We survived ... so far
Dispatch from the aftermath of Hell-ene
Dear Rx Nature friends,
Some of you have messaged me asking if we’re okay up here in the mountains of South Carolina. Thank you so much for the love and concern!
Even before Hurricane Helene hit, I was working on a post for you to explain my long silence. Back then, it was about the process of publishing my book. For most of the last month, that project took up the majority of my time and energy. I have truly missed connecting with you all here!
Now this post will be about something else. It’s about survival in the aftermath of a once-in-a-lifetime storm. Maybe we should stop using those descriptors, by the way. Once-in-a-century? Once-in-a-millenium? We’re running out of superlatives as these storms happen more and more often on our heating planet. I know many of you have already experienced the effects of extreme weather where you live. This is our reality now.
Hello, Helene!
On Friday morning we were hit hard, very hard, when Helene roared through here, after first devastating the Big Bend of Florida. (Prayers and good wishes for all the beings, human and non-human, who are deeply affected there.) You’ve probably read or seen stories of the damage in Western North Carolina. That’s about an hour north of where I live. Helene’s killer winds, the east side of that rotating spinner, hit us first. Then she roared into Asheville and other towns in the NC mountains.
Hurricanes aren’t supposed to reach all the way up here in the southern Appalachians. This one did. Helene was a huge storm, 300 miles wide, and her winds were ruthless. Unfortunately, before she even got here, we had two days of intense rain. All told, we had 15 inches of rain over the course of three days—Helene doing her share on the last day.
So the combination of saturated soil and hours of fierce winds—some of my neighbors said 90 mph—was doom for trees growing on the steep mountain slopes all around us. I’m heartbroken to tell you that thousands of trees gave their lives to this storm. It is utter devastation in these green hills. I haven’t even begun to mourn the weight of the losses. Healing will take a long time—for our hearts, for our homes, for these mountains.
Our neighbors with chainsaws and backhoes are out there trying to clear the roads. For a couple of days, we were completely trapped. The two roads leading out of our valley were impassable walls of green.
Power poles are leaning or crashed to the ground. Wires sagging, wrapped around trees, festooned across roadways. You have to drive over them, and hope for the best.
The afternoon after the storm moved through, Jim and I walked down to the bridge over the Eastatoee River, the beautiful trout stream that bisects our valley. It was raging. In its chocolate milk waters, pressed up against a piling of the bridge, was a huge mass of debris—boards, trees, unidentifiable scrap that had washed down the river at flood stage. It was the size of a Mac truck, with water pushing hard against it.
That’s not good, I said.
The bridge became a de-facto meeting spot for the community. We’d show up there a couple of times a day to check in with each other. Everybody okay? Your house okay? Do you have enough food? No need to ask about power or cell service or wifi. We knew none of us had it.
We also exchanged scraps of news. Without TV or Internet, we were hungry for information. It’s real bad up the mountain in Rocky Bottom, near the N.C. line, somebody had heard. Asheville is a lake, someone else said. People are fighting at the gas pumps. Interstates closed. How soon do you suppose they’ll get our road open? No answer to that one.
The good news, our local news, was that our youngest and strongest neighbors had worked all day to clear the road on the other side of the bridge. We had a way out! Rejoicing over some small bit of hope.
A broken bridge … and only one way out
When we approached the bridge on Saturday, the day after the storm, something was different. We got closer and the picture came into focus. The far edge of the bridge had collapsed. Chunks of roadway were in the river. A long open scar about 20 feet wide stretched across the bridge.
We tiptoed to the edge and looked down. Slowly, in the way that shock does, the reality sank in: No one will be driving over this bridge for a long time. A looong time.
Which means that those of us who live on this side of the bridge—10 or so houses, maybe 35 or 40 people—have only one way out … the winding, two-lane mountain road that is one S curve after another. And we already knew that it was completely blocked by fallen trees, huge trees laid down in the storm, their great spines snapped in two.
“We cleared as far as we could,” my neighbor Katie said. “But then we couldn’t go any farther. The trees were just too big.”
We’re fine, but …
Let me pause here to reassure you: My husband and I are fine. Our house wasn’t damaged, other than the tree that fell on the garage. We took care of that the first morning. We’re also blessed by the whole-house generator that has been roaring away for three days now. I am so so grateful we coughed up the pile of money that paid for that thing two years ago, when we moved into this house.
I’m also grateful that our builder cleared “too many” trees away from the house site. We were dismayed then. Now, not so much.
But here’s the down side: That generator is going to run out of fuel in two or three more days. We’re trying to be frugal with our energy use. But the tank is already down to 50% full. And there’s no way a large propane delivery truck is going to make it up this mountain anytime soon. Our water comes from a well, via a well pump. When the generator conks out, we won’t have running water, like the citizens of Asheville. I hope we can fill jars at the well.
Every day, when we walk the road, we stop any DNR or DOT truck we see, and talk to the driver. More scraps of news. Everybody has a different guess as to when we’ll have power again. Friday. Saturday. One week. Two weeks. Who knows? This area is low priority, we’re told. Very few people in here, and the cities are in worse shape.
The entire power grid is out in this community. It’s quite evident the heart of the storm blew right through our valley. Transformers were blown off their poles. Wires are down everywhere, and many of them entangled in trees that fell on top of them. It’s a dangerous situation for the crews that will eventually come out and try to do something.
But first we have to get the trees off the road. That’s a work in progress. Some guy in a huge Caterpillar was up there yesterday, pushing cut logs off the road. Eventually he had one lane cleared, sort of, in the middle of the road. We ventured out. It was a stunning ride.
I guess the only other thing to say, at this point, is that nature has her way. We humans are flimsy beings, very much dependent on our electronics and various other comforts. Especially those of us living in the developed world, with its multitude of cushions.
The smell of death
When those are ripped away and we’re left living in a semi-primitive state, we don’t quite know what to do with ourselves. Of course our neighbors are all helping one another and checking in; it’s lovely. But I can’t help thinking that if this went on for more than a couple of weeks, we’d all grow surly. I already find myself more snappy than usual, short and impatient. We homo sapiens don’t do well with the unknown, and uncontrollable. It offends our sense of superiority.
I am humbled by this experience, and it’s not even really that bad. I’m not starving in Sudan or Gaza. I’m not dodging missile attacks in Beirut or Kyiv. I’m just wondering when the power will come back on, when I can have access to the Internet with a few keystrokes.
I’m also feeling the heartache as we pick our way slowly along the mountain road and see how many venerable trees have given their lives. The smell of death—cut wood—is in the air. I need to figure out some way to honor their sacrifice, the immensity of loss.
Dear friends, I hope whatever part of the natural world you’re in, you are safe and dry and comfortable. So many beings, human and non-human, are not. I’ll be back in touch soon, whenever I can get to town and the sweet little local cafe where I’m typing this.
Be well!
I hope the solution comes sooner rather than later, dear Jeanne. I'm glad you're safe.
You and your whole part of Appalachia are in my heart. In my post later this week, I'll be encouraging readers to donate to relief organizations to help those in crisis. As for your beloved green forest: the smell of all of those downed lives is painful to breathe, I know. But remember also that their tissues, their cells, their stored sugars will nurture other lives in time. Nature is remarkably resilient, I've learned over decades of watching and witnessing catastrophic change, whether that's microburst blowdowns affecting millions of trees high in the Rocky Mountains, or massive wildfires. Be patient, stay safe and know that your landscape and you will recover. Much love to you!