Hurricane Helene Aftermath
NATURE OBSERVATION
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As I shared in my last video, Hurricane Helene devastated the city of Asheville and the surrounding Western North Carolina region. The destruction I've seen with my own two eyes is unbelievable, though I now believe it, as I've seen it right in front of me.
I expected that something like this would cause fear and panic and desperation, but I've seen quite the opposite. I've experienced more love, kindness and generosity from everyone I've encountered, than I've ever experienced before.
I've only had one uncomfortable incident with a gas station employee, but he ended up very sincerely apologizing for yelling at me for the mistake I made. I've never seen someone deescalate and turn around that quickly.
From everything I've heard, the gas stations were where the fighting and looting and gunshots happened, so I imagine that guy was having a very stressful week. But I’ve gotta say, I’ve heard of very little of that, and I’ve seen none of it. I feel completely safe out in the community everywhere I go. From my perspective, it’s been very peaceful and cooperative, especially considering all we went through and are still going through.
I want to share all the beauty that is hidden among the tragedy, because mainstream media typically only shows the most horrible or dramatic aspects of a disaster - or anything, really - which is one of the reasons why I haven't paid attention to the news in almost 20 years.
I’ve had several people tell me that the news is saying we don’t have any help out here, but they seem to only be focusing on help from the federal government. Speaking from personal experience, other than a handful of chinooks I’ve seen flying around, I haven’t seen any federal government or military representation anywhere I’ve been, which is pretty weird, now that I actually have the brain capacity to think about it.
What I have seen, though, is an overwhelming amount of help coming from different states and even Canada - there was an electrical truck from Canada in front of me on the highway last night. I’ve seen police officers from other counties around North Carolina, arborists and electricians from different states (Thanks to some sweet electricians from South Carolina, I had my electricity restored late Saturday night after 8.5, almost 9 days without power), I’ve seen volunteers from all over the country, and an overwhelming amount of volunteer support from within our own community.
I haven't seen them, but I've also heard of search and rescue teams coming from around the US, and people with privately owned helicopters rescuing families who’ve been trapped, and there are crews from all over the place, here to help rebuild our water system. They're having to inspect 1800 miles worth of pipe and repair the damage that was caused to them, so we will be without running water for weeks.
So while I personally haven’t seen anyone from the federal government, other than the chinooks, I’ve seen an incredible amount of people and businesses stepping up and coming together to do what you’d expect the federal government to do.
Like I mentioned in my last video, everyone I encounter asks if I need food or water. One woman saw me with little Maggie and asked if I needed dog food (which I don't, because I prepared for this — I also have a two month supply of her essential medication).
As I also mentioned, I had a neighbor who's had electricity since day 2, charge my solar generator after it died on a cloudy day.
And right after I posted that video, another neighbor left with her family, as they have two young kids, and she gave out all of their food, and asked me to bring a box to the fire department and several boxes to food banks. She and her husband also left two of us their Tesla, so we could drive around town and not have to use our gas. They are incredibly kind and generous people.
Also, one of my friends found out that he had power at his vacation home and he's on a well, so he offered to let me go up and shower and clean things and charge my electronics. After 7 days without a shower, I was feeling pretty disgusting. It's been so amazing to have his beautiful home as a resource. He and his wife are also incredibly kind and generous.
I originally went down to the River Arts District in the evening, about an hour before curfew, and a very kind police officer allowed me to park and walk in if I promised him I'd be back before curfew, so I ran through the district.
When I first got down there, the destruction was overwhelming. At first I couldn't control my breath and I began crying over everything I was seeing around me. Thankfully the running helped to calm me down, because the destruction just got worse the further into the district I went.
I had less than an hour, but I wanted to get to the end to check on a little tree that I've befriended. I thought it had died in a drought we had this summer, but I watched it spring back to life after getting a bunch of rain. I gave it love every single time I passed it, and I was thinking about it, as it was probably 20-30 feet underwater.
I found it laying on its side, but most of the leaves were still green. I promised it I'd be back in the morning to prop it up and remove all the debris from its branches.
I expected to be mostly alone in the morning, when I went to prop up that tree and start river cleanup, but I found well over 100 people down there helping artists get their things out of the studios that remained. It was a pretty emotional site.
I decided to join them after taking care of my little tree. The organizers said that the majority of people down there had no affiliation whatsoever with the artists. They were just community members, like me, who wanted to help.
I started by digging some mud, which was super heavy, so I'm glad that task didn't last too long, and then I went out back and found an artist who needed help clearing out his studio on the second floor. After my first trip into the building, I had to go home and get a respirator. There was a really intense chemical smell all throughout the top floor and I wanted to protect myself from it and I also really needed to change my shoes.
I helped over there for a couple of hours and then went home to rest, as I was super exhausted.
The next day, my landlord's cousin, who came out from Chattanooga to volunteer, helped to tune up my chainsaw and the two of us went over to the neighbor's and started breaking down the fallen trees into manageable pieces so they could clean up and repair their yard.
I can only speak for Asheville, as that's where I live, but this city has turned into a giant, love -filled volunteer festival.
Everywhere I go people are volunteering their time. Giving out free food and water, offering first aid and setting up donation and distribution sites for food, water, clothes, baby supplies and basically anything anyone would need to get through this.
At the same time, going through Hurricane Helene has been both the most horrifying and the most beautiful experience of my life. I've seen the absolute best of humanity in all of this, so I wanted to make sure and share my perspective, to give everyone some hope.
As I mentioned in my last video, I'll be putting together a video about emergency preparation from my perspective of having lived through all of this. Like I said, I just had my electricity restored last night after almost 9 days without power. We won't have water for weeks, either, because of the catastrophic damage to our water system. I made a page on my website that shows items that have been very important to me and I'm going to keep on adding to it. I'm also including things that I wish I'd had and am now adding to my emergency gear. Here’s the link if you’d like to check it out.
Thanks for reading and watching, and thank you for all of your love and support throughout all of this.
Hi, I’m Kristen!
I envision a world where you and I rediscover what it is to be human, through connection with ourselves, each other and the natural world around us.