Appalachian Apocalypse: Reflections on a Climate Catastrophe

In the heart of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, the impending arrival of Hurricane Helene transforms the serene landscape of Asheville and Marshall, North Carolina into a battleground against nature's fury. As heavy rains pour down, rivers swell to dangerous levels, the catastrophic winds from Helene down power lines and crash into houses, residents brace for the worst.

In the aftermath, we are now all grappling with the realities of a climate that have made such extreme weather events increasingly common. This personal account delves into the chaos and uncertainty brought by Helene, offering reflections on resilience, community service, and human connection in a region caught in the throes of a climate disaster.

Wednesday, September 25

Heavy rain begins to fall in the Asheville/Marshall area of North Carolina, where I have lived for 17 years. A cold front, slowed by the high mountains, has brought a flood of precipitation ahead of Hurricane Helene's arrival.

The city of Asheville, situated along the French Broad River, is known for its many yoga studios, artists, and exotic restaurants. Tiny Marshall (population 796), also located along the river, is known for its organic farms, Appalachian music, and the Civil War massacre in Shelton Laurel in 1863.

I imagine a grotesque sight: The Swannanoa River flooding through the windows of Andaaz, my favorite Indian restaurant. The water is a mixed soup of mud, plastic bottles, and pieces of wood.

I stock up on extra candles, a new flashlight, oil for the old-fashioned oil lamps, extra dry food, and fill up about 100 liters of drinking water in anticipation of life without electricity. At midnight, Asheville Airport reports over four inches (10 centimeters) of rain. I imagine that creeks and rivers have already reached record-high flood levels and sleep only a few hours at a time. We had flooding on an island in the middle of the river in 2021, but I know it has never rained so much in such a short time before. I anticipate the worst.

Thursday, September 26

Climate hurricane Helene rages up the mountains from the unusually warm waters off the Florida coast. Precipitation and winds intensify. The neighboring county of Yancey experiences over 8.5 inches (22 cm) of rainfall in just over a day. The rivers, especially the French Broad River, swell dangerously with water from rushing creeks and smaller rivers.

I talk on the phone with my 89-year-old mother in Norway. But suddenly we lose contact. A few minutes later, I go out on the porch and see that a large pine tree has fallen over the power lines. Without electricity, there's no Wi-fi and no water from the well for drinking, cooking, showering, or flushing the toilet.

In the evening, after not being able to call or write to my wife on a study trip in India, I read the classic travel book To a Mountain in Tibet by Colin Thubron by the light of two candles. As I go to sleep, I worry about my mother worrying about me.

Friday, September 27

Helene crashes through the forest around the house with heavy rainfall and strong winds. In the afternoon, I nervously drive down to the French Broad River and see rooftops, car parts, and plastic pipes violently streaming by.

A few days later, I read that Asheville Regional Airport lost communication after recording 13.8 inches (35 cm) of rain in less than 72 hours. That resulted in major flooding in the lowest parts of Asheville and many surrounding villages.

I imagine a grotesque sight: The Swannanoa River flooding through the windows of Andaaz, my favorite Indian restaurant. The water is a mixed soup of mud, plastic bottles, and pieces of wood. I envision Marshall completely underwater, the frozen food section in Madison Natural Foods store submerged in chocolate-colored water and industrial sludge.

I wake up after only an hour's sleep and listen to the strong wind and heavy rain drumming on the roof. I sleep restlessly for the rest of the night. Branches occasionally falling onto the roof. What if one of the large oak trees outside will come smashing through the bedroom ceiling?

Saturday, September 28

In the morning, the wind has calmed down somewhat. I make a primitive oven from flat stones and cook breakfast with pancakes and a compote of berries over the fire. The floodwater in the French Broad River has begun to recede, and the extent of the destruction becomes clearer.

From a friend, I hear that the muddy water reached the roofs of many buildings in downtown Marshall. Some wooden houses were smashed to pieces by the strong currents. I drive around the neighborhood and see that several metal structures from an asphalt company have been swept into the river along with a wooden house. Further downstream, a whole row of houses and trailers have been crushed or swept away by the violent river. Some people chose not to evacuate and disappeared downstream along with their houses. One woman was later found in the neighboring state of Tennessee.

In the afternoon, electricity and running water return to Prama Institute, the retreat center where I work, but not to my home or my neighbors'. (It would take nearly two weeks before power was restored.) Our neighborhood of about 30 adults and children gathers for a warm lunch, the first in several days. I can finally check email and occasionally make phone calls. I receive an email from my Norwegian friend Trond Øverland: "You must be experiencing both tragedy and great solidarity in your area right now."

"Good summary of the situation," I write back.

Sunday, September 29

The radio reports that the death toll has risen to 30, but 600 are still missing. A neighbor tells me that our friend Tom has lost his house in Chimney Rock, a place known from scenes in the movie The Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day-Lewis. Like many of the other houses, it was swept into Lake Lure.

Over 70 roads are destroyed, and Asheville is only accessible by car from South Carolina. The damage to houses and roads is, according to a politician, "post-apocalyptic." Thousands of anxious, hungry, and thirsty people are without electricity, water, and mobile coverage. On the radio, I hear that tap water may not be available for several weeks, perhaps months in some areas.

Rich or poor, we are all fast becoming climate victims.

I take my first shower in several days, and I feel the guilty pleasure of privilege. As tragic as it is everywhere around us, we are among the lucky ones. We, up here in the now quiet, sunny forest.

Monday, September 30

Governor Roy Cooper inspects the damage from the air and on the ground, calling it "unlike anything ever seen in western North Carolina." The government organization FEMA begins registering residents for assistance as the long rebuilding process starts.

Anthony, a friend from Shelton Laurel, stops by with his truck. Despite a large oak crushing the kitchen in his new house, and his parents' home in the mountain town of Hot Springs now floating down the French Broad River, he is willing to help. He knows of a place in Tennessee where we can buy food and gas.

Later that day, I try my luck locally. But the lines are long at Ingles supermarket, and you need cash. With no open banks, I drive home disappointed. In the afternoon, some neighbors go to Marshall with shovels and rubber boots. They shovel half-meter thick mud out of Madison Natural Foods store and Zadie's restaurant.

Tuesday, October 1

Anthony finally returns from Tennessee with his truck full of vegetables and fruit. We have plenty of rice and beans stored, so we start cooking and serving hot meals to people in need outside our neighborhood.

In the afternoon, I check the propane tank for the kitchen stove; it's only 35% full. With the amount of food we're now cooking, this will only last just under a week. Then we learn that Southern State Gas Company, where we get our propane from, is closed due to flood damage.

We are tired from all the cooking, serving, and the thick mud. We are filled with tragic and despondent feelings from all the destruction. We wonder if we can handle such physical and mental pressure for another day. But what else can we do? We must just keep on keeping on.

Wednesday, October 2

We cook hot food at the retreat center and serve 150 people in an apartment block in Asheville. They are mostly low-income retirees and partially disabled. They are victims of an unevenly distributed economic system and a failed healthcare system. Now they are also climate victims.

I read the following on CNN's website: "Asheville was touted as a climate haven, a place to escape the worst ravages of extreme weather. But Hurricane Helene's deadly path of destruction reveals this North Carolina city, like any in America, was never safe—it's just that memories are short, and the reach of the climate crisis is consistently underestimated."

Rich or poor, we are all fast becoming climate victims.

Thursday, October 3

I listen to a NASA climate scientist, prerecorded from a few days ago and speaking on his own behalf on the news program Democracy Now! He says that none of the news reports have mentioned the connection between Helene and climate change. Well, that's because they've been too busy reporting on the destruction and human suffering. And rightly so.

But today I read the following on Salon.com: "The destruction after Hurricane Helene in Asheville confirms that we cannot hide from climate change. The city in North Carolina was meant to be a climate refuge."

That's true. Since the mid-1990s, hippies, artists, environmentalists, organic farmers, musicians, and yogis have arrived in the area to find Shangri-La. I was one of them. Over the last 10 years, this liberal, progressive, and colorful cultural area was discovered by the more well-to-do from New York and California.

Now the area has become too expensive to live in for many. The restaurant, Airbnb, hotel, and tourism industry dominate the economy. Some talk about wanting to escape to another haven. But as we have painfully experienced in recent days, there are certain problems we cannot escape from. And certainly not from the effects of climate change.

Friday, October 4

Some last thoughts. You may still wonder why our area was so hard hit by what is termed Hurricane Helene. Because we were not just hit with Ms. Helene; we were hit by two weather systems. We had already had days with heavy rain before Helene hit us.

A "perfect storm" of circumstances led to this catastrophe. The ground was already waterlogged before Helene arrived. Thus, two storm systems stalled over the area, unleashing an extraordinary combination of hurricane winds and rain in a relatively small geographic region.

Then the mountainous terrain funneled this massive volume of water into the valleys below. This combination of preexisting saturation, extreme rainfall, challenging topography, and extreme winds toppling trees and power lines created the "ideal" conditions for this devastating disaster.

In this time of crisis, we discovered our capacity to rise together, transforming challenges into opportunities for connection and service.

But why were we not better prepared: You don't prepare for hurricanes in the mountains any more than you prepare for snowstorms in Miami. But that should not be an excuse for not preparing better, for not becoming less dependent on the electrical grid, for example.

During the climate change era—with severe droughts there and rainstorms over here—erratic and extreme weather patterns have become the new normal. According to climate scientists, never-before-seen weather patterns, or extreme ones experienced once every 100 years or so, may now take place every 10-20 years. Or even more frequently.

So, what can we do to combat climate change? Business as usual offers quick-fix solutions through schemes such as carbon capture. But there are no quick fixes. From a larger systems perspective, we need to rapidly move away from economies designed like extractive machines focused on maximum profit and production. Instead, we need economies emerging from and supporting the ecosystems of people, nature, and cultures.

We need political systems supporting regenerative and cooperative communities and regions. While recognizing that humans have basic needs to be met, we must align our economies with nature's processes to support dynamic balance and biodiversity.

In our own, small systems community, we have learned that we should have installed that solar well pump we talked about long ago. It would have saved us from going without water for over a week. It has now been ordered, and it will be installed soon.

We also need more solar generators in our homes to produce electricity for fridges and computers. While some of us already have whole-house solar power, we need to expand that capacity as well.

In this time of crisis, we discovered our capacity to rise together, transforming challenges into opportunities for connection and service. As the storms of the outside world intensified, we turned inward, nurturing our resilience through daily meditation and yoga. These practices became our anchors, helping us avoid the pitfalls of burnout and despair while serving the community at large.

Change on a systemic level requires a holistic approach, one that embraces transformation both large and small, collective and individual. It is about fostering well-being not just for small, exclusive groups, but for the entire community, weaving individual growth into the fabric of collective change and resilience.