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Asheville, NC – We have all experienced emergency situations in which adrenaline takes over; We maximize the credit cards, do what needs to be done at the moment and worry about the consequences later.
In western North Carolina, four months after The terrible destruction of Hurricane HeleneLater is now.
Hidden in the shadow of the appropriate Smoky Mountains, this city of 95,000 is a postcard, but physical scars and working crews look like the lurking around every corner of red brick and cozy cafés.
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The good news is that most places, at least in the center, are open. In the Jack in The Woods Restaurant and Pub on Friday evening, a considerable audience was collected, some from outside the city, there to see a performance by the Kill Tony Comedy Show, a different sign of recurring normality.
Asheville people struggle to return to normal life and to help each other make ends meet.
I was told that the restaurant was closed for two months, and afterwards managed to get a water pump and opened with a limited menu until the water was finally switched on again.
But when I asked the bartender, one of the classic nature that seems to know everything and everyone in the city, when things feel normally, she almost looked at me shocked
“No, absolutely not,” she said.
I asked her and a few other locals, including a man in the forty who works for a local school district, how much time they still spend every day on doing something hurricane -related or think of the hurricane. Four months later, both gave just about the same answer: “Almost all day.”
Signs of reconstruction are around every corner in Asheville.
In a stunning recognition, the bartender told me that the day she got her electricity back bittersweet.
“It was clearly better,” she said. “But we all met in this great way and as soon as I could watch TV, I just wanted to stay at home.”
As bad if the damage in Asheville is, In the surrounding rural areas it is much worseThat is why Mark Luckinbill discovered and a few friends who live in Raleigh a unique way to help: install postboxes. Desperate to help local communities in Avery County, Mark was told by the wife of a pastor that they really needed heavy equipment.
“The only thing I had was a friend, my hands and a few kicks,” Mark told me.
Then something happened. The pastor’s wife remembered an older woman without a mobile phone, who was terrified because her mailbox was gone. She hung from getting her social security controls and bills.
This may not be logical for urban residents, but in the countryside of America your mailbox can be half a mile of a unpaved road away from home. The post carriers cannot just leave packages on the side of the road.
So they built the woman a letterbox.
Mark and his friend have now been to Avery County to install postboxes 10 times, because it was something that had to be done that they had the power and the ability to do. They even have one website now.
The selflessness of neighbors who help neighbors is clear here, just like the Spirit to put others first.
Many people lost their cars and used cars are scarce. Most cars parked on the streets of Asheville show Telltale designs of water damage.
A local musician with whom I spoke was typical. When I asked if he had hit hard, he said, “No, we were usually fine. I mean, we had no power for two months and my car and my girlfriend’s car were totally, but nothing drastic.”
In Ashville that qualifies for “we were usually fine.” He thinks he is happy.
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I asked if the insurance had enabled them to replace the cars. He said they were (again) lucky to have one share.
“Payed insurance,” he said, “but there are just no cars, I can’t find anything decent under $ 10,000.”
Not long after, his girlfriend arrived, they exchanged the keys and he said that if the work went too late, he would get a Uber.
More than 138,000 vehicles were destroyed by Hurricane Helene, a good part of them in the west of North Carolina. Walking through the city, even the cars that survived, show water damage in their lower half, and the office of the Attorney General has warned about scams with the sale of cars that were poorly damaged by water.
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Compared to the loss of a life or the destruction of a house, access to a car or a mailbox may seem like small potatoes, but they are correct and they are a low priority for a state and the federal government that is still due to the destruction is becoming .
With President Trump’s visit on Friday and promise of more help, there is room for more optimism in North Carolina. But the real power here, which will ultimately get the good people in and around Asheville because of this, is themselves and how they take care of each other.
There is very little that is better than that, and possibly nothing more American.
Click here to read more David Marcus
