Hurricane Helene was devastating and so far the government emergency response hasn’t been nearly what we had hopedThe morning that Hurricane Helene tore Asheville, North Carolina, apart, the first faces I saw were half a dozen of my neighbors preparing to break into my home to see if I was alive. A 40ft oak – ripped from its roots from the next yard – lay on my bedroom roof, dewy green scalloped leaves resting against my window. Just meters below the buckling ancient fascia from my century-old home’s roof, my cattle dog Teddy and I slept. It seems like we should have been crushed there, in bed.
Many were. At least 227 people have died, and that toll is only going to get higher. The rivers are giving up the dead; landslides are yielding corpses. The destruction is grotesque and, in some cases, total, with bridges condemned, roadways eviscerated, and whole towns – Swannanoa, Hot Springs – obliterated. The personal terror I felt that morning is nothing compared to the rage I feel on behalf of those lives unnecessarily lost, those displaced, those struggling to access too few services, and at a governmental response that has seemingly prioritized the most privileged.
Hurricane Helene: A Devastating Storm and a Disgraceful Response
The morning Hurricane Helene ripped through Asheville, North Carolina, will be etched into my memory forever—not just because of the destruction, but because of the raw failure that followed. I woke up to six of my neighbors at my door, believing I might be dead. A 40-foot oak had landed on my roof, just feet above my sleeping dog and me. By any rational calculation, we should not have survived.
Many didn’t. The death toll stands at 227 and rising. The swollen rivers are yielding bodies, and landslides are uncovering more. Entire communities like Swannanoa and Hot Springs have been erased. Roads are gone, bridges fractured, and hundreds of homes—many belonging to working-class families—have been reduced to debris.
The personal fear I felt during the storm has given way to a deeper fury. This wasn’t just a natural disaster—it was a man-made failure of preparation and response. Where is the aid? Where are the mobile clinics, the food, the rescue teams? Weeks after Helene made landfall, some of the worst-hit areas have barely seen a government presence. What little response there has been seems directed at protecting affluent zones and reestablishing commercial interests.
The rest of us are left in the wreckage—improvising shelters, clearing roads with our bare hands, and mourning without answers. This tragedy demanded urgent, coordinated action. Instead, we got hollow promises, red tape, and indifference. The lives lost were not inevitable. They were sacrificed to negligence.
Hurricane Helene was a brutal act of nature. The true disgrace is what came after.
