. Nobody expected roads to washed away. Nobody expected mountainsides to come crashing down. Nobody expected that the terms "unprecedented" and "Biblical" to be used with regard to our weather event. Nobody expected the words "decimated" and "apocalyptic" to be used to describe their town, their neighborhoods, their homes.

So please, PLEASE have compassion on those most impacted. Please don't question their judgment.

We expected something. None of us expected THIS.

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