When Hurricane Helene devastated parts of several Southern states in September, journalists in those states had to cover one of the country’s biggest stories while dealing with the chaos in their own lives.
That’s why the USA TODAY Network called on journalists from its news operations across the country — including The Journal News/lohud — to go to Asheville, North Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina, Augusta, Georgia and other locations in Tennessee and Florida to help overburdened people to help. local news staff.
These were urgent orders. Residents of the regions affected by Helene were desperate for information on basic services and when some semblance of normality could return to their lives.
Four employees of The Journal News/lohud took on the challenge: Seth Harrison, a veteran photojournalist; Helu Wang, a reporter covering real estate and development; David McKay Wilson, former Tax Watch columnist; and Tom Zambito, a veteran reporter covering energy, economic growth and transportation for The USA Today Network’s New York State team.
Here the four journalists give a taste of what they experienced:
Seth Harrison: I have made three trips to the Asheville area of North Carolina to contribute to coverage since the storm.
I’ve worked on several compelling stories that were heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. These included meeting and photographing a homeowner in the town of Swannanoa, a small community that was utterly devastated by the storm. After his home was destroyed, friends and strangers alike showed up, donned full PPE gear and helped him clear out the house, which he plans to rebuild.
Other stories involved a church that began feeding Swannanoa residents days after the storm. One of the church volunteers started taking Polaroid photos of the residents, placing the photos in an album and asking everyone to write a note on their photos. The residents wrote beautiful words of thanks to the church. It was an amazing outpouring of unity and love in this community that has been hit so hard.
Another moving story I worked on was about a woman whose house had been destroyed. She lived with her dog in a donated trailer, on the banks of the river that caused the flooding. I photographed her crying as she sat outside the trailer and shared her experiences.
Finally, just a few minutes outside of downtown Asheville, the River Arts District consisted of acres of old warehouses converted into artists’ studios, galleries and workshops. The RAD, as it is known locally, is part of the region’s lifeline and was completely washed away by the storm. I was happy to be able to photograph this area, along with the other stories I helped tell, to document how this region was so influenced by Helene, and how the residents came together and began the long process of rebuilding.
Helu Wang: In the front yard of a home in Swannanoa, North Carolina, amid the rubble of neighboring homes and businesses, a pop-up supply center took shape, where people rushed to unload food and water.
It started with a backpack of bottled water that a woman handed out to neighbors the day after Tropical Storm Helene hit the city. There were dead fish on the road, houses washed away. She saved a woman who had been clinging to a tree for fourteen hours. But she lost another woman who had collapsed from a heart attack, whose body floated in a river.
It was one of many scenes I observed during my two-week visits to Asheville, North Caroline, in October and November. Although I was shocked by the destruction, I also felt hopeful when I saw people coming together to help each other. Landlords provided free shelter to displaced families, summer camp staff built ziplines and cut down trees with chainsaws to help rescue people, and volunteers came from across the U.S. to help rebuild. And a firefighter died saving lives.
I unintentionally became part of the story. On my way to meet a couple who had bought a house after the storm, I ended up directing traffic for an hour. A woman with psychological problems, who had been through a lot, was stuck on the road.
David McKay Wilson: My coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Augusta, Georgia, began shortly after I arrived at the local airport.
The Avis rental car attendant informed me – and several others in line – that there were no rental cars available. My first story showed that the lack of cars was evidence of a broader problem in the aftermath of the hurricane: competition between locals with damaged cars and first responders for the shrunken supply of available rental housing.
I stayed at the Marriott in downtown Augusta, where I heard about the cleanup efforts from out-of-town contractors who told me about the extensive damage in the region, noting widespread roof damage from fallen trees.
I found a local roofer who took us out one morning while his team prepared quotes for homeowners with damaged roofs. I turned that story around in a day and provided solid information about roofing problems to the estimated 30,000 Augustinians with roof damage.
He also drove us to the Kingston neighborhood of the city to see the extent of the storm’s destruction.
I had to know more. On my last day, I returned to Kingston to find homeowners still reeling from the storm, a month after Helene’s ferocious winds swept through.
I teamed up with a USA TODAY Network photographer from Kansas to walk through the neighborhood, where huge fallen oaks and pines lay high along the side of the road, while other fallen trees still stood on flattened roofs. We found an elderly woman who described how eight towering pines crashed onto her home while she, her husband and four grandchildren were still in bed.
She thanked God that not one of the six was injured. But she wondered if her house would be rebuilt.
Tom Zambito: Before I left for Asheville, I went to the library and read “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. It is a Vietnam memoir that tells the story of infantrymen through the things they brought with them during long toils through the jungle. Letters from home, photos from friends, lucky charms.
I covered 9/11 and knew that some of the best reporting on the tragedy had used a similar writing tool. Small things offer a glimpse into the lives of the people who were lost.
I pitched the idea to Karen Chavez, editor-in-chief of the Asheville Citizen Times. It turns out that Asheville police posted dozens of photos and memorabilia on Facebook that they found during the cleanup at Helene’s home.
I spent a whole Saturday calling everyone who responded to the photos.
I got a call back from Dallas Moss. Police found a photo of him and his brother Tommy in a park five miles downstream from the family home. In it, the two look sideways at the camera. Dallas was 8 and had a bowl cut.
It was one of the few photos of Tommy the family still had. Tommy died at the age of 12 from a rare genetic condition.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Hurricane Helene’s toll described by lohud journalists Westchester NY
