Dear Helene, It’s High Time We Talk: Part 1.

Hello, friends!! I am back from a long blogging hiatus. You may already know from my bio or social media that I live in Asheville, NC. Hurricane Helene recently devastated our community and small neighboring towns such as Swannanoa, Black Mountain, Chimney Rock, and Burnsville to name a few. As of late, life has felt like a strange dream…

First, I want anyone reading to know we are okay and suffered no physical damage from Helene. I apologize for the long period of silence immediately following the launch of my Costa Rica blogs. I know many of you subscribed to follow that series, and then my website went dark.

Truthfully, life became chaotic. 14 days, 12 hours, and 2 minutes—that is how long we went without power at my home. We had no water for 4 weeks, then it wasn’t drinkable for another 4 weeks after it came back. Local cell service was out for days to weeks depending on the carrier. Subsequently, work at the pharmacy followed by “survival chores” before curfew and nightfall consumed my days following Hurricane Helene.

It would be much easier for me to compartmentalize the traumatic events and move on. As nice as that sounds, our community still needs the world’s attention. A hurricane in the mountains seems unfathomable, yet here we are, grappling with the aftermath.

Conceptualizing the local suffering due to Hurricane Helene is painful; however, it is necessary to let the world know help is still needed here in Western NC. I really want to share my day-by-day experience in Asheville. This was my first natural disaster experience, and I am not proud to admit that my household was not fully prepared. Perhaps you will assess your own preparedness for emergencies too?

Writing about my Hurricane Helene experience requires fighting a complete mental shutdown at the recollection of distressing memories, but this is my honest recount of it all.

WEDNESDAY: PRE-HELENE

I am yet to be aware that we are under a State of Emergency throughout the entirety of the day. (Truthfully, I had to go back and Google the date it was officially declared for the accuracy of this blog.)

Heavy rain caused some minor flooding on the roads I travel after work, but this is not from Hurricane Helene. A completely separate storm system is gracing our area with very unfortunate timing before Helene comes to play.

I now work as a Long Term Care pharmacist, stationed inside a small independent pharmacy each day. There is a constant flow of local foot traffic and chatter throughout my typical workday. The potential of the tropical storm from Helene hitting our area is not a topic of discussion today.

THURSDAY: PRE-HELENE

Rainfall from the separate storm system continues throughout the day. (At the time, we have no idea this overwhelming amount of rain preceding Helene is fueling her path to be even more deadly and destructive.)

I see the headlines regarding North Carolina’s State of Emergency on the internet browser at work. Thus far, none of this is alarming to me. I assume the coastal areas will be most at risk for a hurricane, right? We are in the mountains.

One of my friends at work comments about her husband being unusually nervous about the potential upcoming storm and wants to stock up on supplies. My mom, a notorious over-preparer, sends me a text advising me to fill up my gas tank in the event there is a shortage in the days to come. I share this loving motherly advice with the pharmacy technicians before leaving for the day. This is the extent of Helene’s discussion in my circle. My husband and I haven’t even mentioned it to each other, and he follows storms like a groupie, especially when we travel. He loves storms!

After work, I decide to fill up my car with gas but decide not to fight the potential milk and bread crazed pre-storm crowd at the grocery store. I am thinking the worst-case scenario is a day or two before I can get back out to the store. This is not the first or the last major storm warning to come across my weather app.

Minor flooding is still present on the shoulders of the highways on my drive home. With the known potential of flooding in the days to come, I experience a palpable feeling of gratitude that my usual commute between work and home has routes that can avoid flood-prone areas.

From my understanding as of this evening, our area could be hit with heavy rainfall, strong winds, and flooding early Friday. I am not extremely concerned compared to ice and snowstorm predictions. I am not sure why that is. I guess they tend to cause more treacherous situations and hazardous commutes in my life experience as a country girl from Virginia thus far.

I go to bed at night like normal without a thought of the upcoming storm. I am off work the following day and have little reason to be nervous.

FRIDAY: HELENE HITS

During the very early morning hours, my cell phone sounds an alarm that I actually believe to be an Amber Alert amidst my sleepy stupor. This happens three or four times throughout my sleep with no avail to actually waking me up for good.

A couple more hours pass, and the overpowering sound of wind startles me awake and out of bed just before 8 o’clock. I realize the power is out in our house, but I still have cell signal. It has finally clicked for me that the earlier cell phone alarms were storm related. The feeling of fear is creeping in.

I check on my daughter, then the pets. The indoor cats are still sleeping but my old lab, Bennett, is so scared that he has defecated all over the living room. I smell his fear-induced diarrhea before I see it. He is pitifully shivering and chattering his teeth from the storm anxiety and knowing he had an accident in the house. My outdoor cat, Millie, is still outside from the previous night. My mom is at the house with us for the school week and could not get Millie back in before everyone went to bed the previous night. I go outside the back door from our laundry room to call for her. It felt like I had stepped into a movie scene…

It is as if Helene snuck in like a thief in the night, and I stupidly dismissed any warnings of her presence. Worried about my cat, I don’t take time to put proper clothes on. I walk out in shorts and flip-flops, holding a raincoat over my head. I have never experienced such strong gusts of wind. It is causing the downpour of rain to do this peculiar swirl in the air as it falls to the ground. I know Millie is taking shelter somewhere as I walk all around the back yard getting pelted with rain and shouting her name over the roar of the storm. No luck. I go back inside and walk to the front door to check the front porch. Like a black lightning bolt, that feisty little Torti leaps past me as soon as I open the door. She is drenched and so terrified of whatever she just experienced that she runs to hide in the closest under my husband’s clothes. Millie is a tough-as-nails 10-year-old cat who wants to be outdoors most of the time. She is no stranger to storms, but this is novel for her as well and she is frightened.

I walk around the perimeter of the house to ensure everything is okay so far. Our neighborhood sits up on a mountainside with beautiful vista views. Accessing it requires driving up a steep grade with a short little dip down into our traditional yet quite small neighborhood. The homes are generously spread apart and surrounded by nature. We are not located in a flood zone, but our backyard is made up of mature trees that lead into a wooded area. We have a pretty iconic backyard-facing deck view. Bears are our neighbors and frequent our property. Visitors hang out with us in the outdoor living space, and I often post photos of this picturesque backdrop online. What I am trying to say is, everyone in our lives knows about our situation of being enveloped by trees. I move my car out of harm’s way from the driveway and park it up on the cul-de-sac road. I text my husband, Seth, videos of the storm and water pooling in our driveway. He is currently two hours away, working at an ER in Gastonia, NC, which is also in the pathway of the same storm system.

I continue to text with my family and friends as my mom, daughter (Brooklyn), and myself hunker down from Hurricane Helene. I sent a text to Brooklyn’s dad sometime after 8 a.m. asking if we could switch weekends due to weather conditions. Seth is currently caring for victims of the storm in the ER as they are being hit in Gastonia too. Everyone is aware we have no power, but we continue to be able to send texts and calls as of early morning. I am texting back and forth with one of my best friends named Ashton in Virginia. They are getting heavy storms too, so we continue checking in with one another. The last text I get from her asks if we are okay because her husband just saw online that Asheville is only accessible by air. This is the first and only inkling on Friday that things around us may be terrible. Shortly after reading that text, connectivity to the outside world is lost for me.

It is between 10 and 11 in the morning and I am trying to force texts through, but they are all saying not delivered. All three of us in the house lose the ability to send texts messages or connect to the internet via mobile data. I am unsure what is going on outside of our neighborhood, but my instincts combined with Ashton’s last text tell me to stay home. I am supposed to drive Brooklyn to her dad’s house in Tennessee for the weekend. This trip requires a 2-hour drive across a mountain along I-26 through Erwin and Johnson City, TN. I know Brooklyn’s Dad will want me to err on the side of keeping her safe; however, I am anxious at the thought of not showing up if the road conditions are actually fine. The text I tried to send out to him earlier is now saying it was never delivered. He doesn’t have an iPhone like I do, and the texting back and forth isn’t as reliable as with my iPhone friends when signal is poor. It is possible my text actually went through, but unlikely because I did not get a reply. I feel really bad that he may not have received any messages from us today. Regardless, all of us agree to stay home until we have a way to communicate with the outside world to know the extent of the storm’s damage. We have not seen any official information on the local news about Hurricane Helene before losing cell service. Is it totally fine or is it a total disaster out there?

My mom decides to make French Toast on the grill outside in the middle of this wild storm so we can have a hot breakfast. I know… she is the best. She is also the only one of us who recently updated her iPhone and has a new feature to send satellite texts. She keeps going outside to higher ground on the cul-de-sac road and attempting to get texts out to Seth and Brooklyn’s Dad. Unfortunately, they appear to not be going through either. This feels suffocating to me, if that makes sense. We are totally isolated from communicating with anyone outside of here. I keep telling myself this won’t last long with the modern technology we are spoiled to. I am getting incredibly anxious at the thought of my husband, family, friends, and Brooklyn’s family on her dad’s side being worried about us. It is unlike me to go without responding to text messages and not be present online. I know they know this about me, and it magnifies my worry for them, knowing they may think a tree has smashed into the house or that we tried to leave Asheville.

For the remainder of the day and night, we are still disconnected. As far as our awareness of the destruction around us—ignorance is bliss. We have no way of knowing without powering on the car radio. The roads out of our neighborhood are certainly not safe to drive just yet. We plan to keep waiting until the following day before we waste gas in the cars. Once the storm is gone, it should hopefully be safe to try to drive out to get service and supplies. We continue hanging out in the house together, making sure Brooklyn is shielded from any of the worry my mom and I are holding in.

PART 2

The abrupt storm brought on by Hurricane Helene, isolation, and inability to communicate with the outside world remind me of the fragility of our existence and how quickly all of the comforts we are accustomed to can be taken away. We have no way of knowing what the reality is, that we are unknowingly trapped in our neighborhood, and people right down the road from us are perishing.

Part 2 describing when we finally got out of our neighborhood, the extent of damage we saw, the heroism of neighbors, what life post-Helene was like without electricity or water, and drone footage of the destruction is coming soon.

Please check out Part 2 next if you found this blog interesting or insightful. Thank you so much for your non-judgmental support as I share the experiences of myself and my family during this novel natural disaster brought on by Hurricane Helene. Feel free to leave comments, questions, or reach me by email below!

-Amanda Kendler

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