Our county was one of the ones hit hard by Helene. Even though we're some of the lucky ones, life has looked a little different here since September 27th.
We still don't have home internet, so I'm writing this post on my phone. Hopefully it will look alright.
We were out of power Friday - Friday, and never lost water. We were some of the lucky ones. We had to boil water, which was quite a job without power.
Our screen door broke and our crawlspace flooded. We've since learned that our furnace and ductwork were destroyed by all of the water they collected. We don't have flood insurance (we weren't eligible because we don't live in a flood plain), so it isn't covered. We're currently navigating the process of applying for FEMA aid.
I know I've written a lot about how much I love our little neighborhood, but I love it even more after this storm. The way everyone pulled together and looked out for everyone was incredible.
We had a big neighborhood potluck with everything that defrosted from our freezers the first Saturday night. Everyone contributed something and everyone had a brief time of feeling normal.
Nick and I both have coworkers who lost their homes and coworkers who had extensive damage to their homes.
Early on, friends and family from out of town were asking what it was like here. This is what I wrote on Facebook to try to explain it.
People ask what it's like here, but it's so much it's hard to explain.
It's knowing we're some of the lucky ones. It's going outside last Friday and breathing a sigh of relief that your neighbors' homes are OK, then walking a few streets over and seeing houses under water.
It's all of the roads flooding and Nick being stuck at work last Friday. It's alternating between thinking maybe he's safer there and wanting him home immediately.
It's huge chunks of the road you drive to work being gone. It's trying to understand how a road can just be gone, then trying to understand how an entire town can just be gone.
It's bursting into tears the first time you hug someone you were afraid was dead. It's knowing that there are so many people who will never have that hug. It's knowing you're one of the lucky ones because you did get that hug.
It's the phone call from your boss telling you that all of your coworkers are still alive. It's sitting outside with your neighbors and wanting to share that news while hoping they've had the same phone call from their bosses.
It's phone and internet service going in and out while you're waiting for responses to the "are you ok" texts. It's getting through to one family member and asking them to let the rest know that you're still OK. It's hearing from someone who heard from someone else who heard from someone else that someone is OK and hoping that it's true.
It's sitting around a bonfire roasting marshmallows with your neighbors while one of them tells you that one of their coworkers had eight family members killed and still has six family members missing, and they don't think that person will ever really be ok again. It's imagining the agony of that many funerals.
It's knowing you're one of the lucky ones because your family is alive, your home is standing, and you have food and water.
It's knowing that the first responders are seeing unimaginable horror and that there's nothing you can do to make it better. It's hoping that those friends will get the help they'll need to deal with what they've seen. It's knowing that some of them won't and that the consequences will be horrible.
It's feeling incredibly grateful for your little neighborhood. It's the neighbor who has a generator and strings a bunch of extension cords together to run your chest freezer for a few hours a day, enough to keep it going to keep the food safe for everyone. It's the neighbors who share the fresh eggs from their chickens. It's the neighbors who share their propane stove. It's the neighbors who offer to share their cash when no one is taking cards. It's the kids in the boy scouts teaching you how to build a fire. It's going around with your neighbors and collecting firewood in the Joann buggy you found in a parking lot. It's the giggling fit at the absurdity of walking around the mall parking lot with your neighbors to collect firewood in the borrowed buggy. It's knowing you're one of the lucky ones because there are giggles over how crazy things are. It's looking forward to the nightly dinner and fire with your neighbors and knowing you're one of the lucky ones because you have something to look forward to every day.
It's having your parents, sister, and in-laws all tell you to come and stay with them but not wanting to leave home.
It's knowing you're one of the lucky ones because your M-I-L is sending you everything you might need from Amazon. It's knowing you're one of the lucky ones because your sister drives over two hours to bring you water and propane. It's the gratitude you feel toward the mailman when he hands you one of those Amazon packages and wishing you had more than water to give him.
It's days without a shower, feeling filthy, and knowing you must smell awful, but still hugging your coworker when you see them.
It's taking a cold shower and feeling guilty for not appreciating it more when so many people don't even have water.
It's feeling useless because you have absolutely zero useful skills in this situation. It's wishing someone would just tell you what to do to help and start to fix things. It's wishing someone would give you anything useful to do.
It's seeing this bring out the worst in some people. It's your 19 year old neighbor you've known since they were five talking about someone using a gun to try to get to the front of the grocery store line. It's hearing about the looting. It's realizing that the aftermath of this is so much bigger than anyone realizes.
It's seeing this bring out the best in some people. It's when texts to a friend finally start going through and they tell you they have no running water but ask if you need water because they have bottled water they're willing to share. It's a friend who has lost their home offering to share their gas stove. It's the handwritten signs for free well water. It's the random parking lots and places where people have set up with food and water to give away. It's people with power offering hot showers, laundry, a place to charge phones, and hot meals. It's seeing power trucks from as far away as Canada. It's seeing fire trucks from towns you've never heard of. It's seeing people hours away collect supplies for your town.
It's going to check on a friend you haven't heard from and turning around so many times because roads are blocked by trees or just gone entirely. It's roads down to barely one lane because the rest is just gone. It's handwritten signs about bridges being out. It's whatever someone could find to put in front of a sinkhole. It's handwritten signs with directions for how to go around the closed and washed away roads. It's getting closer and closer to their house and becoming more and more afraid of what you're going to find. It's the relief of seeing them alive and OK and getting that first hug.
It's seeing roads and trees that look like they're barely hanging on and knowing that any more rain or wind will make things even worse.
It's seeing people load up their vehicles with supplies to go check on someone they haven't heard from. It's watching them agonizing over what to take because they don't know what they'll find when they get there.
It's seeing the posts about pets lost in the storm and knowing we're some of the lucky ones while we cuddle with the cats.
It's exchanging "good luck and be safe" with people you stood in the grocery store line with. It's the grocery store discussions about how much food will fit in the cooler in case the power goes out again so you don't have to throw everything away again. It's knowing we're some of the lucky ones to have power back and have access to food.
It's waking up in the middle of the night in a panic for no reason and feeling guilty for panicking when you're one of the lucky ones.
It's seeing how exhausted everyone is and knowing it's not even close to being over.
All of this and so much more. That's what it's like here.
