The morning that Hurricane Helene tore Asheville, North Carolina, apart, the first faces I saw were half a dozen of my neighbors preparing to break into my home to see if I was alive. A 40ft oak – ripped from its roots from the next yard – lay on my bedroom roof, dewy green scalloped leaves resting against my window. Just meters below the buckling ancient fascia from my century-old home’s roof, my cattle dog Teddy and I slept. It seems like we should have been crushed there, in bed.
Many were. At least 227 people have died, and that toll is only going to get higher. The rivers are giving up the dead; landslides are yielding corpses. The destruction is grotesque and, in some cases, total, with bridges condemned, roadways eviscerated, and whole towns – Swannanoa, Hot Springs – obliterated. The personal terror I felt that morning is nothing compared to the rage I feel on behalf of those lives unnecessarily lost, those displaced, those struggling to access too few services, and at a governmental response that has seemingly prioritized the most privileged.
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