Preparing for Another Natural Disaster

Along Swannanoa River Road

On September 27, 2024 Western North Carolina was absolutely destroyed by Hurricane Helene. We live in Asheville and managed to come out banged up, but in much better shape than so many in our community.

Six months out and Biltmore Village is only boarded up buildings, debris piles line some streets, and our artist and restaurant communities are struggling to recover.

When talk of the hurricane started, I wasn’t that concerned. We usually get some bad rain and wind when the coast gets hurricanes, but the worst is some downed trees and a few hours without power. Directly after the hurricane I was still blissfully unaware of the devastation. A couple trees in our yard fell over because the ground was soaked, but our neighborhood looked OK.

It wasn’t until we made it out and got access to internet that we understood the full extent of the damage.

Now we’ve got wildfires near us. You can see the plume of smoke on the way home from the grocery store and the air is, well, smoky. No evacuation orders yet, but I’m preparing go-bags just in case. We have plenty of supplies from the hurricane, and unfortunately we will probably need them in the future. So it won’t be a waste. I had to order some stuff from Amazon. When everything comes in, I’ll post pictures with a complete packing list.