She ripped down forests and left whole towns in shambles.
Reaching far past the usual coastal stomping grounds, she came inland to take everything from families and farmsteads.
Where I live in southwestern Virginia, were hundreds of miles from any ocean.
helene bridge post hurricane.
Appalachia has seen hard times, but we dont usually worry about hurricanes.
We lingered over coffee, laughing as the lights flickered and the wind howled.
I tried to believe the pounding rain was good news after our disastrously hot summer.
But when the house went dark with a final shudder, our friend took the cue to exit.
Without a cell signal to guide her, my husband and I led her to the interstate ourselves.
Minutes later, we came back to a home barricaded by fallen trees.
Credit:Joel Kimmel
Twenty miles away inDamascus, Virginia, Deanna Wolfe was in her kitchen on the phone with a friend.
She recalls, I looked out the window and said, Theres water coming in the park!
Muddy water, just pouring in!
Then she said, Grab what you might.
Well be right there.
Deanna opened her door to find an emergency-rescue vehicle outside, its hubcaps underwater.
Credit:Joel Kimmel
She jumped in and directed the driver to nearby houses.
They drove out with water coming over the windshield.
But the innkeepers reached her with news of impassable roads and mayhem.
Credit:Joel Kimmel
She was urgently needed in Damascus.
The river went straight through churches, houses, businesses.
We were just trying to keep people safe.
Credit:Robbie Caponetto
Over a hundred miles south, Keenan Lee Kulp was doing the same.
The storm was intense that morning, he recalls, but Im used to storms.
Were nowhere near the river, much higher than any flood that had happened before.
He hopped in his van to go get her, only to confront tangled trees and power lines.
I passed a place where several families in trailer homes washed away.
The road itself was a creek, just rocks and boulders, he says.
He finally reached her house on a dirt bike.
After helping his mother to safety, he set off to find others in trouble.
I had no idea how widespread it was, he says.
At my house, we were equally in the dark.
Some of these giants had stood a century or more.
Wed joined over 3 million powerless households.
Power, though, is in the heart of the beholder.
If Appalachians know anything, its how to take care of one another.
Within hours of the storms passing, communities were organizing soup kitchens and cleanup brigades.
The Presbyterian church had a gas stove that worked, and Curt was in there cooking, he says.
I thought, Great, heres something I can do!
I started cutting vegetables.
I was barefoot; my boots had gotten covered in mud.
I thought, Food safety rules?
Well do our best!
More locations for getting help cropped up.
Everybody brought out grills and food that was thawing from their freezers.
At parks, in the middle of neighborhoods, this just happened.
People gave us all they had, to share, Keenan says.
A propane-fueled refrigerated van became the cooler for the town.
Local restaurants donated everything in their freezers, filling it up to the top.
He woke early each day with his mind rushing.
First Id head to the food hub.
By then, we were supplying four kitchens out in the far-flung areas.
Then Id go out on foot and venture to find people who hadnt been reached.
Trained as an Eagle Scout, he carried supplies, flashlights, and tactical first aid kits.
Every day, more volunteers were finding their roles.
When we saw people wed been working with, we gave each other hugs.
Wed made it through another day.
The next most urgent need was information.
Volunteers taped poster boards on a church van with alphabetized columns for names.
Keenan explains, If you learned someone was alive, you wrote their name on the list.
They had one spot in the neighborhood with cell service, so they all took chairs up there.
They called it Signal Hill.
People brought meals and shared information to let loved ones know they were alive, she says.
They put their losses aside and got busy coordinating shelters and cooking in church parking lots.
Suddenly, these skills were needed at home.
My sister was boots on the ground, going door-to-door handing out water-purification kits, says Yancey.
Hed found nobody exactly in charge, just helpful people who fell into a rhythm of work.
Rural Appalachia is complicated.
Our mission that day was love.
Our foreman was care.
Our sheep happily ate the uprooted forest that was deposited in their fields.
I read a book a day.
Were glad no trees hit us directly.
But our region aches for missing lives, livelihoods, even whole communities.
This time, the whole world turned upside down.
You cant just merge back into it when youre ready.
I collected survival stories.
He needed a place to park his temporary homean Airstream hed been restoringso we offered our farm.
I tracked down Deanna in provisional accommodations kindly loaned to her by friends.
Deanna says shes trying.
I apologized if the coincidence embarrassed her; my fictional Deanna had quite a love life.
The real Deanna grinned, saying Id made her the most famous librarian in Damascus.
Shes now retired after 20 years at that job, and my first thought was for her books.
She lost them all.
The mobile home she bought new 14 years ago was unsalvageable.
Shed loved her home, with its yard full of hydrangeas and butterfly bushes.
Her neighbors were like family.
I expected to live there until I left this earth, she says.
Its hard for her to talk about what she found when she went back:moldup to the ceilings.
Her whole life of books and photo albums buried in mud.
She rescued some furniture, wall hangings, and the cement garden angels outside her door.
Shes trying hard to make her nest in this box.
I just have moments where… she pauses, looking away, I want to go home.
Helene blew away more than houses, She exposed the bones of inadequate infrastructure.
Health care and food security were already fragile here.
We have almost no public transportation, so a car trapped under mud amounts to house arrest.
At 9:38, an evacuation order turned into a string of impossibilities.
Within minutes, flooding engulfed the parking lot.
Eleven patients were taken out before the violent torrent halted water rescues.
Helicopters also faced danger in turbulent winds.
We love our porch for its history, anchoring us to a landscape threaded with waterways.
Every path through these hills winds between accounts of loss and survival.
Its on Forest Service land, so the $600 million rebuild requires taxpayer support.
We dont just love the trails.
We also need visitors and their faith in our recovery.
Outdoor tourism is even more essential to Damascus, where the Virginia Creeper and Appalachian Trails converge.
Every year gets hotter.
This is new weather.
They worry about the mess were leaving our kids.
Theres no arguing with physics: Warm air holds more water.
With so many fallen giants, the floor now lies under open sky.
I count sprouting acorns by the dozens, arching their necks and reaching for a new bonanza of sunlight.
I have so many hopes for this place I love.
