Helene One Year After

 It is hard to put into words the impact that Helene had and continues to have on Western North Carolina. We are all changed. Some of us have returned to a new but comfortable normal and others are still living in tents with no running water or power. Many are still without jobs. Many still don't have access to help. Most of us are amazed by the love and support private citizens of the world have showered on us. 

More of the Blue Ridge parkway has opened, but it is still heavily damaged.

A few Stats as it stands today ~

• There were 8,000 private bridges and roads destroyed in Helene. Today 7,000 roads and bridges are still destroyed leaving thousands of people without access to fire and EMS rescue services. Yes, their houses are intact...but when a crisis strikes there is no way for help to get to them. 
• More than 180,000 homes were destroyed in Western North Carolina. 
• Ninety percent of home owners who lost their home didn't live in a flood plane so they didn't have flood insurance. That means that home insurance won't help them. Unfortunately, our current administration won't help them either. People are relying on private donations. 
• The federal government has only released 7% of the funds it gave to Sandy or Katrina survivors and cities to rebuild even though Sandy was significantly smaller and Katrina was similar to Helene. The federal government usually provides about 50% of recovery fees. WNC has received 8% to date of the overall cost in damages. Appalachia is a very poor part of the country and many of us feel utterly forgotten. 
• At least 108 died (we don't have a good count of how many homeless were lost that often lived near the rivers) 43 of those deaths came from my county. 
• Our community has collective PTSD. Rain storms send everyone to worrying. 
• Our water treatment system that serves Asheville is temporary. It costs 6 million dollars a month to run the temporary system. FEMA is currently saying that they will not continue to fund the temporary system. As of today, there is a lot of confusion about what happens when FEMA pulls out on Oct. 1...just a few short days from now. The worst case scenario is that we will only have chlorinated raw water (not drinkable but our toilets will still flush). 
• Most people I know, including ourselves are still drinking and cooking with bottled water.
• There are so many areas we haven't been able to visit because the public roads are still closed and the routes around are for residents only or take triple the time to travel. For instance, we live about 35 minutes from Chimney rock, but the most common way to get there is washed away. It now takes almost two hours to get there. 
• Private organizations ~ Spokes of Hope, The Amish, Samaritans Purse, Beloved, Precision Grading and so many more have really helped. There are individuals who arrived here the first week and are still here trying to help. 
• The unemployment rate in our county was 2.5 percent before Helene and sored to 10% after Helene. That number has come down to about 5%...partially because so many have left. 
• There were over 2,000 landslides in WNC. Officials stopped counting at 2,000 because there was more important work to do.  Landslides killed about 50% of the people that fateful day. 

ALL THE PICTURES IN THIS POST WERE TAKEN OVER THE LAST THREE DAYS. 

This is what much of the area still looks like with in 2 to 5 miles of our home. 

Landslide

Landslide

caved in roof in the river arts distract that used to house artist galleries

So many parks lay dormant for now

A favorite playground sits waiting for the joyful sounds of children again. 

Recovery is slow...so slow and so will never come back. There are patches and blank areas where nothing remains. However, there is patches of rebuilding and relocating going on. Mountain people are strong and we are doing our best to recover with very limited resources. 

Don't forget us. 

Blessings, Dawn

Summer 2025 ~ Embracing Joy

Our summer is rapidly coming to an end. It has been a very busy summer that I have tried to splash joy throughout. There is no doubt we are living through difficult times locally (post Hurricane Helene recovery is slow and daunting with very limited federal funding), nationally and economically. On top of all of that, the day-to-day grind of taking care of a special needs family often ways heavily on me. However, there is joy and beauty all around us. We just have to seek it and embrace it. 

Before I review all the fun we had, I will give a quick update. Elijah completed two more classes in college this summer. He is doing well with his classes. I do need to hold him to a schedule and keep him on task, but his comprehension, quality and completion of his school work is his own. He now has completed five classes and holds an A in each one of them. 

Rebekah danced her heart out at The Richmond Ballet, Washington Ballet and The Ballet Conservatory of Asheville. When she wasn't dancing, she was teaching dance classes. She will continue dancing as an apprentice at Carolina Ballet Theatre (CBT) this year. She is moving in with some other dancers in Greenville, SC next week. This will make her commute just a few minutes each day instead of a four hour round trip. We are so pleased for her. She will still be home for two days each week to see us and her cat (who can't move with her) and to teach at Ballet Conservatory of Asheville (BCA). It will be a good, slow transition to independence for her. She will also be teaching in Greenville as well as completing her degree this year in Business Marketing. 

Tim is doing well and continues to work 9 hours a week at a game store here in Asheville. He is generally happy and healthy. 

I am balancing a full-time job being Tim's Innovation worker and a part-time job being a nanny to two adorable boys. I never lack for a list of things to do! 

So on with our summer ~ 

We took my Mom to afternoon tea to celebrate a late Mother's Day. It was the best afternoon tea that I have ever attended. My mother was delighted. We will go back someday ... maybe for Christmas. 

The whole family went on an adventure to The Columbia Zoo. We had a good time and the animals were all very active the day we were there. 

Rebekah wrapped up the season performing at BCA and CBT. She had a great year and is excited to return to CBT next week. 

We snuck away for a three day adventure to the beach. We went to Wilmington and explored the nearby beaches. I think we liked Wrightsville Beach better than Carolina Beach, even though the latter had a boardwalk. It was a disappointment from my youth. You just can't beat beaches in Maryland and Delaware, in my opinion. Those are the beaches of my childhood. We also went to Fort Fisher but couldn't get into the aquarium because it was too crowded that afternoon. We did enjoy walking around the fort. Of course, we had to play mini golf. That is a beach requirement in my family. 

Rebekah spent three weeks living with Dear Husband's sister and brother-in-law while she was dancing at the Richmond Ballet. They all had a great time together.  Dear Husband and I drove to Richmond to pick up Rebekah and joined the sister and brother-in-law to go to a nearby drive-in movie. That was one of my bucket list items and it did not disappoint. We saw Superman.  This particular drive-in was very organized. It worked out great. 

Later in the summer, Rebekah and I went to Washington, D.C. so that Rebekah could dance with The Washington Ballet. I stayed there, since she was only there a week. We visited with my stepmother, and I went on adventures around the city while Rebekah danced. The city is so much safer than when I was a child (my visit was before Trump's fake proclamation that the city was dangerous). He should have seen it in the 1990's ... lol. I digress. I had always wanted to visit the Fredrick Douglass home. It is set in a part of the city called Anacostia which was an extremely dangerous area when I was a kid ... but since it is so much safer in D.C. these last few years, I finally got to go. We had no trouble moving around in this very poor section of the city. Anacostia was a working class neighborhood that had become middle class by the time Fredrick Douglass bought Cedar Hill Estate in the heart of Anacostia. What a view he had! You can see the Washington Monument from his front porch. Fredrick Douglass was the most photographed person of his time period. For this reason, he took his appearance very seriously.  His household even had different irons to handle all of the ruffles and different fabrics he wore. 

This is his growlery (personal sanctuary). He used it to cope with his bouts of PTSD from his years as a slave. He didn't want to expose his visitors and grandchildren to his foul moods.  

My stepmother and I also went to Bubble Planet. It was advertised as being for all ages. We were the only ones there without children ... but no matter. We had a wonderful time. The bubble ball pool was amazing and the balloon room was so much fun. There were also soap bubble rooms and lots of fun photo op areas. 

For my belated birthday present, I asked to go to afternoon tea in the Washington, D.C. area. We went to Lady Camilla's in Old Town Alexandria. It was very nice, but not as amazing as the one in our city. 

Lastly, David and I had a belated anniversary overnight at a new hotel in a historic building in Asheville. We decided a few years ago to make a tradition of spending our anniversary being tourists in our own city and exploring the many luxury and boutique hotels. If you are going to live in a tourist city, you might as well enjoy what it has to offer. We stayed at the Flat Iron Hotel. It was marvelous. Our favorite so far. They greeted us with wine glasses with our choice of wine or mocktails. We got the mocktails and they were delicious. Everything in the building was original or lovingly returned to 1927 architecture. We had a corner room with windows looking out on two views of the city. We explored the the rooftop bar and had dessert before dinner. Then we ate in the Italian Restaurant in the hotel. The service all the way around was incredible. They realized what we needed before we even realized we wanted anything. 

My job is going very well.  I am just honored to be a part of these sweet boys' lives. They are delightful, and I think there is just nothing more rewarding than impacting the lives of the young.  They fill my days with laughter and hope. We have had a wonderful time exploring the outdoors and embracing nature. I love teaching children to love mountain streams. It is so much fun splashing around in them. 

These are photos from The Washington Ballet.

Hope! That is a word that many of us are longing to feel right now. Things are crazy right now. There is an overwhelming amount of lies, hate, misunderstandings, fears and anger ... so much anger. We have gone to several protests. I am glad to be able to express ourselves and be part of participating in our democracy. Remember, this country belongs to the people ... not just a few rich people who are power hungry. 

"Power always thinks ... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws." -- John Adams

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time." -- Lyndon Johnson

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." -- Fredrick Douglass

Democracy is a process, not a static condition. It is becoming, rather than being. It can easily be lost, but never is fully won. Its essence is eternal struggle." - Federal Judge William H. Hastie

"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education". -- Franklin D Roosevelt

“The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own Constitution.” -- Fredrick Douglass

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

Blessings, Dawn