Hurricane Helene was an unprecedented disaster in the mountains of Western North Carolina. The people there urgently need more help, especially those who were poor or pushed to the margins prior to the disaster. I recently took a trip to North Carolina with my adult daughter, Isabel, to help with disaster recovery. For me, the trip underscored just how much climate justice and economic justice are inextricably intertwined.
The damage seemed like a combination of Iowa’s Flood of 2008 and Derecho of 2020, but worse. Flooded buildings, snapped trees, and roofs still awaited repairs. Heavy erosion, mudslides, and debris flowed down the mountains and through the streams and rivers, all of which far exceeded what we experienced in Cedar Rapids.
There have been 106 confirmed deaths in North Carolina from Helene, with likely even more. Father Vic of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Burnsville, North Carolina, where our recovery group stayed, said there was a 100-plus person encampment in Asheville that was completely destroyed, so the death toll may be even higher. Officials may never know.
Almost six months after Hurricane Helene, there are still piles of debris with homes and businesses needing repairs. Our group of 14 adults, six high school students, and three student chaperones helped one homeowner and one nonprofit operator. We got a lot more done than I was expecting, but the owners still had much more to do after we left. They were very resourceful, but they did not have access to money to hire crews to do the rebuilding.
I had the opportunity to visit with local business owners who were impacted by the storm firsthand. An 89-year-old man who ran an antique store in Burnsville and had lived there his entire life said he had never seen anything remotely close to the level of damage caused by Helene.
A woman who ran a coffee shop in Spruce Pine told me her location was only temporary. Thanks to the generosity of a furniture store which shared its space with her, she was able to keep her business going while her own shop was being repaired. I learned later from another business owner that the coffee shop owner had also suffered damage to her home. People losing both their homes and businesses is something we remember from the Flood of 2008 in Cedar Rapids.
I visited with another man who lost a restaurant in Asheville he had been intending to sell, losing over $1 million in value and facing another $500,000 in costs just to make the business rebuildable. The good news was that he had other significant assets, so his economic well-being was not at risk. However, most survivors do not share his same economic position.
After our week of disaster relief, we went to Asheville to explore the community. The city is a hotbed for the arts, music, and tourism, especially with the Southern Conference men’s basketball tournament being in town. While visiting a local bookstore, I bought a book produced by local writers and artists entitled, “Stronger than the Storm: Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina”. Though the accounts of the disaster are harrowing, all proceeds from the book go to disaster recovery. You can purchase your own copy at the bookstore’s website, linked here.
On the drive home, we took Interstate 26 through Tennessee en route to a stop at the Red River Gorge in Kentucky. While I had psychologically shifted from disaster recovery to family vacation, God had one more horrific view for us: massive damage through Erwin, Tennessee, including the Impact Plastics manufacturing facility where 11 workers (many of whom were Latino) were swept away, six of whom died in the flood. A pending lawsuit against the facility’s owner alleges he denied permission for employees to leave work early despite the obvious flood risk.
The Impact Plastics tragedy, as well as all of these climate stories, make it clear: We must stand together for climate and economic justice to safeguard our people and our future in an era of accelerating climate damage.
With the climate crisis growing ever more urgent, we hope you will join us for our Called To Climate Action Conference at Grinnell College on Saturday, March 29 from 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM. This conference will help us come together to renew and grow the climate justice movement in Iowa.
