"What Do You See?" (Guest Essay)
“Notes from a Catastrophe - Day 18” are from guest writer Laura J. Collins, a resident of Asheville, reflecting upon the devastation from Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina, and the extraordinary gifts of grace from people nearby and from afar.
THERE ARE SOME THINGS about this storm that remind me: how we do anything is how we do everything. For example: What you look for is what you see.
A couple of days ago I was in the part of Asheville just north of the city. It seemed like there had not been a hurricane at all. A few branches down, but nothing destroyed. Harris Teeter and Trader Joe’s doing a brisk business with well-stocked shelves. People walking around looking normal-ish.
Today I drove down Amboy Road for the first time since the storm and saw the haunting devastation. RVs washed across the road and ripped open, their appliances and contents spilling out. Playgrounds and ball fields torn apart. Large trees precariously propped high in the branches of other large trees, washed there, 100 yards from the river.
Like seeing the River Arts District and Swannanoa and Marshall, the sight is a gut-punch. It is almost incomprehensible. I haven’t even been to Chimney Rock and other lost communities; I know that seeing the footage is different from the eerie feeling of actually being there.
As many of my friends have said, “Don’t look away.” And this is important. For months I was saying this about Gaza, posting photos and videos. Don’t look away. Bearing witness to the pain, to the horrible reality that life can bring is critical to being fully human. It’s why places like EJI’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, AL, honoring the victims of lynching, is so important. It’s why I’ve worked with the prison and the refugee populations in this country. To be a person of compassion is to go to the hard places.
And yet.
It is equally important to, as Mr. Rogers so famously said, “Look for the helpers.” And they are everywhere. Everywhere. I have not been to one destroyed area where helpers were not there before me and after me. I have received help in the form of free meals and free water and free showers and FEMA workers walking me through the application process and friends offering places to stay and places to get showers.
As I struggle to understand the proliferation of conspiracy theories, seemingly taking over the minds of people I thought were wise or at least had some sense, I understand that if you are already distrustful – of the government or the medical community or your neighbors – then you will look for reasons to be more so. This is happening with alarming speed and tenacity. Because, of course, everything that is being done right now is being done by people and often by people working in large bureaucracies. People are not perfect; bureaucracies are less so.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t good. And it certainly doesn’t mean they are evil.
For those who say, “We are on our own! Government is no help! Just help your neighbors, that’s all we’ve got,” I say, “You know, I have no idea how to re-engineer a water system or rebuild a bridge or an interstate and I certainly don’t have the financial wherewithal to provide an initial $750 to hundreds of thousands of people impacted by the storm, before I even start to consider the actual property damage they’ve endured.”
Yes, I will help my neighbors and I will accept my neighbors’ help and I hope you will, too. But we need government and large-scale operations in every aspect of this catastrophe. And the more I look at what is being done so quickly, in such an unimaginably complex logistical nightmare, I am more and more impressed with the help of government agencies: local, state, national and international. All of whom are here on the ground, working long, long hours 7 days a week.
*If you don’t see that, you literally aren’t looking.*
The obsession with “illegals” is mind-boggling. I could write a book on what’s wrong with that word, but other people have done so better, so I won’t. But here’s the short response: refugees and people seeking asylum in this country are NOT here illegally. Those are legal systems. They are imperfect systems, I can tell you first-hand from having worked with them. But they are legal systems. Are there undocumented workers in our country? Of course! And why do I say workers? Because that’s what they are here to do and are doing! They are picking your damn apples, WNC! And you know what’s actually illegal? For employers to knowingly hire people who do not have appropriate work visas. Often they do this because they don’t have other people who will do the jobs they have. And often they do it because it allows them to treat these workers unfairly, without appropriate pay or housing or safety. That’s the truly illegal part.
So, if you look out at the world and see “illegals” in the form of poor brown or black people, I wonder where you’re looking and what you’re looking for. Could you look instead at the countries they came from, the devastating poverty or warfare that led them to risk everything, to walk across the desert, to leave behind home and community and family to get here? Do you look with compassion on that? Could you look at how hard they are working to survive in a foreign country?
Or do you see someone to distrust and be angry about? A scapegoat for your own fear and confusion? A faceless group of people who are not real to you because you haven’t really looked?
I waver between anger at those spewing conspiracies, knowing the violence and damage that these careless words bring on real people, and deep grief. I grieve what can cause otherwise gentle people to become so fearful and confused. What deep sadness must be in their souls to be willing to buy into easily refuted lies instead of looking for real answers. Like imagining a crazed government conspiracy to make bad weather happen instead of seeing the reality of climate change caused by fossil fuels. Follow the money, honeys. It will almost always lead you to the real answers.
So I return to looking for the helpers. The unhoused man who helped keep fights from breaking out while people lined up for gasoline. The young people driving here to help muck out the homes of people they don’t know. The Sikhs from New York helping the Christians from Barnardsville. The linemen from Canada working through the night to restore my power. The city council members organizing help and providing information nonstop. The Register of Deeds converting his office into an army of literally thousands of volunteers. The small business owners giving away free food while paying their employees to cook and serve it. The out-of-work musicians holding benefit concerts. I could go on.
The more I look, the more I see. Helpers. Helpers everywhere.
What do you see?
Copyright 2024, Laura J. Collins — All Rights Reserved — Reprinted with her permission from her Facebook post of October 14, 2024
Click on the Image for Photos of the Flood’s Aftermath from Carolina Public Press