One Year Ago, Hurricane Helene Devastated My Community - and Taught Me What It Means to Be a Good Neighbor

"In 2022, after parenting a toddler in the isolation of early COVID-19 lockdowns, my spouse and I felt like it was time for a change. Our Midwest home was old, drafty, and on a postage-stamp-size lot, but more importantly, we wanted to be closer to family and friends living in the South. So, we decided to uproot our lives after more than a decade of living near Cincinnati to move to Asheville, North Carolina."

"When we chose our new home, we knew we wanted to build a bit of a climate haven, which was very in-line with what the whole area was known for. Asheville was considered a "climate refuge" after all - tornadoes were infrequent, we would be far from the coast with its hurricanes, and the temperate climate would mean that winters weren't overloaded with snow and ice, and summers wouldn't be unbearably hot."

"Our new home was a humble 100-year-old single-family house (all one floor with a partially unfinished basement) situated on a gently sloped lot surrounded by much steeper terrain. Unlike our prior home, there was enough flat yard for a serious vegetable garden. There was a water cistern rigged up to receive water running off the roof, and tons of natural light inside the home itself. We began noticing ways that we could modify and improve the place to be more resilient."

A family relocated from near Cincinnati to Asheville in 2022 to be closer to family and for a milder climate. The move prioritized a home that could serve as a climate haven, with expectations of infrequent tornadoes, distance from hurricanes, and temperate winters and summers. The house was a 100-year-old single-story with a partially unfinished basement, flat yard, a roof-runoff cistern, and abundant daylight. Home upgrades included a new roof and solar panels covering roughly 75% of electricity. The homeowner constructed an impermeable barrier with plastic sheeting and river rock to keep mountain runoff from the basement. Despite these measures, Hurricane Helene later challenged their sense of climate safety.

Read at Apartment Therapy