When the rainy remnants of Hurricane Helene slammed into western North Carolina in late September, they swelled the river running through Asheville into a destructive torrent. Yet the flooding also quickened many social back eddies. The storm brought out Asheville’s “communitarian spirit,” one resident told The New York Times. Another told The New Yorker that it had “made people humble.”
More affluent residents turned to serve those less fortunate, according to many reports. Political differences that might otherwise be pronounced dissolved as people helped one another.
“We know God’s truth and we know God loves Western North Carolina, so while this tragedy surprised us, we’ve been able to see so much life change and so much redemption just through how He’s moved through our people,” Devin Goins, an executive pastor at Biltmore Church, told the Asheville Citizen-Times.
The neighborly responses shaping Asheville’s recovery will be familiar elsewhere in the storm’s path. Already hit by Helene, residents in Florida are now bracing for the arrival of Milton, Around the world, the greater impact of natural disasters from floods to wildfires is forcing communities to find social and physical resilience, which compels higher trust and compassion.
“In communities characterized by strong trust, solidarity, and active participation, responses to disasters tend to be more effective,” noted a recent study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. “Residents in such communities are inclined to assist neighbors in need by sharing resources, providing shelter, offering financial support, aiding in disaster preparedness through early warning information, and providing emotional support.”
The study found that “fostering a robust sense of concern” reduces the cost of risk and sense of vulnerability. It can also turn recovery efforts into creative opportunities that enhance equality and good governance.
A series of earthquakes that leveled buildings in Turkey last year, for example, exposed corruption in the construction sector. The recovery effort has included calls for greater transparency, accountability, and public education of civic values.
In Hawaii, where a wildfire hit the coastal town of Lahaina last year, residents are rebuilding more than their homes and shops. Restoring community involves restoring wetlands destroyed by past commercial sugarcane farming and healing the social resentments it fostered. “Right now, believe it or not, even though people say our town is gone, I look at it as the opposite,” one community leader, Keeaumoku Kapu, told The Washington Post.
Natural disasters often bring out the best in people far and wide to meet the needs of those in distress. In Asheville, church groups from St. Louis arrived with food and shovels. Rescue crews came from Colorado and Ohio to help local first responders check in on isolated residents. Local musicians have put down their instruments and picked up chain saws.
“We have two choices,” Darren Nicholson, a mandolin player in a bluegrass band, told Rolling Stone. “We either sit around and dwell on the problem or we can get into the solution.” That spirit of neighborliness turns seasons of vulnerability into seasons of trust and resilience.
Mark Sappenfield
