Are You Ready For Disaster?

This disaster in Western North Carolina is beyond imagination. No movie director could top the scenes in and around us. The pictures I could share of downed trees, power lines, and water runoff are nothing compared to what you see on the national news. The destruction in Biltmore Village is heartbreaking. The communities of Swannanoa, Black Mountain, and Montreat are a mess. Chimney Rock, which we pass through several times a year to go to a cabin at Lake Lure, has been wiped out, as well as parts of ST RT 74. Instead of birds, we hear chainsaws and generators.

I would ask you to pause, look around you, and consider what you are grateful for. What do you take for granted? How well are you connected with your neighbors? Do you check in on them? Do they check in on you?

Put yourself in a position of “What if this happened to me?” Do you have the basic supplies, including drinking water, ready-to-eat meals, flashlights, a transistor radio, hand sanitizer, a first aid kit, and other essentials?

Here is the greatest gift of this disaster: our neighbors! We began gathering the last Friday of each month 15 years ago to share food, sit around a fire pit, and connect. We have been there for one another during this disaster, clearing downed trees, removing debris, rerouting water, sharing, comforting, laughing, and crying. Neighbors help us to endure this disaster. They help turn a problem into an inconvenience we are enduring together.