It’s been quite a journey to come from zero day arrival of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina to where we are today two years later.
And it’s impossible to avoid the “remembering” when the anniversary date of this arrives. Everyone talks about it...and most of us probably don’t even realize how much it helps us all to talk about it.
Every person in WNC, no matter what community you lived in at the time, was changed.
The land changed.
The rivers changed.
The energy changed.
And it’s taken every part of two years (after having been reintroduced to the “new version” of the land and rivers and ourselves) to recon with it all.
I am still on that path of recovery.
I still grieve for what was.
Yet having been reintroduced to the new versions of the wild places I love and visit often...I have found Nature still lives and breathes with the same light she did before.
She’s still there...just has a different hairdo is all.
However...there is something SO very important that I have recognized in the aftermath and recovery efforts all over this region of North Carolina.
If it weren’t for the watchful eyes and oversight of organizations like Mountain True, The Pisgah Conservancy and Conserving Carolina (among many others)...our rivers and lands would not have been as protected as what they were during clean-up efforts.
There were too many close calls to count when it came to contractors arriving as clean-up efforts began. Where the long-term effects of the removal of trees and tree root balls along the Lower Green River (as one example) nearly became catastrophic which would have damaged the land even further...after what Helene had already caused.
But thanks to organizations like Mountain True, a halt was created and a re-organization of a more guided clean-up with local oversight by those who know how to protect our public lands unfolded.
I don’t even want to begin to imagine if there were no Mountain True...what might have actually happened...and how our rivers and lands might have been pillaged further.
So in honor of those who volunteered during the intense clean-up efforts, down to those who picked debris from the riverbed by hand and to those who worked tirelessly to give these rivers and lands breathing room for a better chance of self-recovery...Thank You!!
And so...as we walk through the door of the second year anniversary today...I take my hat off and nod in the direction of those who looked out for the rivers and the land in a very stewarding way.
I have also since learned...to pick up and carry out discarded water bottles or trash I come across on trails I hike and along rivers I walk beside. I have learned that this land is our home...and it is up to those of us who truly care...to steward these special places.
Love on your special places.
Carry on.
#wildhearted
#hurricanheleneWNC
#stewardtheland
#naturelovers
Photo Credit: Pictured here is Bayless Boof along the Upper Green River in WNC. One of the places that for the most part stayed the same. What a relief to visit this special place.
