What to begin to do in the long aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
SUMMARY
I write summaries for people who have to marshal their effort and attention.
Climate-change-fueled Hurricane Helene has done tremendous damage.
A few aid groups to donate to; it’s best, if you can, to pick one and donate weekly for a while.
Talk with your neighbors, take a training, and talk with the people you might need to share shelter with.
An exercise to help you do that.
An offer of crisis stabilization (remote sessions) from somatic care provider Janna Diamond.
An event on climate emotions in the classroom with me and Carolyn McGrath.
If you’re in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, I hope the people who love you hear your voice soon. If the people you love are there and you are not, I hope you hear their voices soon.
This article gives a clear breakdown of how the warming atmosphere of climate change made Helene more intense, and thus more destructive. People are still missing. Houses have been swept away. Cell service is spotty; a boil water advisory is expected to last at least a week. Many parts of Appalachia have roads washed out, making it impossible to get aid to the people who need it.
For when they’re able to get through:
Here’s a solid list of aid organizations, mainly local/regional, for western North Carolina.
The Florida Disaster Fund can be of use to people there.
A friend in western NC, safe at their in-laws’ for now, recommends mutual aid fund Beloved Asheville: Paypal.me/belovedasheville or venmo.com/beloved-asheville.
Local community hub and bookstore Firestorm recommends bit.ly/donatemadr, Venmo @MutualAidDisasterRelief and @AppMedSolid, and CashApp $Streets1de
The Appalachian Community Fund is a good bet for the long haul.
If you’re not there, and if you can, pick one place to donate to today, and then donate again a week later, and a week later still, and so on. These are needs for care that won’t be going away anytime soon. People will have lost their homes, their workplaces; they’ll have medical bills and funeral costs to pay, assistive devices to replace. They’ll have cruel decisions to make about when, and whether, to return home and to rebuild. They’ll have grueling insurance claims to put through. They will need you. Fight Toxic Prisons has instructions on their Instagram page for calling jails and prisons to find people locked up in unlivable conditions after the storm: can you make one call today, or tomorrow?
Also: if you are not underwater (or fleeing fire, or in a mudslide…) you are in a moment of reprieve. You can use that reprieve to build a preparedness that covers yourself and others. Choose one of these things to do (and to ask for, or offer, help in doing):
Talk with people in your building, on your street, or down your road about both evacuation and post-storm cleanup.
Take a physical or psychological first aid training, or a Community Emergency Response Team training—and/or support someone else in doing so (carpool, childcare, cover costs…)
Explore FEMA’s individual aid site so that you won’t be seeing it for the first time if you need it. (This may also equip you to help other people fill it out.) Some of these options are new since March and include short-term aid for things like diapers and medication.
Talk with the people you'd go to if you had to leave: how could you take care of each other if you had to come stay for a while? What if they had to come to you?
Here is an exercise for doing that last thing. I think I’ve shared it here before (a version of it is also in the book, and someone I know said it helped her respond to Helene) but I bet a lot of you have not done it yet. Please clear some time to do it in the coming week.
QUESTIONS:
Who that you know might come to you for shelter if climate impacts drive them from their home? Who might you go to stay with?
What kind of room could the one who’s hosting make? And for how long?
What would you need them to know about living with you, and what would you need to know from them, in order to live well together for that length of time?
How would you set up the next landing place before that time ended, or if you couldn’t live together as long as you expected?
How will you handle disagreements?
What would you want to eat together the first night, if you had the option?
PRACTICE: Hold this conversation with at least one of the people you might go to, and at least one of the people who might come to you (these might be the same people, or they might not). If possible, do it while sharing the food you’d want to eat together, or—if you don’t live close to one another—eating or drinking the same thing during your planning call.
ALSO: Janna Diamond, a somatic care provider I know and trust, is opening her schedule for crisis stabilization sessions post-hurricane; reach out to her on her website or on Instagram if you want experienced help in settling your stress response and being in connection with someone who will not reject or diminish whatever you’re feeling, whatever your closeness to this disaster. Sometimes people are like, "How dare I feel better?" or, “Don't ask me to calm down in this moment!" You don't have to! (As Janna said herself, shock and powerlessness are natural responses, as are anger, grief, fear, numbness, and anything else you may be feeling or not feeling.) But it's worth being able to steady yourself, and may also help you and those around you weather it when the disaster, the vigil, the heavy cleanup and the hard decisions are in your own house.
ALSO ALSO: If you’re a teacher, your students may have lived through multiple disasters like this one, or may do so soon, or may simply fear these and other impacts that climate change has and is projected to have on our lives. My friend and colleague Carolyn McGrath and I wrote a guide to support you and them, and we’ll be presenting it on October 5 as part of a virtual fundraising series for CPA-NA. Register here; the guide itself is free to download.
I wrote a book, LESSONS FROM THE CLIMATE ANXIETY COUNSELING BOOTH: HOW TO LIVE WITH CARE AND PURPOSE IN AN ENDANGERED WORLD (Hachette Go, 2024). This newsletter holds the ways that what's in it has branched out: new reflections, events and workshops, unresolved questions, further reading, ways to connect and act. I'm glad to be here on earth with you.