A Hurricane, and an Election
Hurricane Helene came to WNC on September 27, wreaking greater havoc than any of us foresaw.
By Moe White –
On the east side of Asheville, on a hill above the Swannanoa River, we lost only power and water. But those lower down faced catastrophe.
Never have I seen the Swannanoa River overflow its banks so much. Torrents of water crossed Swannanoa River Road, filled the entire lower 9 of the Municipal Golf Course, and all but destroyed every business along the road.
Dozens of cars were swept away from Monteath’s Auto Service; Estes Trucking Company saw 50-foot 18-wheelers floating downstream to end up lodged in trees along the river bank. A law firm housed in an older two-story home, with tenants in an upstairs apartment, floated down the torrent with residents clinging to the roof, begging for rescue—which never came.
WNC Tile Company, Smart Stop Storage, White & Williams Heating & Cooling; Olé’s Guacamole restaurant, U-Haul Rentals, a night club… all are casualties of the 20-foot-high flooding, the 10 to 20 inches of mud left behind, and the incredible power of 30 or 40 inches of rainfall that widened the river from 25 feet to almost a quarter mile across.
MANNA FoodBank, which supplies needed food to poor families around the region, and sits literally on the riverbank, was flooded; so was Lowe’s at South Tunnel Road, a primary resource for anyone hoping to repair homes damaged by the hurricane; as well as Walgreen’s, the nearest pharmacy; Walmart, the giant retailer across the river; and countless other businesses small and large.
Along with our neighbors in Beverly Hills, residents at the condos at The Cloisters were unable to leave until Good Samaritans chain-sawed trees that blocked access to every road in or out—which they miraculously accomplished around 2 p.m. on Saturday.
The Good
The upsides of this disaster are few but important: neighbors came together in a way I have not seen since the Blizzard of ’93, which snowed Asheville in under three or four feet of snow one March weekend 31 years ago. Once again, no one had anticipated the level of general destruction to come. Who knew that the telephone poles and power lines would be torn out of the ground? Who expected that roads would be impassable, that traffic signals would fail, and that the businesses we relied on would no longer be there for us?
Yet within a day, I saw dozens of people—friends, strangers, residents I hadn’t met, elderly widows on their own—out walking and talking and checking on one another.
The outdoor gas grill still worked, so everyone pooled the food from their refrigerators and freezers and shared meals day after day. A caterer, ready for a cancelled birthday dinner, donated 50 pounds of chicken and trays of coleslaw and potato salad. One neighbor offered her water purifier—chargeable on a USB port in a car; another her propane stove to boil water for coffee and soups; still others toted water from the swimming pool to allow residents to flush toilets.
And each day nearly 100 people gathered at our community clubhouse to share food and stories and kinship over breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and we pulled together as neighbors must to make sure that everyone was fed, and that if anyone needed an errand, a favor, a ride to the drugstore for medicine, someone would take care of them.
The Bad
The worst damage Helene wrought on Asheville was the destruction of the area’s water system. For the past century, Asheville relied on the Bee Tree and the North Fork reservoirs. Both collect vast amounts of pristine waters in basins surrounded by thousands of acres of old-growth trees in protected forest land. Those forests ensure that the water collected is pure and unpolluted as it rolls down from the highest mountain in the eastern US: Mt. Mitchell.
The problem is that those magnificent trees are as susceptible to the winds of a hurricane as any others, and hundreds, if not thousands, came down during Helene. They blocked the access roads to the water treatment plants at both reservoirs, and landslides caused by 30 inches of rain—which followed two days of pre-Helene rainstorms that had already left the ground waterlogged—took out other parts of the roads. So, repair of the treatment plants would have to wait for the removal of the trees and the restoration of the roads—a process that is expected to take weeks, if not months.
The third water source for Asheville is the Mills River Water Treatment Plant, which came into operation in the past 20 years and, fortunately, was not damaged or destroyed by the floodwaters. But it was designed to serve residents of Henderson County and southern Buncombe, so while South Asheville, Arden, and Fletcher have running water, most of the rest of the county will have to buy endless amounts of bottled water for drinking and cooking, and find non-potable water for flushing toilets, washing clothes, and doing other chores.
The Silver Lining
Perhaps that cloud has a silver lining, however. For more than 30 years Asheville’s water system has faced the need for renovation: a report in the late 1990s pointed out that more than one-third—35%—of the water that flows into the pipes from the reservoirs flows out into the ground through countless leaks, cracks, and poor connectors.
To correct that loss, bit by bit, from time to time, ancient clay water lines have been replaced with PVC or stainless steel; but the task has always been deferred whenever any new, more interesting (or more tourist-pleasing) investment comes along.
Now, well, HOORAY! Tourists are being told by Governor Roy Cooper NOT to come to Asheville or other parts of WNC, even though it is the height of the “leaf season” that draws tens of thousands to fill our hotels and roads and restaurants as they gawk at the fall colors.
This year, they won’t be filling any of those, nor the coffers of the tourist-related businesses that drain resources from residents even as they support local entrepeneurs. Maybe, just maybe, the money for rebuilding will go to rebuilding our real infrastructure, instead of turning Asheville and its beauty into a WNC Disneyland resort.
The Ugly
Hundreds, if not thousands, of hard-working, dedicated entrepreneurial souls have spent the past few decades reclaiming the area now known as the River Arts District.
Originally the home of warehouses, tobacco curing and tanning and other riverfront industries, along with Asheville’s main train station (when we still had the luxury of taking trains to New York, Miami, New Orleans), the district was devastated by the famous Flood of 1916, during which at least 300 people lost their lives.
It was rebuilt and restored in the 1920s and following the Great Depression, and it continued as an industrial hub into the 1960s and ’70s. But in line with Urban Renewal, the riverfront became more and more derelict until the 1980s, when—as often happens in such sectors—artists moved into empty buildings and set up studios for woodworking, pottery, painting, glass-blowing, and other arts and crafts.
Then, having created value along with their art, many pioneers were pushed out in favor of a second generation that valued cool, hip, funky lifestyles at least as much as the creativity surrounding them. And so Asheville’s River Arts District was born, an echo of SoHo in New York, the West Bank in Paris, the Haight in San Francisco.
And now, like the industrial mecca that was there until 1916, it’s gone. The same Swannanoa River that ruined the town of Swannanoa 10 miles east of Asheville; that flooded the Muni Golf Course scarcely a year after the completion of a three-year, multimillion-dollar renovation; that swept through Biltmore Village like the Johnstown Flood of 1889, has wiped away the River Arts District and left behind a layer of toxic, heavy mud along with the shards and detritus of lives lived and lost.
The Feds to the Rescue
Almost immediately after the worst of Hurricane Helene’s damage was assessed, the government made known that there would be ample federal and state assistance, especially for those families and individuals who lost their homes, possessions, and livelihoods. By early October an online emergency website offered FEMA immediate disaster assistance of up to $750 per household for unanticipated costs such as hotel rooms, evacuation, etc. Additional assistance is in the pipeline, covering such expenses as replacing entire homes, or cars washed away by the flood, or businesses no longer generating revenue but still facing monthly loan payments.
Just as taxpayers in Virginia and Ohio help pay for wildfire disasters in Idaho and Montana; and those in Montana and New York pay for hurricane damage in Florida; and we in North Carolina and California support victims of tornadoes in Indiana and Ohio… the federal government is working with state governments throughout Helene’s path to provide support, financial, logistical, and physical, to all those in need. It will do the same for those affected by Hurricane Milton, heading for Tampa Bay and the center of Florida as these lines are being written.
All Americans are citizens of their own states and of the United States, and as each need arises, residents from every state step in to help their fellow Americans. This has been the way of our country since before its founding: we support each other and help each other out. Aid is coordinated by the federal government through FEMA—the Federal Emergency Management Administration; distributed by FEMA and the governments of the states that need assistance; and utilized by the elected officials of the counties, towns, cities, and regions that are most impacted by a calamity.
Most of us are grateful that our neighbors in other parts of the country are ready and willing to provide such help. Here in WNC Helene’s mess is being cleaned up by National Guard members from New York and even Canada; by US Border Patrol agents from Florida; by reservists from all along the East Coast; and by representatives of private, nonprofit, and public organizations throughout the country.
In the past, we here in North Carolina have sent resources and personnel to help with wildfires in Wyoming, earthquakes in California, and repeated natural disasters in Florida and Texas, Maine and Ohio, Delaware and Oklahoma. For the most part, that help has been facilitated by our federal government in Washington, a government that represents, and serves, all 50 of these United States (and its seven territories and districts).
Goodbye to All That
But we might not have the assistance that the government is providing if the Republican Party’s PROJECT 2025 is implemented—i.e., if Donald Trump were to win the presidential election.
The Republican Party’s game plan is “privatizing . . . the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Flood Insurance Program, reforming FEMA emergency spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government. . .” In other words, rather than volunteers and fellow citizens helping each other out under the guidance of experts, they want to turn disaster relief into another profit center!
In Project 2025, they write, “The Secretary should direct FEMA to ensure that all FEMA-issued grant funding for states, localities, and private organizations is going to recipients who… can show that their mission and actions support the broader homeland security mission”—i.e. national security from terrorism.
“All applicants and potential recipients of such grant funding should be required to meet certain pre-conditions for eligibility (except for receipt of post-disaster or nonhumanitarian funding) or should simply be considered ineligible for funding. Such preconditions should include at least the following:
Certification… that they comply with all aspects of federal immigration laws, including the honoring of all immigration detainers.
Certification… that they are both registered with E-Verify and using E-Verify in a transparent and non-evasive manner… [including] certification that all components of that government, and not just the applicant agency, are registered with and use E-Verify.
If the applicant is a state or locality, commitment by that state or locality to total information-sharing in the context of both federal law enforcement and immigration enforcement. This would include access to department of motor vehicles and voter registration databases.
In other words, Project 2025 demands that if the state of NC welcomes visa-holding, green-card immigrants who work on NC farms and construction projects, but does not deport a construction worker for having a parking ticket, the entire state becomes ineligible for FEMA relief.
Hypocrisy on Display
“FEMA is the lead federal agency in preparing for and responding to disasters, but… unprepared in both readiness and funding for the truly catastrophic disasters in which its services are most needed. Reform of FEMA requires a greater emphasis on federalism and state and local preparedness, leaving FEMA to focus on large, widespread disasters.”
And yet, the Republican Speaker of the Republican-led House of Representatives, Mike Johnson of Louisiana—one of the states most benefitting by FEMA funding after repeated hurricanes and other disasters—refuses to call the House into session to provide additional funding for relief from back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton, which have left several southern states, including Florida and NC, in dire need of disaster aid.
“[T]he per capita indicator for damages… creates a threshold under which states and localities are not eligible for public assistance. FEMA should raise the threshold…
[A]pplying a deductible could accomplish a similar outcome… Congress should change the cost-share arrangement so that the federal government covers 25% of the costs for small disasters with the cost share reaching a maximum of 75% for truly catastrophic disasters.”
Budget Issues—$7 to $10 Per Person Per Year
“FEMA manages all grants for DHS … Since 2002, DHS/FEMA have provided more than $56 billion in preparedness grants for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments.” [NOTE: This total comes to $2.5 billion/year, or $7.50—yes, seven dollars and fifty cents—per person each year.]
“For FY 2023, President Biden requested more than $3.5 billion [$10.45 per person!] for federal assistance grants.”
“The principles of federalism should be upheld; …States should bear the costs of their particularized programs. DHS should not be in the business of handing out federal tax dollars: These grants should be terminated.
So, while we recover from Hurricane Helene, demonstrating incredible community resolve and both personal and group persistence in the face of a natural disaster unlike any that most of us have ever experienced, it is essential that we keep in mind the importance of making our voices heard.
We, the People, Are One Nation Indivisible
We must VOTE, and we must vote SENSIBLY. As we go to press, NC’s absentee ballots are being mailed out, and beginning Oct. 17 we can vote early.
Before you vote, please reflect on these simple facts. Two major parties, the Democrats and Republicans, are vying for power, both nationally and statewide.
One party has been in the forefront of strengthening our bonds of community, neighborliness, friendship, and mutual assistance; the other party has fought against every progressive movement in our lifetimes.
One party asks that we all pay our fair share in taxes and that we all benefit from shared effort when we are faced with a shared calamity like Hurricane Helene; the other party wants to eliminate much of our government, along with our voice in choosing our government, so that everyone is on their own, without help, without resources, when disaster strikes.
One party believes in We the People as the best way to determine our own fate; the other party believes that privatizing every common resource, and profiting off of us in a time of need, is better than our very freedom.
One party will ensure that the Consti-tution of the United States and its laws and guarantee of equality will guide our nation; the other party will invoke Project 2025 if it should gain power in Washington—and in North Carolina if they control the governorship, the legislature, and state courts—and the rule of law, and government of, for, and by the people, will come to an end.
Vote to Keep Us—the U.S.—Together as One
This is not a time for woulda-coulda-shoulda or for minor disagreements about issues. It is a time to weigh the BIG issue: our future as a free nation, led by a freely elected President Kamala Harris and Vice President Tim Walz, and represented in Congress by Caleb Rudow.
We must also vote to continue being a progressive, caring state, led by Governor Josh Stein, Attorney General Jeff Jackson, and legislators who will work for US—for YOU and YOUR FAMILY—rather than for personal profit. We must vote for those who will govern on OUR behalf, rather than to benefit the rich and powerful individuals and corporations that prefer to exploit, rather than serve, We the People of the United States.