I'm in shock.

The last teeny tiny shred of hope that I had that we wouldn't get totally and utterly fcked by this disaster is now gone.

I have never, ever felt this alone.
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#hurricane #HurricaneHelene #swannanoa #asheville #ashevillenc #ashevillelocal #Helene2024 #NorthCarolina

I’ve been holding it all together (barely) since Hurricane Helene.

Until one sentence from my best friend cracked me open.

It wasn’t a big thing, just a gentle reminder I didn’t have to do it all.

But it undid me completely.

It's finally here.

We have an active uncontained wildfire in Western North Carolina - unsettling close to where I'm currently staying, with winds blowing towards us.

Western North Carolina is facing both a high wind advisory and a high fire danger right now, as we head into our second week of very cold temperatures.

Tonight will feel like 6 ° F (-14.44 ° C).

It's snowing in Swannanoa and expected to feel like 0 degrees out tonight.

This weekend will be far far worse - it will stay cold and start dropping inches of ice and snow. We are likely to lose power and may also lose water.

Three months after Helene: A Swannanoa, North Carolina Update

When I look back at the pictures and videos I took from my house the day before the flood, I am struck by just how green they were. How teeming with life - dense plants and so many animals - it was.

It snowed all day- big, magical flakes.

I dropped my plans and spent my day working hard to locate, coordinate, and raise money to distribute food and heating resources for my community.

Just as I finally figured out how to get propane to someone in need, my own lights started flickering.

Normal real life difficulties don't stop just because you lose everything.

Something at the house I'm currently staying at is making me ill- I have had at least one three day migraine a week since we moved in, and have had a number of other symptoms as well.

1/

We're 47 minutes into the new year and the lights are flickering on and off in Swannanoa, North Carolina.

Not. A. Great. Start. 2025

We have a wind advisory until noon, and snow is expected.

I'm fine with the rain, less so with the wind.

I will absolutely *not* be okay if the power goes off.

Two questions:

1. I have zero comments and zero likes on my posts. I opened this app today for the first time in two weeks two find I have a thousand followers.

I am very excited, but can someone please explain? I do not understand.

It's been 3 months since Hurricane Helene tore through my home of Western North Carolina, and destroyed my home in East Asheville and my community.

The scale of destruction is massive and the disaster is ongoing.

This was a super fun way to spend my weekend and not panic-inducing at all.

Happy New Year to us, I guess?

Yesterday it rained in Swannanoa.

Hard.

So hard that the house we're staying in started leaking.

We were warned it might - the roof was damaged when a tree went through it and hasn't yet been repaired. (1/9)