Hurricane Helene: Neighbors in need

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 1st of October.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. First up, life after Hurricane Helene.

SOUND: [STREAMS/RIVERS WATER RUSHING]

For most of the Southeast United States, streams and rivers are almost back to normal. But evidence of abnormal is everywhere you look.

SOUND: [HEAVY EQUIPMENT CLEANING UP]

Overturned cars, piles of debris, washed out roads, and mountains of muck and mud. Cell phone coverage is slowly coming back, but many areas are without clean water, and it may still be days or weeks before the power’s back on for everyone.

SOUND: [PEOPLE STANDING IN LINE FOR WATER / TALKING]

EICHER: Many cities and towns were not prepared to deal with this level of devastation. State and federal aid will also be slow in coming, given the roads washed away or undrivable.

Even so, as people begin to dig out, many are rediscovering that a neighbor in times of need, is a neighbor indeed.

WORLD’s Paul Butler has this report.

SOMMERVILLE JOHNSTON: So the community is, I think, coming together like never before…

PAUL BUTLER: Asheville resident Sommerville Johnston has been without power since Friday, but that isn’t stopping her from being hospitable.

JOHNSTON: We are hosting a potluck tonight. Everybody bring your own bowl and spoons and we're sharing food…

Right now, drinking water is probably the biggest challenge facing their block, as it’ll be at least a week before water service is back on. So for now, they’re pooling their resources to help one another while they wait.

JOHNSTON: … a lot of us had water on hand. We're sharing if needed…and then for flushing toilets we’re going down the street to the spring, and collecting rainwater if it comes. And just kind of figuring out our systems.

Communication has also been challenging. Many, for the first time in a long time, are realizing that they need each other to make it through.

JOHNSTON: I've never known my neighbors so well. The first couple of days were really scary without information from the outside world. And we're just passing information around to each other... Like the more we understand the severity of the situation, we are then adapting and saying, “OK, how are we going to make it work?”

One way they make it work is by sharing the resources they do have with those who don’t…

SOUND: [PEOPLE AROUND A CARD TABLE CHARGING THEIR PHONES]

…like these Asheville neighbors who set up a card table along the side of their street with hand-painted a sign welcoming anyone to plug in and charge their phones. Carrie Owenby is grateful:

CARRIE OWENBY: We did not have cell service for the first, like, three days here, but it's just coming back and everybody's wanting to get their devices charged so we can let our family know that we're safe.

And it’s a scene playing itself out all across the region…

JANALEA ENGLAND: I've turned my retail seafood market into a donation center…

Janalea England is the owner of the Steinhatchee Fish Company in Steinhatchee, Florida. She set up temporary shelves and tables outside her restaurant as a make-shift donation center. And donations are pouring in…

ENGLAND: And we will take it all. Whatever you got, whether it is generators or Pepsi-Cola, a piece of wood or a bottle of water, you know what I mean? Like, we’re, we're here to take it all, because … I've never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now. Not in my community.

Hurricane Helene is the third serious storm to come through Steinhatchee within the last 12 months. The last was in August. The town is reeling.

ENGLAND: I saw them suffer. I saw the tears. I saw the panic. I saw the shaking. As people that have lost their homes. Knowing now, after what we went through that with Idalia there were no there was no help that they're they're not hopeful. Why would you be hopeful?

Well, turns out the question is somewhat rhetorical for England as she goes on to say that there is at least one reason to be hopeful, they have each other.

ENGLAND: We can come together and we'll be back. This one's going to take us a little longer. But we'll be back. I feel helpless, honestly. So, I'm just doing what I can do, and it just means so much to me. I was born, raised here, you know, and I'm still here because I love these people.

For those who escaped the worst effects of Hurricane Helene it is difficult to know exactly how to help those who have lost so much. The scale of the destruction is overwhelming.

BOLLINGER: When we saw Asheville, it looked like the Apocalypse hit it. It was really, really scary…

Western Carolina University employee Amy Bollinger lives in Cullowhee, North Carolina. She lost cell phone signal early in the storm and didn’t grasp the severity of it until she and her husband left town for a wedding shower and saw just how bad it was. Now they’re on their way back with aid for people they know:

AMY BOLLINGER: And so for us now it's just like, how can we, how can we save ourselves and keep gas and keep food, but also, how can we use what we have to save our neighbor? So we're bringing money, we're bringing four full gas cans, and … we're going to get some jugs of water and baby formula and diapers and just some non-perishables that we can help support our community with.

Bollinger says that Hurricane Helene was a shock. But it’s taught her something she’ll never take for granted again.

BOLLINGER: I feel like it's so easy when you see hurricane damage happen in Florida and you think, “Oh no, that's terrible.” And you think about them for a moment, but then you scroll on and life goes on, but it's different when it happens to your community. It changes your whole perspective on on what it means to really band together with people and survive.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Paul Butler, with additional reporting from Mary Muncy.

EICHER: Thanks so very much for an encouraging Monday following such a sad weekend for our team at the Asheville headquarters. We’ve got a long road ahead for a new or restored headquarters, but right now, really, just a word of thanks to you. What an encouragement to receive gifts so quickly to our special wng.org/SOS online gift portal. One thing I neglected to say yesterday: Please don’t try to send a check right now. That’s how bad things are in Asheville. We literally cannot receive mail. So if you can give online, please do that … wng.org/SOS … and, again, thanks!

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