Editor’s note: This month, Sheri Barker continues her journal of life in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, exploring the long recovery of a place devastated by a climate disaster after the news cameras have left. This is part four of the series; you can read the first, second, and third parts in our archive.
Monday, December 23, 2024
2:00 p.m.
42 degrees, mostly clear skies
Waning gibbous Moon
It has been 88 days since Helene. Some days, it feels like years since the flooding, mudslides, and high winds forever altered Swannanoa’s landscape and the lifescapes of the people who live here. On other days, it feels as though it were surely only yesterday that she tore through these mountains. I have often said linear time is a human construct with little meaning. Continuing to live through days and nights that seem compressed or lengthened by the emotional weight of an ongoing crisis proves that point over and over again.
The roof of a house wrapped around a tree by the Swannanoa River [B. Rhodes]
The distress emanating from the earth, waterways, flora, and fauna is nearly tangible and often heartbreaking. The distress from my human neighbors is often heartbreaking and would be overwhelming if I did not maintain my daily practice. Each day begins and ends with grounding, meditation, and prayer, and the prayers always begin with this line: Mother, keep me mindful.
I composed this one in November:
Moving Through
Mother, keep me mindful…
the first line now of every prayer
cast upon the ley lines
between earth and water, fire and air.Some things to remember:
Boundaries are necessary but not necessarily unmovable.
Side quest: No one else has permission to
move my boundaries. That’s non-negotiable.Daily practice requires daily practice.
Meeting people where they are is not always easy, nor is it always necessary.
Rest is not a luxury.
Safe people hold safe spaces.
Squirrel brain is not a sustainable state of being.Trauma responses are real.
Side quest: Shaming people for being triggered makes you an asshole.
Side quest: You can choose to stop being an asshole.
Trust your instincts.
When people show you who they are, believe them.Poems don’t have to rhyme.
Prayers don’t have to be poems.
I have seldom been more aware of experiencing the world around me through the lens of my spirituality. There have been sleepless nights when, in darkness or by candlelight, I considered Helene’s impact on my own state of being. Let me tell you, those are some interesting conversations.
Until Helene, the most significant storm of my life was the death of my youngest daughter after her long struggle with mental illness and substance use. During those midnight conversations with myself, my brain tried to balance the devastation scale between the two. Eventually, I realized I was making the wrong comparison. The destruction that followed the loss of my daughter set me on the path of an inward-focused, isolated journey of healing and discovery.
But Helene…Helene pushed me out the door and into the web of community service and connection. The inward journey nearly killed me at times and is still ongoing. The outward journey presents challenges I am often uncertain I can meet, but my heart and spirit push me forward.
Mother keep me mindful…
People tell me that the outside world has forgotten Western North Carolina and that those who do not live here think life has returned to normal. My connections with friends and supporters contradict the first part of that statement. I speak with certainty and the authority of a person whose heart is engaged with community every day and whose feet are firmly on the ground that there is almost nothing normal here. This road I am walking with friends, teammates, and family is muddy and messy and will be so for a very long time.
There is still debris everywhere, piled high in front of residential and business properties and strewn along roadways and riverways. Some of it is organic, and some of it is the remains of houses, cars, and personal belongings wrapped around trees and woven through branches by the power of moving water. There are buildings and homes, too, partially destroyed and falling down.
Many adults have told me that seeing this damage whenever they leave their homes makes them feel traumatized all over again. I understand how they feel because I share that experience. I cannot imagine what it is like for children who survived the trauma of flooding and mudslides to see the reminders every day when they go to school or go anywhere, for that matter. I remain infinitely grateful to the Verner Center for Resilience for facilitating therapeutic playgroups designed to provide a supportive space for young children to express and process their experiences. I also remain infinitely sad that this type of support has not been an integral part of helping all children experiencing storm-related trauma and disruption.
A week ago, Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder provided an update on the status of storm debris removal in Buncombe County. Pinder reported that in three months of recovery efforts, more than half a million cubic yards of debris has been picked up and moved to temporary staging sites. This is only 5% of the debris that will be hauled away in Buncombe County.
Based on that figure, it is estimated that it will take six years to complete the clean-up in Buncombe County, which is just one of the 27 North Carolina counties impacted by Helene.
I am comfortable sharing these numbers because they are fact-based and easily verifiable.
In direct contradiction to that comfort, I can tell you that in the same status update, Avril Pinder reported that FEMA confirmed that 9,234 residential units suffered damage and 331 were destroyed; those numbers are increasing weekly.
Twenty-eight people remain in emergency shelters and 1,403 Buncombe County households are utilizing FEMA Transitional Sheltering Assistance in 37 hotels.
147 households are approved for direct housing which is expected to last weeks to years; 16 temporary housing units have been installed and 37 are in progress.
Summer and children at Swannanoa Communities Together [courtesy]
While acknowledging that Pinder indicated the FEMA numbers for damaged and destroyed housing are increasing weekly, I must acknowledge that I know those numbers are far from accurate. Not every primary homeowner or landlord reported property damage, and not all reports were accepted by FEMA.
Many people could not use the Transitional Sheltering Assistance (TSA, commonly called hotel vouchers) for various reasons. These included not wanting to make their children change schools, needing to remain close to their jobs, not being willing to leave their pets or livestock, and not wanting to leave what remained of their homes and belongings to be picked through by looters and scavengers.
To address reports of persons living in tents, County officials reported that those remaining in tents chose to do so or denied assistance without giving any context to those statements. Hooray for community leaders who victim blame and shame.
People were also denied TSA if they had no proof of residence before the storm. Individuals who were unhoused but lost everything they had and individuals who were living in transitional housing, such as hotels, were denied assistance. One FEMA manager once told me it made him angry when unhoused persons requested assistance because “they had nothing to lose to begin with.” He said he would laugh at them and tell them to get lost. (Yes, I reported him. No, I do not believe anything came of that report.)
Counter that with the image of unhoused persons fleeing their tents during the flood and making their way to community aid stations carrying mud-encrusted backpacks and wearing mud-covered clothes, being told that they would have to throw everything away because the river mud was contaminated. Yet, some FEMA and County representatives believe those people had nothing to lose.
With every disaster event, whether natural or man-made, the needs of survivors shift. The trouble is that they do not shift for everyone simultaneously, making for layers of need throughout the community, and layers of need within those layers.
Winter is in the mountains now, which means brutally cold nights and sometimes heavy rains. The most critical needs are housing and heat, and in a community that was already experiencing a housing crisis before Helene, these needs are difficult to meet. There isn’t enough housing available, and what is available is often not affordable.
Neither the Governor nor the County has enacted a moratorium on evictions, leaving families impacted by the loss of jobs, belongings, and cars scrambling to pay rent and late fees. Most landlords refuse to give any grace even though there is quite literally nowhere for people to go.
Mary, Kym, and Beth at Swannanoa Communities Together [courtesy]
When Helene pushed me out into the world, I landed amid the sticky strands of web populated by incredible human beings. That web eventually became a community center, Swannanoa Communities Together (SCT). These are the people with whom I am walking the muddy road, and with whom I share the weight of the sorrow our neighbors carry as we respond to the housing crisis in the Swannanoa Valley created by Helene.
SCT is there for “everyone who needs support with finding a place to live or keeping a roof over their heads and finding a path forward from home loss, displacement, and other trauma.”
Despite the circumstances in which SCT was created, I find it remarkably refreshing for a community support agency to have no religious or political affiliation, welcome everyone, hold space for every voice, and support a community that celebrates that everyone has something to give and receive.
To me, this welcoming, loving, kindly web is deliciously Pagan in nature.
Conversations with fellow travelers recently reminded me of this prayer I first crafted on December 21, 2023, the solstice.
Windsong Prayer
Mother, keep me mindful
the first line now of every prayer,
Cast upon the ley lines
between Earth and Water, Fire and Air.That I hold to my grounding, deep in the earth,
Keeping my balance, sure of my worth.
That I remain open and willing to learn,
Feeding my spirit and giving in turn.That I seek beauty in darkness as well as in light,
That I know when to listen and know when to fight.
That I may hold the space between stillness and naught,
So I remember to pause before I speak aught.Let my heart and my mind be as strong as my steel,
So my actions speak truth to the way that I feel.So mote it be.
The way ahead is difficult and full of danger, methinks, for those who seek help and for the helpers. Swannanoa, Buncombe County, North Carolina and the entire United States face terrible days ahead. Helene did not insulate us from the changes coming in January. Still, she might have given us a head start on implementing the type of community and mutual aid necessary for survival.
As I continue to walk this path of healing, hope, and future, I hope this prayer will guide me.
So mote it be.
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