My 9-year-old son was drenched in mud, shouting at me from the doorway of our waterlogged basement.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Start bailing!” I replied.

“What does that mean?” James asked.

Sure, he wasn’t familiar with the concept of quickly filling a bucket and carrying it upstairs. Yet, I could see the worry in his eyes as he realized we needed to prevent the flood from eroding the 110-year-old brick foundation of our home in Asheville, North Carolina.

In the days following Hurricane Helene, I recognized something else reflected in James and my family’s expressions. It was the understanding that our lives had irrevocably altered. Not just for us, but for our friends, our community, and the wider area of western North Carolina devastated by the catastrophic storm officials described as “generational” and “biblical.”

Although my family faced losses, they were nowhere near the worst we could have endured. We escaped injury. No trees crashed onto our home. Thankfully, none of our loved ones were swept away by the raging floodwaters.

Yet, the storm took certain things from us. It also gave us new perspectives.

Our family enjoys the French Broad River in Asheville

For days, we were unaware of the extent of the destruction. Our focus remained on our minor catastrophe. The family worked together to bail water, and I lamented our ineffective sump pump. Fortunately, my wife, Kelly, managed to find one of the last available pumps. Fain, our 11-year-old, and I, worked late into the night digging a hole to install it. We celebrated its success in draining the basement—only to have the power go out, forcing us back to bailing. Then, our neighbor Pete arrived like a hero and taught us how to siphon water out with garden hoses. (In addition to that, Pete is even constructing an outdoor shower system for the neighborhood.)

We lived off rationed food cooked over a campfire, feeling we had it tough. But the perspective shifted when we climbed a nearby hill and looked down at the French Broad River.

Since my children’s early years, I’ve exclaimed, “French Broad River!” each time we crossed the Jeff Bowen Bridge. Like countless other families, we spent summer days leisurely floating down the stretch that runs past Bent Creek Experimental Forest and through Asheville, where the current nearly stops.

Yet, that gentle stretch had transformed into a rapid, destructive torrent that destroyed homes and businesses. We later learned of people being swept away. The devastation was echoed in nearby Canton, still reeling from the deadly Tropical Storm Fred in 2021, and in Chimney Rock, where the Rocky Broad River almost eliminated that town.

As we gazed at the French Broad, my children named the places that had been lost: a used sports goods shop that featured an ice cream and sandwich cafe, our favorite independent cinema, a beloved barbeque restaurant, and a brewery my wife and I cherished.

The parks where we once picnicked and the bike paths where the boys learned to ride were now submerged beneath muddy waves with massive shipping containers floating by like toy boats.

Navigating parenting during a natural disaster

James expressed his wish for everything to remain unchanged. Fain stayed silent. I struggled to find the right words to comfort them, knowing that change was inevitable. I shared my sadness with them, too, while emphasizing how fortunate we were to have come through it with minimal hardships.

Eventually, power was restored to our home and much of Asheville. However, Helene had severely damaged the main lines of the city’s water system. Officials indicated it would take weeks for most residents to have running water for necessary tasks like flushing toilets, cleaning dishes, and showering.

Schools remained closed, and we lined up to receive water and food.

Meanwhile, remarkable moments unfolded. People who had difficulty connecting through text or social media found ways to come together,

People were going door-to-door and chatting in the streets. They exchanged items and paused to ask each other, “Are you alright?”

My children witnessed this heartwarming scene, and it brought me joy. Fain felt proud to hand out packs of water to those in need. Many individuals stepped up to check on neighbors who had been silent for several days. Skye and Philip, neighbors I didn’t know previously, welcomed me and anyone else who needed it to use their internet, which was one of the few working connections left in the city.

This was a beautiful aspect of Asheville.

Asheville is where we belong. Yet, it will never return to what it was.

Leaving was difficult. However, I finally convinced my wife to join our friends who offered us a place to stay in rental homes along the South Carolina coast. I reassured Kelly that it would allow us to relax and get back to our jobs, plus it would give our boys some time to hang out with friends and distract them from everything that’s happened.

Despite being 300 miles away, we often found ourselves discussing Asheville, accompanied by a sense of guilt for leaving and feeling like our kids were fine while we weren’t actively volunteering, knocking on doors, or helping in other ways.

I considered the children and families from public housing who shared food lines with us. Although it wasn’t ideal that James and Fain had to miss school, I felt confident that, with our two college degrees and other resources, my wife and I could find ways to keep them on track in the short term. I worried about the children from the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods.

We’ve realized that the closures from COVID-19 were especially tough on those kids – and Asheville has a starkly documented achievement gap between Black and white students which is likely to worsen.

We plan to return to Asheville soon – hopefully in just a few days. We haven’t really discussed what that return will entail. But I’m eager to reconnect with friends and reimmersed ourselves in a community that has shown resilience and care for one another. It’s a place I want my children to grow up in. However, it’s also a place that has changed forever.