Disasters
We live in Western North Carolina. six months ago Huricane Helene came through the area and caused tons of damage. An amazing number of trees came down, and there was massive flooding. We lost power. We lost phone service. We were lucky and only had a boil water advisory, plenty of others lost water altogether. We were very fortunate and did not have any damage to our house, or property.
It was a very tough time for a lot of people in the area. it was also a really great time. As a family we had fires in our backyard every day. We cooked food and ate outside. We played a lot of board games and read a lot of books. It brought us together more as a family. We also met all the neighbors. We met neighbors that we have lived near for almost two years. People came out and helped each other without asking. If you had more and others had less we shared. It really felt like a community and how things should be.
Of course as time went on and things got back to peoples regular lives this community went back to feeling less close and more distant. We still know more of our neighbors now, but we only see them as we’re each going in passing. As a family we struggle to find time to be together as a family and do nothing, as we did after Helene.
This past week we experienced another disaster in Western North Carolina. Forest Fires—three of them. We had one fire to the East of us and the evacuation zone ended about five miles from our house. We had another fire to the South West of our house, and the last fire was to the North West of our house. Being this close to forest fires was a new experience for me, and it felt drastically different than Helene.
There was no community building, because everybody stayed indoors because of the smoke and bad air quality. Rather than being a quick thing like a hurricane, it was constant anxiety. Wondering if the fire was going to come towards us. Wondering what we should pack just in case we needed to evacuate. Wondering where would we go.
I’m not sure anybody would say they were a fan of huricanes or forest fires. If I had to pick one, I think I would go with a huricane