ASHEVILLE – We knew Helene was coming.
The Asheville Citizen Times staff began reporting on the disaster days before the first raindrop on September 27. But most of us thought the storm would follow the usual path: It would slam into Florida’s Gulf Coast, as hurricanes do. Then Asheville and Western Carolina would get residual rain and wind, and perhaps knock down a few trees and power lines, as these mountain storms do.
I bought extra chocolate chip cookies, D batteries for my flashlight, filled a few bottles with water and sat down at home on Thursday evening, September 26, to finish my work, as I do every evening.
At first I was happy to hear that the pouring rain – my garden, newly planted blueberry bushes, arborvitae and azaleas – needed water.
Then things took a dark turn.
The wind blew fiercely, the rain hammered harder and did not stop. Tree branches floated down my street. My internet went out on Friday morning. Then the power. Then the taps went dry.
My first thought: My sister and her family were a few miles away, okay? I had no cell service. Then: How would we publish the newspaper?
Before Helene struck, I had asked for a volunteer reporter for the weekend shift. With rain still pouring down and the French Broad River rising dangerously, Asheville Citizen Times staffers headed into the storm, taking cell phone photos and sending reports from the field. When I arrived at our downtown office on Friday, News Editor Aaron Nelsen and five reporters – almost our entire newsroom – were already there.
Our provincial watchdog reporter Jacob Biba, a father of two young children, rushed to pick up city reporter Sarah Honosky and growth and development reporter Will Hofmann, whose cars were stuck between fallen trees. High school sportscaster Evan Gerike and Black Mountain News reporter Karrigan Monk also found their way to the office, which was (and still is) without water or air conditioning but had power and Wi-Fi.
Knowing that our experienced – and only – staff photographer, Angela Wilhelm, was on vacation in a distant location, freelance photographer Josh Bell cut a huge tree out of his driveway and called to tell me it was behind us.
None of our employees have had natural disaster training. But as newspaper journalists, our instincts went to work: head into the storm, spread vital information to our community – school and road closures, areas of dangerous flooding, evacuation warnings and places to safely weather the storm. We were, unknowingly, documenting the worst natural disaster in Western North Carolina and in our lifetimes.
None of us had electricity, water, WiFi or mobile internet at home. Our office – our command center – is small, with no windows that open, no toilets that flush, no washing of hands, but an abundance of sweat, body odor and muddy boots.
Businesses, restaurants and hotels are closed. Without power, credit cards and ATMs were useless. My staff had no drinking water. I gave Evan my last $20 to find us some. He came back with five bottles; one hotel charged him $4 each.
There hasn’t been a day since Helene struck that we haven’t been in the office, working on emails and phones, in our neighborhoods where record high rainfall and rivers have brutally swept away trees, power lines, roads, bridges and homes. , hope and human lives.
The enormity of our collective loss continues to shock us as we visit emergency shelters and our city’s poorest neighborhoods, through the floodwaters and mud of the River Arts District, Swannanoa and Biltmore Village, Burnsville and Marshall, Boone and Buck Creek Pull.
As the newspaper editor, I have to stay close to home base, with only short walks downtown. But I can still understand the fear and loss. Our reporters came from the many cities and devastated areas, exhausted and emotionally exhausted by reporting on the homes swept away, the people desperately searching for loved ones they could not find.
During my daily search for a porta potty that is not overcrowded, I meet our community members.
Leon, a Vietnam veteran living in the Veterans Restoration Quarters in East Asheville when he was suddenly evacuated due to flooding. He traveled first to Harrah’s Cherokee Center, then to AB Tech, then left the cramped quarters for the streets.
Carter James and his co-owners of Flour in the S&W Building selflessly—the eatery is closed indefinitely with no water—spread out coffee and hot cookies, pasta and salad, bottled water and smiles to everyone who passed by, no questions asked, no money expected. Their friends were transporting food from Charlotte.
I ran into my old friend Will Harlan and his wife Emily. They looked exhausted. Their farm in Barnardsville flooded, but not before Will rescued their goats and chickens and sheltered the animals in their home. They were in town looking for mobile services to start the long process of insurance claims.
Kendra and her family of six children, ages 3 to 17, from West Asheville, looked downtown for help – drinking water and food for her children, who are out of school until who knows when and need a place to stay. to play and find Wi. -Fi, as children should do. No water, electricity or internet in the house. She starts every day at 6:30 am by looking for the places where food is distributed.
“It’s extremely difficult,” she told me of the storm’s aftermath. “Having the children washed is the hardest thing there is. They like to play outside because there is nothing else to do and then it is difficult to get them clean. Our heater is not working. We ran out of charcoal. We searched a lot in the forest to find wood to burn.”
I asked one of her daughters, 9 years old, what she had missed since the storm. “I miss Asheville. It feels different since the storm,” she said. “I miss Christmas.”
As I sat outside filthy, overcrowded porta potties one afternoon, gathering the strength to get back in there to relieve my cramped stomach, I chatted with two women – they told me they were lifelong friends – who were now in the Vanderbilt Apartments lived. Everyone walked with a stick. They had ventured out of their waterless homes to get a free hot meal.
One opened the porta potty door, saw the sewage on the seat and floor and said she couldn’t do it. I asked where she would go to the bathroom.
“They bring us diapers to wear, so everything is going well.”
I decided that day that I wouldn’t worry about my office sauna, my dirty skin and unwashed hair, or the 3 to 5 p.m. workdays. I was so lucky that my house was still standing, my loved ones were safe, and my legs were strong enough that I could squat somewhere without needing diapers.
After several nights of working well into the dark, I finally saw my backyard in daylight. The tree of life was not bent or broken, the blueberry bushes turned red and my azaleas danced in purple-pink blossoms.
Karen Chávez is editor-in-chief of the Asheville Citizen Times and the Hendersonville Times-News. Email her at KChavez@citizentimes.com
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Chávez: Overflowing Jars, Chainsaws, Lost Lives: Helene Reports
