Weekend extra: Giving after Hurricane Helene

Hi friends,

I spent much of yesterday fixated on the terrifying reports from Western North Carolina and East Tennessee. The losses from Helene are overwhelming, and the response has been heroic. I heard from an old friend who was doing swiftwater rescues with an inflatable boat in Erwin, Tennessee, where more than 50 people than were stranded on a hospital roof and others were trapped at home.

Last night, I checked with friends online about where to donate. They suggested quite a few organizations. I have not independently vetted these, but invite you to do so.

• The American Red Cross of North Carolina has opened shelters all over the region. Learn more here and donate here.

• Many religious groups have disaster relief organizations. This includes the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. Donate here.

• Team Rubicon is doing relief work in Florida and Georgia.

• Day One Relief, based in Chapel Hill, quickly moves resources to local grassroots groups after a disaster. Donate here.

• The all-volunteer Next Level Disaster Response, based in Iron Station, offers post-disaster services from chainsaw operations to counseling. Donate here.

• Operation Airdrop is flying in essential supplies and hot meals.

• Action Network is communicating with affected communities and responding with supplies, medics, and work crews. Donate here.

• BeLoved Asheville is distributing supplies and helping people move to higher ground. Get updates here and donate here.

• Democracy Green, an environmental and climate justice group, is dispatching supplies to several North Carolina mountain counties.

• Reconciliation House is distributing food in hard-hit Yancey County, and Manna FoodBank is doing the same in Asheville.

I wonder what type of journalism will come out of Helene. Here are some recent hurricane-related longform stories worth reading and listening to:

• The feral cattle in North Carolina that survived their island’s inundation during Hurricane Dorian (J.B. MacKinnon).

• The DACA recipient and his friends who came to Houston on a rescue mission during Hurricane Harvey (Susan Carroll and Lomi Kriel)

• Saints, sinners, and lost souls in the New Orleans that Katrina left behind (Wright Thompson)

• Five lives caught up in Harvey (Mike Hixenbaugh, David Hunn, and Mark Collette)

• Vann R. Newkirk II’s podcast Floodlines, about Katrina as an unnatural disaster.

Thanks to everyone who checked on us yesterday. We were safely east of the storm, and experienced hard rain but nothing more. Thanks to the neighbor who helped with a roof repair just hours before the rain.

All best,
Barry Yeoman