BY ASHA WILDE
When I look back at the pictures and videos I took from my house the day before the flood, I am struck by just how green they were. How teeming with life – dense plants and so many animals – it was. It was one of the main reasons I fell in love with this area and with my home specifically. I never got bored of it. I never took it for granted. I missed it when I was away.
For seven years, my life was split across the country: my partner on one side and me on the other. And when I was gone from here, I would always get antsy if I went too long without hearing my frogs sing.
I loved my frogs.
I used to keep the windows open in the summer to listen to the chorus die down until it was just a few stubborn bullfrogs. When we drove into our neighborhood at night, we’d go so slowly, watching for frogs crossing the road and keep a “frog stick” in the car to help them cross if they were just sitting there because I couldn’t stand to find them smushed on our daily walks around our neighborhood’s pond.
Anyway,that’s all gone now.
Instead of green, we’re surrounded by fields of fallen skeleton trees, endless brown devastation, and crumbling buildings.
The silence and stillness are deafening.
It’s bleak out here.
***
For over a month, things have ground to a halt. The volunteers and folks helping us clean up are nowhere to be seen. Nearly everyone who has a home to go to has left, and those of us who remain have been worn to the point of breaking.
The city has moved on.
The county has moved on.
The world has moved on.
But we’re still here drowning in the debris that used to be our lives.
***
At the end of December, it was reported that 500,000 cubic yards of storm debris (aka the stuff that used to be our stuff, our homes, and our businesses) had been removed so far.
Sounds like a lot, right? It is, but it’s also less than 5 percent of the total amount of storm debris in Buncombe County.
At this pace, it will take 6.5 years to clear all of the debris and a total of 500,000,000 dump truck loads.
Yep, I typed 500 million.
Do that many dump trucks even exist on earth?
I’ll wager not.
***
I’m told we’re now in the rebuilding phase.
Surrounded by so much chaos and debris, that seems wrong to me, but it wasn’t my call.
Official (local) communication on what’s happening here and what’s next is virtually non-existent – yes, there are regular updates posted (and hidden on YouTube), but they are dry reports covering what’s just happened and what’s planned for tomorrow.
It feels like no one (here? anywhere?) knows what’s going on.
Locally, we lack leadership and long-term vision, and we most definitely lack the resources to make big things happen.
You can’t just go back to how things were when the land that was there isn’t there anymore.
So rebuilding without reimagining is…what, exactly? Bumbling ahead?
At the same time, so many people are struggling with their basic needs. They (and myself) are stuck with mortgages for homes that no longer exist, car payments for cars that they haven’t managed to find, and missing jobs in businesses that (literally) collapsed.
Cash is hard to come by, and bills still need paying.
Buncombe County property taxes are due today, and there are no exceptions for unlivable houses like mine.
Renters are living in derelict, mold and mud-filled houses completely ignored by their negligent landlords.
In many cases, those same landlords have already gotten their FEMA money and chosen not to do anything to fix the houses while still demanding their rent.
This is one reason why people are living in tents or their cars. There are many others, though – it’s a complex and nuanced situation.
***
In the few weeks after the flood, communication was difficult due to poor roads, power and cell outages, and no internet in the area, but there were a ton of people sending, gathering, organizing and distributing supplies for folks in need.
Now, there are still supplies trickling in, and there are still some places locally warehousing and distributing them, but it’s much, much harder to find supplies and places to direct folks coming in with them. They are spread out, and information about where to go, what hours to go there, how they operate, etc. is very hard to come by and often outdated. It’s grassroots at best, and the folks still on the ground volunteering in the community are working long hours under difficult conditions with little outside support.
Just in the last week, two of the biggest places for day-to-day supplies (everything from pantry staples and hygiene supplies, to propane and batteries) announced they are shifting exclusively to support “rebuilding” efforts – I think that means they’ll be trying to gather and store building supplies, but I’m honestly not sure.
***
And, make no doubt about it, day-to-day supplies are still needed here…
As I write to you, Swannanoa has no post office, no grocery store, and no hardware store (anymore). All three existed in the same strip that was massively flooded and won’t be fixed until at least March. One pizza place just opened back up across the street last week, but as far as I know, it’s the only functioning restaurant in Swannanoa.
There was a mobile post office outside of the post office for a bit. It was both a general delivery point for people who lost their homes/have undeliverable addresses and a place where they could send their mail from.
However, it closed at the first cold snap and the post office that is now handling our mail is in North Asheville – about 25 minutes away without traffic (and since Helene, there’s ALWAYS traffic).
That’s a long round trip for people who don’t have cars just to go pick up their mail.
***
The parking lot in front of that strip was a key community center for the first two months after the storm.
It was a Comfort Station – a FEMA-funded area that is overseen by the county and has showers and laundry stations, heating tents, etc., as well as other recovery resources.
Because of its size and central location, that parking lot became a hub of additional activity – hot meals served daily for anyone in need (including recovery workers and volunteers), a safe parking lot for folks sleeping in their cars (for a time, there was even security), a good place for us to tell folks coming in from out-of-town with supplies and resources that they could set up in.
Despite all of this, the county shut it down at the beginning of December.
Even after the Comfort Station closed, a volunteer medical team from Louisiana that had set up there chose to stay and kept providing vital assistance. They’ve seen over 800 people in Swannanoa for free but have been met with hostility by the county (which claims they aren’t needed.) They can’t remain here unsupported, though, and just announced they are closing up shop next week.
A similar Comfort Station to the one shut down remains in Swannanoa, but it’s further off the beaten path, surrounded by difficult roads, extremely dangerous to walk to and lacking in space for folks coming in from outside to easily set up in the parking lot.
It’s a vital resource for folks who need it most and many of those people don’t have the transportation required to easily get to it.
Speaking of transportation….as of a few weeks ago, two major bridges have been repaired, including the bridge on Highway 70 that links Swannanoa to Asheville right outside of the entrance to my neighborhood.
This means that there is more than one way to get to Asheville from the eastern side of the Swannanoa River. It means less traffic and far less travel time – the closed bridge added an additional 20 minutes each way to what would normally be a 5-minute trip for me.
I have no idea what the future looks like for this area.
I don’t think anyone does.
Most of the folks directly involved are still focused on the immediate thing. The here and now. This is understandable, given the immense need that still exists.
Comprehensive relief bills have been blocked at both a state and federal level, and Swannanoa is unincorporated, so there is no town/city leadership to bring our concerns to and no one to advocate for us to higher levels of government – including the county, which has been woefully inadequate in providing help here since the beginning.
Between that and the news cycle moving on, we’re all left wondering what will become of us as the evidence of Helene’s destruction surrounds us.
Helene incited a geologic event.
Reshaped the ground.
Rerouted the rivers.
Washed away the land and everything on it.
You can’t just go back to how things were when the land that was there isn’t there anymore.
This means there can’t be real rebuilding without reimagining, and that takes leadership and vision.
—
About Asha Wilde
After 18 years in the Swannanoa area, my home was lost to Helene. I’m still here, helping my community as much as I can, while sharing about my experience.
Editor’s Note: Hernando Sun columnist Steve Goodwin wished to share Asha’s story with Hernando Sun readers. He recently volunteered in western North Carolina.
