Resilience Rising: Community, Care, and the Aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Appalachia

Now that the cameras have long since left Hurricane Helene’s trail of devastation, what is the situation on the ground? And what was it about Appalachia that made the devastation so great, and the mutualist response so powerful?
In the first half of the show Eleanor Goldfield speaks with Mutual Aid Disaster Relief coordinator and street medic Jena about her work in Western North Carolina and elsewhere, how bad the destruction really is, the dearth of government support, and how communities are using their own cultural roots to get what they need. Jena outlines the vast and varied mutual aid web, current needs on the ground, and creative and beautiful ways in which we can all engage in solidarity rather than charity. In the second half of the program, Eleanor speaks with Chelsea White-Hoglen, a lifelong resident of Western North Carolina with a vast background in community organizing. Chelsea explains the scale of the impact on such a rural, poor and geologically complex area as Appalachia, how disaster relief blossomed out of existing community structures, how this next phase of the crisis is an economic one, and how this could be a turning point for a region historically misunderstood, cast aside and disenfranchised.

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