When Hurricane Helene devastated portions of several southern states in September, journalists in those states had to report on one of the nation’s biggest stories while dealing with chaos in their own lives.
So the USA TODAY Network called on journalists at its news operations across the country — including The Journal News/lohud — to head to Asheville, North Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina, Augusta, Georgia, and other locations in Tennessee and Florida to assist overburdened local news staffs.
These were urgent assignments. Residents of those regions hit by Helene were desperate for information about basic services and when some semblance of normalcy might return to their lives.
Four staffers for The Journal News/lohud took up the challenge: Seth Harrison, a veteran photo journalist; Helu Wang, a reporter who covers real estate and development; David McKay Wilson, longtime “Tax Watch columnist; and Tom Zambito, a veteran reporter who covers energy, economic growth and transportation for The USA Today Network’s New York State team.
Here, the four journalists give you a glimpse of what they experienced:
Seth Harrison: I’ve made three trips to the Asheville area in North Carolina to contribute to coverage since the storm.
I’ve worked on several compelling stories that were, at the same time, heartbreaking and hopeful. These included meeting and photographing a homeowner in the town of Swannanoa, a small community that was utterly devastated by the storm. After his home was destroyed, friends as well as strangers showed up, donned full PPE gear, and helped him gut the home, which he plans to rebuild.
Other stories included a church that started feeding the residents of Swannanoa days after the storm. One of the volunteers at the church started taking polaroid photos of the residents, placing the photos in an album, and asking each person to write a note next to their photos. The residents wrote beautiful notes of gratitude to the church. It was an amazing outpouring of unity and love in this community that was so badly impacted.
Another moving story that I worked on involved a woman whose home was destroyed. She was living in a donated trailer along with her dog, on the banks of the river that caused the flooding. I photographed her as she wept while sitting outside the trailer sharing her experience.
Finally, the River Arts District, just a few minutes outside of downtown Asheville, comprised acres of old warehouses that had been repurposed into artist studios, galleries and workshops. The RAD, as it is known locally, is part of the lifeblood of the region, and was totally washed away by the storm. I was glad to be able to photograph this area, along with the other stories I helped to tell, to document how this region was so impacted by Helene, and how its residents have united and begun the long process of rebuilding.
Helu Wang: In the front yard of a home in Swannanoa, North Carolina, amid the rubble of neighboring houses and businesses, a pop-up supply center took shape, with people hustling to unload food and water.
It started with a backpack of bottled water that a woman gave out to neighbors the day after Tropical Storm Helene had ravaged the town. There were dead fish in the road, houses washed away. She rescued a woman who had clung to a tree for 14 hours. But she lost another woman who had collapsed to a heart attack — whose body floated in a river.
It was one of so many scenes I observed during my two week-long visits to Asheville, North Caroline, in October and November. While I was shocked by the devastation, I felt hopeful seeing people come together to help one another. Landlords offered free shelters for displaced families, staff from a summer camp built ziplines and cut trees with chainsaws to help rescue people, and volunteers came from across the U.S. to help start rebuilding. And a firefighter died saving lives.
Unintentionally, I became part of the story. On my way to meet with a couple who went ahead and bought a home after the storm, I ended up directing traffic for an hour. A woman with mental health issues, who had gone through a lot, was stuck on the road.
David McKay Wilson: My reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Augusta, Georgia, began moments after I arrived at the local airport.
The Avis rental car clerk informed me — and several others in line — that there were no rental cars available. My first story found that the lack of cars was evidence of a broader issue in the hurricane’s aftermath: the competition between local residents with damaged cars and relief workers for the shrunken pool of available rentals.
I stayed at the Marriott in downtown Augusta, where I learned about the clean-up from out-of-town contractors who told me about the extensive damage in the region, noting widespread roof damage from fallen trees.
I found a local roofer who took us out one morning as his team worked up quotes for homeowners with damaged roofs. I turned that story around in a day, providing solid information about roofing issues to the estimated 30,000 Augustans with roof damage.
He also drove us to the city’s Kingston neighborhood to see the extent of the storm’s devastation.
I needed to know more. On my last day, I returned to Kingston to find homeowners still reeling from the storm a month after Helene’s ferocious winds swept through.
I teamed up with a USA TODAY Network photographer from Kansas to walk through the neighborhood, where huge fallen oaks and pines were piled high along the roadside, with other downed trees still perched atop flattened roofs. We found an elderly woman to recount how eight towering pines crashed down on her home, as she, her husband and four grandchildren were still in bed.
She thanked God that not one of the six was injured. But she wondered if her home would be rebuilt.
Tom Zambito: Before I left for Asheville I went to the library and checked out Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried.” It’s a Vietnam memoir that tells the story of infantrymen through the things they brought with them during long slogs through the jungle. Letters from home, pictures of girlfriends, good luck charms.
I covered 9/11 and knew some of the best reporting to come out of the tragedy had used a similar writing device. Small things offer a peek into the lives of the people that were lost.
I pitched the idea to Karen Chavez, the executive editor of the Asheville Citizen Times. As it turned out, the Asheville Police Department was posting to Facebook dozens of photos and keepsakes they’d found during the cleanup from Helene.
I spent a Saturday calling up everyone who’d commented on the pictures.
I got a call back from Dallas Moss. The police found a picture of him and his brother Tommy in a park five miles downstream from the family home. In it, the two are glancing sideways at the camera. Dallas was 8 and sporting a bowl cut.
It was one of the few photos of Tommy the family had left. Tommy died from a rare genetic disorder when he was 12.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Hurricane Helene’s toll described by lohud journalists Westchester NY
