A Community in Crisis - Hurricane Helene

Shortly after Hurricane Helene stopped her raging on Friday, September 27th, my Ashevillian neighbors slowly began poking their heads out of their houses. The sun now shining to illuminate the destruction caused by his brothers, rain and wind. I’m from New England so I know snow storms, but 130 mile an hour winds and hurricane rains were like nothing I had ever seen before. I don’t think it’s something many people have. 

I joined my neighbors on the street, taking in the devastation. Service was gone, power was out and water supply shortly followed. Fallen trees lay everywhere, some just barely missing people’s homes and some shoved right through the kitchen window. What I was still unaware of was that not ten minutes from my house, other people’s homes and belongings were floating down the French Broad River. Because of the widespread power outage, no one really knew the gravity of the situation, that landslides and major flooding was occurring all over the community and neighboring towns, some of which had been completely destroyed. Coffee shops and local stores I had come to know and love were completely underwater. Displaced people’s family photos, couches, and beloved items bobbed up and down in the raging currents that overtook the city. 

As I walked through my neighborhood over the next few days, service, power and water still out, I quickly got to know my neighbors. Every single person I passed stopped me and asked if I was okay, how I was doing, if I had any updates to share. One woman had a restaurant downtown that had remained untouched by the storm. She had been going back and forth from our area to the restaurant, bringing food back to her generator powered house and cooking for the people still without electricity. An older couple a few houses up the road were filling our pots or buckets with pool water so that we could flush our toilets. Mothers, fathers, children and grandparents all gathered in the streets to share any updates and console one another. We learned about and monitored the growing desperate situation together as one, often needing moments to pause and process the utter shock and devastation.

Hurricane Hellene has destroyed much of the community that I have come to love, and single handedly united us. 

In moments that break up the heartache, I have smiled watching my town gather at the fire station, playing guitars and singing songs, bringing grills to cook food before it sours. Sharing. Giving. Healing together. 

We have so much more in common than we do different. At the end of the day, all any of us really want is to live a happy, healthy life and watch those that we love do the same. How often do we look around and think, this could be enough for me? Why is it that only when disaster strikes do we feel the need to come together to brave the storm of life?

Some of us remember what it was like before we walked around with AirPods crammed in our ears and phones in our faces. There was a time when communities would gather in the town center, not because of a devastation but because there was a comfort in belonging to something outside of yourself, a knowing that we are so much stronger together than apart.

There is a reason why social anxiety has sky rocketed over the last few years; We have forgotten how to work together. We have forgotten how to connect and share stories and be around each other in a good way. In many ways, society has become riddled with war consciousness; Us versus them, me versus you. 

We have lost the ability to have conversation with people’s whose ideas differ from our own. So many of us deeply lack connection and a sense of belonging. If we took a moment to pause and look around, I think we would see that it’s simply not working. We are not meant to do this alone. 

The greatest work we can do right now has a collective human species is to begin to look within, to look in the mirror and face ourselves. Hate is the refusal to look at the self. The more we heal, the more we realize this. 

I believe that people are waking up. People are looking around and realizing that there has to be more to life than this. So I have hope. I have hope because I believe in the innate goodness in each of us. I believe that the way I have watched my community band together and help one another can be the status quo.

We are only too far gone when every person decides there is nothing left to fight for. There is still so much to fight for, to live for. I’ve seen and felt and been a part of the healing and the power of people coming together, having the hard conversations and truly hearing each other, truly listening. 

We can change. We can heal as an individual and a collective. It starts with you. One person choosing to take their life in their own hands, to work through their triggers and limiting beliefs is how we heal the world. You want world peace? Ask yourself why you don’t feel peaceful. Do you see war on the news? How are you at war with yourself? How are you at war with your neighbor or the person that has an opposing view to your own? 

Heaven is here on earth, if we know where to look. It’s delusion and the constant belief that someone else is coming to save us that tells us that the pleasantness and safety that we seek is anywhere else than where we are. Start to dismantle your own negative belief system. Heal. You don’t have to, and there is no “should”. But the choice is there. And the choice is yours.