"Every single thing is not normal"
One view from Asheville, NC
It’s not easy making sense of information during a pileup of tragedies. Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina about a week ago, causing unprecedented damage. The storm swelled quickly; nobody there seemed to see it coming.
Around that same time, fire at a chemical plant near Atlanta filled the skies with toxic smoke. And a new storm, Hurricane Milton, is expected to hit Tampa, Florida tomorrow night. All of this takes place alongside Israel’s continued expansion of violence against its neighbors. Any new information at home must compete for attention against a daily backdrop of maimed bodies and exploded schools.
It took longer than it should have, but I finally had a long phone call with my good friend Will Isenogle, who lives in Asheville, NC. We spoke about Helene’s aftermath, what it means for daily life there, and how things look going forward.
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What have the last few days been like?
It's been kind of chaotic. People are trying to help in any way they can. But there are so many people trying to help, it makes you feel kind of useless at some point. After a couple days of that, I was like, I'm just going to actually take a break.
We had a block party yesterday with some friends and neighbors, just to get together and laugh and not think about shit. And this bar that might or might not open again, they donated 40 bottles of wine. Yeah, it was the first hangover I've had in like over four weeks now. I really feel it.
So yeah, I’m feeling a little unwell today. And I get confused, because I can’t actively wash my hands enough, and everyone’s just gross. So it’s like, am I physically unwell, or is it just a result of drinking?
I hadn’t thought much about the bathing aspect actually.
Yeah, that's kind of getting weird. I told you, [my dog] Paolo is sick. He relieved himself in my kitchen today while I was away for a little while, so I had to clean that up. It’s like this is nasty, but what am I gonna do? Lather everything with sanitizer?
Is water so scarce that you don't have a series of jugs or anything at home?
There’s a lot of water now, in bottles, but it still feels super wrong to waste it by dumping it to clean or something. People use greywater to flush toilets and things like that. Dumping water to wash hands isn’t really ideal, but at some point you just gotta do it. And yeah, I never used to think consciously about how much water I drank in a day.
My brother and my girlfriend and I went to Charlotte a few days after it happened just to go take a shower and hang out for a second and get some supplies. When I was there I thought, without saying out loud, like, Whoa, I feel terrible being here. Then we collectively all said it, that we should get back to Asheville and do something. And plus, anyone feels crazy being at their Mom’s house for more than five minutes. Don’t publish that.
In times like this everyone’s freaking out. Everyone went to the gas station right away, and there were mile-long lines to get gas. There was this initial panic, and for a while they were limiting people to $10 worth of gas per person, which isn’t very much. People were screaming at each other in the parking lot, and inside the store it felt like the stock market. People screaming and pushing around, the clerks having to scream over everyone, “Cash only! Cash only!” And guns have been pulled, too.
I sometimes have a fear of being at home alone at night. Until today, when the power was turned on, my house was dark. I've never had this fear before, but my cousin's house got looted. People start to get desperate or crazy. It’s just scary to think about when the town runs wild. It’s probably dramatic, but when I saw the people at the gas station the first day I thought, these people are already pissed, everyone’s gonna be really pissed in a week when things get scarce again. Some people have spray painted “looters will be shot” on buildings and things like that.
There’s a place right up the street from my house that sells big bulk water containers. Someone told me they were selling water for $14 per gallon. At some point they were supposedly all out of water. Then a couple hours later my friend was walking by there and saw some dude pull up in a truck. His arm was hanging out of the window, and there was a pretty good looking cut on it. He disappeared for a second and came back and said, “Hey guys, there’s a weird hole in the fence of the water place.” The back of his truck was full of water jugs. So I guess this guy had cut a huge hole in the fence for people to go grab stuff. There was no power, so there were no surveillance cameras.
How did it go down with your cousin?
He lived in a part of town is called the River Arts District, the area that got destroyed the most, because the river runs right through it. He had to be rescued via boat off the roof of his apartment, and I think that gives some insight into how quickly the water came.
The first day we woke up with no power. I went down to the river and there were hundreds of people on the bridge watching it like a spectacle. There were so many people that you could feel the bridge moving. It felt kind of like an attraction at Myrtle Beach. Just a bunch of people walking around with beers in koozies. And now they’re all walking around crying.
There’s people everywhere walking around outside, kids on their shoulders and stuff. It feels like this weird summer camp. No one has anything to do. There’s people walking around with buckets all over the place. I’m not sure if they’re walking down to the river for greywater. I can’t believe you would, because there are all these advisories. Now all the mud is full of toxins; a PVC factory leaked a bunch of terrible stuff in. You have to wear a hazmat suit if you're dealing with it.
I have friends that live in Marshall, which is 40 minutes away from here. That town is wiped out. All the small towns around here are completely gone. Chimney Rock, near where Dirty Dancing was filmed, it’s totally gone.
And places that are structurally ok, some of them have become hubs for donations? Places for people to go use resources and just be somewhere?
Yeah. The first day some businesses were sort of open, but then they lost running water. There’s a medic tent set up at Double Crown. I learned how to make a makeshift toilet there, too. I actually had to visit the medic tent recently because I had a small cut on my finger that was bothering me. And I was like fuck, I can’t shower or wash my hands, I have to go to the medic tent just for some neosporin or something to put on it. But I’ve heard at least one report that the county was shutting down these pop up areas. And if that keeps happening it’s gonna be the whole community of Asheville against them.
Every single thing about your entire day is not normal. When we drove back to Asheville from Charlotte it was the most insane, beautiful sunset. But there were still downed trees everywhere, people with chainsaws, helicopters overhead. There are all these Hummers driving in and out of town, and drones all over the place all the time. It’s so weird.
The most normal thing to me is hanging out with the neighbors and my girlfriend. But the thing that feels claustrophobic is that there’s no end in sight. They keep stretching the water thing, and that’s where I start to hit a wall. Do I ride this out? But I have to.
What’s the current prognosis as far as municipal water?
At first it was a week, but now they’re saying a month. With all the radio broadcasts, there is a sense of hopelessness when it comes to water. I wouldn’t be surprised if it took three months. And there’s also no trash service, so trash is piling up. And the river stinks.
It sounds a bit like early Covid. But during that time, even if you were isolated, anyone you called would have some basis for understanding what was happening. In this case, you guys are in such a weird bubble.
Yeah. The other thing is that there’s no infrastructure here; the city just caters to tourism. And there isn’t a lot of information. It would be better to know, so that people could make a move. But I think [the city] is just trying to make people feel better by keeping them in the dark.
Have there been unusual neighbor interactions, like with people you didn’t know well previously?
Yeah. That’s been an amazing silver lining to the whole thing. I have a neighbor who I always knew was really cool. He’s been offering me hamburgers and stuff. My girlfriend’s car got minorly fucked up, and he’s gonna help fix it.
My trash can was overflowing with water. I kicked it over yesterday, and people had been throwing their dogshit bags in there, it was this colorful variety of bags full of shit all over the place. This neighbor guy was walking by and I was like, “I didn’t mean to do this…,” thinking he was mad. But instead he said, “I collect cassette tape players. You should come over sometime.” Everyone’s so nice to each other right now, except when they’re in the gas line, pissed. I’ve met a lot of people I never would’ve otherwise.
My neighborhood is really funny. A lot of people had power almost instantly, but my street has been pitch black until today. I can always see my friend’s front door though. He has power, and I can look out and see his porch light. So he’s been cool, having people over to charge their phones or do whatever they need to.
The phone thing is crazy, too. For a while there was no service and everything was word of mouth. Someone told us about a hill nearby that people with Verizon could go to. Everyone was calling it Verizon Hill. When we finally went, it was crazy. There were all these people hiking up there to sit in lawn chairs. It was like the end of that movie Deep Impact. People hiking up the hill to avoid the asteroid, holding their phones over their heads. This is in front of peoples’ houses, too, so all the people who live up there just have a bunch of strangers in their yards.
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Donation info:
Appalachian Medical Solidarity
