Anna
Hi there, welcome back to the show. I’m doing an unplanned episode, a solo episode this week because Hurricane Helene was very unplanned and it devastated parts of my hometown in Asheville, North Carolina and the wider Western North Carolina area. And it felt more appropriate to do a solo episode than to do a prerecorded interview.

And this podcast is called the discomfort zone. And so many of us living through this and even from afar observing this, I’m sure it’s a huge discomfort zone. And just like the guests that have been on my podcast so far navigate the discomfort zone in different ways, have different strategies.

That is true for everyone, all of us navigating this devastation in our area.

And what’s interesting is that the morning that the storm hit, Andrew and I both looked at each other and said, maybe it won’t be so bad because it didn’t, we could, you know, there were wind gusts and it had been raining for two days straight. We knew the rivers were high. after the storm, shortly after the storm passed, we went for a quick walk with our dog around our immediate neighborhood and there were limbs down, but we didn’t see

you know, big trees down and there we weren’t right by the creek. We hadn’t walked down to the creek yet. So we didn’t see any of that. And so we both thought, yeah, maybe it isn’t, maybe it, maybe we made it through. Maybe we all made it through this. Okay. And we didn’t know how wrong we were until we went to check on Andrew’s grandfather, who folks are having a hard time getting a hold of. And we decided to go check on him. And on our way, we happened to drive out of our neighborhood on a road that was clear. And again, so we didn’t see too much damage. And as we were driving down and we came up,

We were driving down a main road and came up on Humminy Creek just raging. I mean, so high, so high and flooding its banks and flooding the main road that we were on. every, you know, other folks are trying to drive down that road and everyone had to turn around. We had to get back on the highway, go down and exit. And as we were coming up to where the road to where

Andrew’s grandfather and his girlfriend live in the condo complex. We saw again, Hominy Creek just raging and flooded. had flooded the whole road and we weren’t sure we were going to be able to actually turn onto their road. And the flooding was just past their road. And so we were able to get to them. And so we were very grateful for that and grateful that we encouraged them to leave once we saw how much flooding was happening. And they were able to go to Bryson City, where Andrew’s family lives and where actually Andrew’s grandfather’s main house is.

So we were grateful for that. And then as we drove back, we took a different route and we had to turn around several times, huge trees across the road, across roads. And so that’s when we knew that, you know, the storm was bad. But even then we didn’t know the wider extent of it because our phones, we lost power cell service shut down. And then we lost water the next day. And yeah, our phones were stuck on SOS. That was actually stressful. People were up at the fire station in West Asheville trying to reach their loved ones via the internet, via the wifi that was there, the city wifi, but there were too many people trying to get onto it. And…

And so that was stressful for a lot of folks. And I saw super generous folks who could get onto it lending their phones to people so they could call their families. And that’s really what I want to focus on. There is devastation. And in the face of that, in the face of so much grief of homes lost, loved ones lost, communities, entire communities lost.

and businesses that in the wake of that there’s been amazing connection and community coming together in our community which are again we fared well and I’m so grateful and I know we’re so so lucky we fared well compared to other neighborhoods you know folks we were walking around because we didn’t have cell service and so

You know, it was, we had to connect person to person, walking around saying hello, seeing if anyone needed anything. And there were a few, there were a few businesses downtown that still had wifi and power and they opened up their doors so folks could connect to their wifi. And I’m very grateful for that. There was a Starlink connection in our neighborhood.

which was also very, very cool. And so folks came out and were generous and caring and compassionate. And that is definitely a silver lining in all of this. And I wanna give a big shout out to members of the kayaking community who really jumped into action right away in their communities that are on rivers that were really devastated like the Green River. So I want to give a shout out to Chris Wing and Erica Shanks down in Saluda, who did so much community organizing around Saluda and Green River Cove. And also Trey Moore up on the Nolichucky in Erwin, Tennessee and Sam Iatarola from the French Broad River Academy who mobilized in Asheville and helped to organize supply drop-off. I know that he’s working with many people. They created a website called hurricanehelenewnc.com where you can go to drop-off supplies, to volunteer.

And these folks, I’m just so impressed and so inspired by their jumping into action in that first, in the like, the first phase. And…

After our house, we didn’t have power, water, or again, cell service. And for me, the being disconnected was really challenging. So in, in, when we’re in the discomfort zone, we learned things about ourselves. And I thought that was interesting to observe. We, we have rain barrels and I had filled up the bath, our bathtub ahead of the storm because of, definitely want to shout out to Wendy Liu again.

So many people in Asheville sharing information and past experiences. She shared her past experience from 2004 when a hurricane hit and Asheville was without water for several months, I believe she said. And so I filled up every container, both Andrew and I did and filled up the bathtub. And it seems small, but it’s really good when the water shut off and you want to take like a little sponge bath that you don’t.

that you actually have some bath water that you can take out and do that with. And grateful that we have rainwater for flushing toilets and that I’ve lived all over the world and have experience with flushing toilets in different ways. And we have camp stove so we could cook. And we shared some, we shared one amazing meal with Andrew’s uncles who live around the corner. And that was very, grounding for me to be with great folks and be with family. And after five days of no water, no power, no cell service, we made the decision to come up to West Virginia for a week to be able to connect and get grounded and

I’m grateful to my friend Kathy Zerkle who opened up her house to us and let us stay and use her water for a week. Again, so generous and thank you so much to all. So many folks reached out to us, checking in on us, offering their homes. And I’m so, so grateful. mean, it is, yeah, so grateful for loving supportive relationships wherever I go and really appreciate that, the power of community.

And it did, I will say it did feel, know, there’s been a lot of conversation about, because it is so devastating about the importance of self-care. And those of you who’ve been following me for a while know that self-care is my jam. It’s so self-care, being able to have the self-awareness to know what is the best decision for you so that you can replenish yourself or get grounded so that then you can be of service to others. so that’s important. And I feel like fun is helpful in that for many people. And of course, there’s a lot of conflicting emotions, Of guilt, survivor’s guilt. I will say that going paddling on the galley this weekend, and there were folks from Western North Carolina

there and it was it was really helpful and I felt more like myself and am ready to jump in and be of service. We’re heading back to Asheville today and hopefully bring some supplies and and check on our house and see what’s needed and so even in the most devastated

even in like the hardest situations, gratitude is so important. There’s always something, even the smallest thing to be grateful for that. thinking and tuning into that gratitude can be so helpful. And so I’m grateful for, again, loving supportive relationships, communities coming together.

that love and compassion. And in times like this where there is no going back, you know, there is no going back. We can’t change what happened. What there is to do is to be, and it is hard, and I’m not saying this is easy, and I’m not saying to tune into gratitude and do self-care to like just tune out, but it is important to be with what’s so and also,
tune into what are we creating from here anew? How are we moving forward? And are we doing that with love and compassion and allowing folks there to be who they are, to show up as they are and not making folks wrong for how they’re showing up or what their stress response is. And I think that it’s important to remember that through all of this also.

we’re butting up against each other’s stress responses. We’re like a bunch of stress responses, just butting up against one another. our habit patterns when we get stressed and we’re faced with discomfort are definitely coping mechanisms from the past. And sometimes they’re super helpful and sometimes they’re not. And that’s okay. And I think it’s important to have compassion when there’s this level of

of discomfort and so having compassion for others, knowing that everyone’s doing the best that we can. And also acknowledging that there is grief on many levels, there’s loss on many levels, on the big levels, obviously, know, human life, again, homes, businesses, livelihoods.

And there’s also the grief, those of us who paddle and who love the rivers that we’ve paddled. Some paddlers moved to Asheville for the green and now the green is completely changed. And there’s some grief in that loss. The Nolachukki is completely different, allowing ourselves to process that and be with that. And when the time comes to go into the rivers with reverence and even awe at the newness and the transformation. So there’s the grief, which is so important to acknowledge that it sucks to lose something that brings so much joy and people…

you know, had goals, I’m sure on those rivers. And to also know that there is newness. And kayaking is fun. It’s also a spiritual practice. And so we can go back into those rivers with respect, again, and reverence and, and a sense of connection, reconnecting with them, because they are places of healing. They have been and they will be again.

So those are my reflections on the past week. I’ve re-recorded this episode like five times. So there’s really, there are no words and no matter what I say, it’s, you know, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like enough. And probably we feel that way no matter what we do, it probably doesn’t feel like enough. And it’s really important to come back to you are enough, I am enough, we are enough.

and we’re doing the best that we can. And again, to have compassion for ourselves and others. If you’re looking, and thank you to everyone who has donated and volunteered and doing so, so much.

Again, you can check out the Hurricane Helene WNC.com. You can go to BuncombeCounty.org. Beloved Asheville is another organization that is doing amazing work. There are so many, there are so many. And please do some research before donating and…

Thanks everyone for listening to this episode. I appreciate you. Thank you for being compassionate with each other and seeing each other’s humanity and stay safe out there.