I never expected to be living in a declared disaster zone

Still without power, Helene does have a silver lining: Community rebuilding

Oct 03, 2024

Apologies for three months of silence.

It was a rough summer even before Hurricane Helene swept the Blue Ridge Escarpment with 70 mph gusts on September 28. I buried my best feline friend on July 14 in my forest after giving him palliative care for two months for a very large mass the length of his abdomen. Chango (shang-o) was 20 years old. He was with me for 17 years, longer than my ex-husband. I still can’t talk about losing him.

Fortunately my mountain community didn’t suffer mudslides or landslides after more than 20 inches of rain saturated the soil and flooded the low-lying areas. Instead we have dozens of uprooted trees, downed power lines and utility poles, which brings a different set of challenging circumstances.

Because so many people have reached out to check on me on Facebook, LinkedIn and email I decided I’d use my Substack newsletter and publication, Essential Nature, as home base, since this force of Nature has deeply shifted my thinking – and relationship – with the non-human community of kin we call Nature.

This post will be a string of thoughts from the past week. Apologies for the stream of consciousness.

I never imagined I would be living in a declared disaster zone.

It’s surreal. Chinook military helicopters flying low overhead several times a day. Small planes buzzing by frequently. Chain saws in the background.

Like many people, my energy and moods have been jumpy and unsettled. How could they be anything else? Not only do we not know when things will return to “normal,” we have no clue what the new normal will look like.

The devastation across Western North Carolina is incomprehensible. I’ve only been able to follow a little of news because I just got a reliable cell signal six days after the storm, and the little I saw tore me up so badly I couldn’t continue.

My community still doesn’t have power and we’re not sure when we will. We estimate that 80% of the lines and poles on the incoming county road are down. Repair crews will essentially be stringing a new grid through our part of the county.

A neighbor overheard someone at a local water distribution say, “Round Mountain looks like a bomb went off!”

Living without power for nearly a week

The three biggest daily challenges without power are:

Fresh water
Refrigeration
Battery and phone-charging

I have a lineup of water pitchers on my kitchen windowsill, along with bottles of water from a neighbor and a cookpot with more water. I just picked up 12 liters today and a neighbor gave me a three-gallon pickle container of water.

For those of you on city water systems the logistics of living with a well without power tests your resolve. You can’t flush if your well doesn’t have electricity to refill the bladder, or pressure tank, that the well water flows into. Drop the water pressure in the tank enough and you risk depressurizing it. A replacement tank several years ago cost $1500.

Practically speaking, flushing the toilet is your biggest water usage when water is scarce. That means you let the bowl collect enough before you flush. Since it’s just me – and the cat’s poop – I’m flushing once a day. Yes, ewww. My master bathroom smells like a pit toilet. A neighbor gave me six jugs of water from his rain barrel – perfect for toilet flushing.

After two days without power I emptied my refrigerator and freezer. My neighbors with generators are life savers. Frozen food went to one neighbor’s extra freezer, the refrigerated foods went to another neighbor’s second refrigerator. I’ve been running up and down the mountain moving food around.

I lost my Mother Tree

That is now that I can get my car out of my driveway. A 71 mph wind gust (according to my weather station) snapped two oak trees in half and uprooted a big, venerable oak I called “The Mother Tree.” She fell toward the house, taking down a Norway spruce and possibly a young hemlock before being caught by a redbud and dogwood next to the deck.

The rootball and trunk of my Mother Tree.

The tangle of seven trees stopped just short of the deck, with the top of the branches brushing the gutters, the deck and the back of my car. A length of gutter was snapped off by a limb that arched over the shed and a corner of the house gutter is crooked. The trees missed the car, propane tank, shed, deck and compressor.

The night before, as the steady rain continued for the third day, I begged my trees: “I don’t want you to fall. But if you have to fall, if you can direct your path, please please don’t do any damage to the house and the car.”

Mother Tree listened. A couple feet either way would have had a different outcome.

Insurance will cover $1000 to clean up the tree debris. Likely not enough.

A night or two after the storm I sat on my screened-in porch listening to the crickets and the ungodly roar of the waterfall in the gorge 1000 feet below and sobbed. The loss of my favorite trees, and all the trees across the mountains, gave me a heartbreak I’ve never felt before.

Does the tree community grieve for the loss of their kin, these elder trees that have anchored small forest communities throughout the mountains? The night felt empty, like something was missing.

Fairly lights to the rescue

A couple Christmases ago a friend gave me a set of solar-powered fairy light strings that fit into canning jars with cute little handles for my porch. These dainty romantic lights have become my main light source during the dark nights after the sun goes down.

My phone makes the light look brighter than it is.

I have figured out how to read a book by lying one on its side on the page, but the light isn’t strong enough to do much else. Still, the romance of the fairy lights helps take the edge off the sense of powerless that could descend.

Community chainsaw heroes

At the same time, my neighbors with chain saws are community heroes, clearing our roads from fallen trees so emergency vehicles, propane trucks and utility trucks can pass. For several days they were tireless making sure driveways were cleared as well.

Two teams worked through our five miles of road from one end to the other. It only takes one man with a chainsaw to keep half a dozen people busy dragging limbs and branches out of the road. The chainsaw heroes even dropped parts of a few huge trees hung up on power lines. For some reason, many were surprised I can drag and toss branches with the best of them.

Keto food rationing works

I never thought that practicing intermittent fasting with two keto meals a day would come in handy during a power outage after a storm. Turns out it’s a smart and healthy way to ration your food. Once the neighborhood emerged on Friday and realized we weren’t going to get power soon, I decided to experiment and see if I could manage one meal a day. It worked.

I had baked muffins before the storm, which gave me a mid-day snack. I had cooked chili two days prior so I had food for several days. And because I can cook on either my propane camp stove or propane grill, cooking isn’t that challenging.

The issue now, nearly a week in, is getting propane delivered for those with propane generators so we can keep our food refrigerated. As expected, suppliers are overwhelmed. So a neighbor went in search of coolers and ice today.

Yes, there is a real silver lining

I have a number of takeaways from this mess as you’d expect.

The biggest and perhaps most profound realization is that there is a silver lining. The only way any of us can get through this intact is to get through it together. After years of divisiveness, we are rebuilding community – one small act of generosity and compassion at a time, one neighbor at a time.

Even though I thought I was prepared, I am deeply grateful and humbled by what my neighbors have offered me when it was clear I was not equipped for the long haul: water, battery charging, refrigeration, food, cash, chainsaw cleanup. I see people daily I often go weeks and months not seeing.

If we can do it, anyone can. Our small community was torn apart two years ago when new property covenants were proposed. Neighbors stopped talking to each other, some moved, and a smaller circle picked up the pieces and reached out to each other. A reflection of the larger issues facing our world.

The other personal silver lining is writing this has broken the heartbreak and impasse I faced after losing my sweet cat Chango. His death, and especially his burial in my forest, forced me into a new awareness and relationship with Nature and the forest around me.

Uncertainty and vulnerability going forward

The uncertainty after Helene comes at an especially vulnerable time for me. After losing my job in July 2022, I’ve pursued several entrepreneurial avenues that haven’t borne much fruit yet. I hosted a couple of small accountability coaching groups and did a little consulting and coaching. I’ve been publishing this newsletter for 18 months to slower growth than I expected. When a coaching program I launched this summer wasn’t successful I decided it was time to pivot.

Some of you may have seen me post on Facebook and LinkedIn that I’m starting an email copywriting/ghostwriting business. The lack of power and internet for an extended time means I can’t start prospecting or set up calls with potential clients.

I am by nature a problem solver. I enjoy a mental challenge. I always believe there’s a way to do things even if we can’t see them at first. Friends call me an eternal optimist, and they’re right because attitude is everything.

Here’s how you can help:

I’ve started a GoFundMe account, Here’s the correct link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-marsha-rebuild-after-the-storm (can't edit the link on my phone.) The goal is $12,000 to help me meet expenses over the next three months, restock groceries and cover tree removal and other expenses. That will give me a stable base and time to get the business going.
Subscribe to a paid subscription or pledge to Essential Nature. I will be writing more frequently and will be adding other goodies like Nature-inspired meditations and audio readings of my essays.
For my business, marketing, PR and blogging friends: Help me fill my client pipeline! I can put my decades of writing experience to work on email copywriting and ghostwriting, email newsletters, LinkedIn posts, educational email courses, onboarding, nurturing and sales sequences. Call me at (828) 989-4743 or email marsha@twocrowsmedia.co. Check out my LI profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/marshastopa/ or my one-page website at https://twocrowsmedia.co/

Not all posts will look like this in the future. Unusual circumstances. :-)

Thank you for your interest and support.