I was in a business I frequent—I’m going to be intentionally vague about the names and types of businesses in this piece, as not to offend places I really enjoy—recently, and saw that they had a self-published book about a local individual’s experiences “surviving” Hurricane Helene.
While full transparency, I didn’t read the book, I studied the back cover and gave it a good flip through, which is why I’m putting “surviving” in quotes.
Based on what I was able to discern, while this person technically did survive Helene, had I been an editor or consultant, I would’ve suggested “lived through,” because this person was mainly talking about the toll living through a natural disaster of this magnitude has on one’s mental health.
It’s definitely an important conversation to have (I’d love to read a well-researched, expert-consulted piece on, for example, how folks in recovery dealt with the aftermath and breakdown of pretty much all support systems in Asheville for quite a while), but when I checked the publication date, it said May 2025, which meant it was written, edited, and published 7 months after Helene hit.
Is that enough time to truly reflect on the impacts Helene had on people’s mental health? Is it even enough time to gather data? My gut tells me that even now, a full year and some change later, many people aren’t even fully aware of how the trauma from Helene has impacted them. I’m legitimately asking. I don’t know the answer to this.
This wasn’t the first book about Helene that I saw, which I thought might be hastily published, on sale at a business I frequent. I came across another one in early June. This one was published by a small press and was the story of a Western North Carolinian who was trapped in their rural community for a full week after the storm. According to the back of this book, it was the tale of how the community pulled together and the lessons this particular author learned about faith, family, and resilience. I’m sure these folks trapped in their small community definitely learned some lessons and definitely have a story to share, but once again, I just wonder if there was enough time to really reflect and interrogate what happened. Hindsight being 20-20 is indeed a thing, and if you’re publishing a book 7 months (I don’t remember the publication date of this book, just that I saw it in June) after an event, which means you probably submitted it 5 months after an event, do you really have ANY hindsight at all?
Honestly, this blog entry might have been better as a social post, since I don’t have a real salient story to tell or a point to make. And I don’t know the answers to any of the questions I’m posing. As someone who writes for a living, I think about this often. The way our media and attention operate these days rewards reactionary takes and pieces, not reflective ones. I find it frustrating, but I also get it to a degree, and I think I’m just using Helene to frame concerns I have about the way we collectively process—or, more accurately, perhaps don’t fully process—and present our thoughts, experiences, and opinions.
AshevilleExplorer 