This story is part of Voices After Helene, a special series from BPR examining the impact of Hurricane Helene one year out. See more stories and interviews here.
Amy Slusher, a server at Taco Billy, says the trauma from Hurricane Helene has rewired her nervous system.
The sensation feels like a “very thin veil” of an “alternate reality,” she said. “What it used to be and what it is now are so very intertwined.”
She’s worked as a server for decades, but since returning to work post-Helene, Slusher has found that small interactions can suddenly bring her back to the feelings of anxiety she had during the months-long Asheville water crisis.
“Like when somebody says, ‘Oh, I'll just have water to drink,’ It comes back and I feel it and sometimes the feeling can be so overwhelming, it takes me by surprise,” she said.
A year out from Helene, Slusher still gets flashbacks. Thunder and rainstorms put her on edge. Last winter, she had to cut a beach trip short after an intense thunderstorm gave her a panic attack.
Like many service industry workers, Slusher volunteered in the aftermath of Helene. She drove all over the region to deliver some of the 30,000 meals that World Central Kitchen made each day at the height of storm response. When she delivered her last meal in November, she “fell apart.”
“I think there were a lot of post-traumatic symptoms and I felt guilty again for having them,” she said. “I felt like I had failed because there were people who were still helping and I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“I think there were a lot of post-traumatic symptoms and I felt guilty again for having them,” Slusher said. “I felt like I had failed because there were people who were still helping and I couldn’t do it anymore.”
Across Asheville, service industry workers are grappling with their mental health in the aftermath of Helene. Service industry workers serve as the backbone of Asheville’s identity and economy. However, BPR interviewed several service workers who say they feel overlooked as they struggle with stressful conditions, declining wages and underemployment amid the city’s post-Helene tourism slump.
Meredith Switzer, the executive director of All Souls Counseling, said that in the months and years after a devastating event or natural disaster, often when resources and national attention drop off, that’s when PTSD, depression and anxiety can spike.
That’s especially true for people who responded to Helene with a burst of adrenaline in the immediate aftermath, she said.
“We hear that a lot. People who just held it together for so long are now starting to feel the weight of that,” she said. “They’re saying ‘You know what? I'm really tired and something just feels off and I can't really put my finger on it.’”
“A lot of uncertainty”
Since Helene, Claire Winkler, a longtime Asheville bartender, has seen an exodus of people from the area in search of more stable jobs and affordable rent.
“A lot of them have left town because there's no job to come back to,” she said. “And for those of us that still have jobs, obviously, tourism is very down.”
Winkler’s paychecks have decreased by around 20% since returning to work. This mirrors the slump the city has seen in tourism. In the last year, hotel occupancy has decreased by 7%, according to data from Explore Asheville. And demand for vacation rentals has dropped by around 20%.
“There's a lot of uncertainty and there's a lot of nervousness about how we're going to get through it,” she said. “Everything feels kind of numb because none of us are making as much money as we normally would.”
Winkler added that, from her perspective, a lot of camaraderie forged within the community during the initial “honeymoon” phase of the Helene response has dissipated into a more competitive dynamic, where some workers find themselves competing over a declining supply of jobs and tip income.
“That sense of brotherly love sort of starts to fall away because now you're trying to survive with less resources and any other person is another competitor for those resources,” Winkler said. “And now, everybody is still struggling but without that sense of euphoria, that sense of brotherhood and camaraderie.”
“That sense of brotherly love sort of starts to fall away because now you're trying to survive with less resources and any other person is another competitor for those resources,” Winkler said. “And now, everybody is still struggling but without that sense of euphoria, that sense of brotherhood and camaraderie.”
According to data from the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, the number of hospitality jobs have dipped by around 2,500 over the last year – from 27,543 to 25,057.
For Bobby Skelton, a dishwasher at ButterPunk, it’s impossible to separate these economic pressures from one’s mental health. “There’s a lot of anxiety,” he said. “It's to the point where people are so stressed out, that they're breaking down and crying in front of customers at work.”
“I've done it,” he added.
An uptick in post-disaster symptoms
It’s not just the service industry grappling with mental health.
Nearly half of households surveyed in Buncombe County report at least one family member experiencing new or worsening behavioral health symptoms since Helene, according to early data from Buncombe’s CASPER survey, a post-Helene community health survey.
Schools are also struggling to address mental health needs. Dr. John Nicholls, the Medical Director for MAHEC Psychiatry, said his organization’s School Based Therapy Program has responded to more than 1,280 new referrals for school-based therapy after the storm, addressing a 34% increase in post-disaster trauma, depression and anxiety.
In Asheville, there’s one main organization that focuses on raising mental health awareness for service industry workers: Linked4Life, a nonprofit initiative run by Cheryl Antoncic, owner of Bear's Smokehouse BBQ.
Antoncic started the nonprofit because she’s seen peers, and has personally struggled to access therapy due to being uninsured or unable to afford care, she said.
“There are so many people that work part-time or are piecing together part-time jobs to make one full-time salary,” she said. “So they may not even qualify [for health care] just because of their part-time status, even if benefits are offered to them.”
The city’s economic decline post-Helene, combined with federal cuts to mental health services and Medicaid, has further complicated the issue.
As a stopgap, Antoncic has partnered with All Souls Counseling, to provide six free therapy sessions to all food and beverage workers. The two organizations have raised enough money to serve around 600 patients. There are also a handful of hotlines available through the state government, including the 988 Crisis Line and Hope4NC Helpline.
Even those who may benefit from free therapy, like Slusher, say they worry about taking up a spot for someone who might need it more.
“I tried to go through All Souls, but I felt guilty because I thought, maybe, I didn't want to take a slot from somebody else who really needed it more than I did,” she said.
“You have to lie about it”
Winkler, the bartender, says what she really needs is for tourists to stop asking her about her Helene experience.
The nature of working in a hotel bar means she’s often an unofficial ambassador for the city. She fields visitors' questions about the disaster — some of whom have a lot of misinformation or political agendas.
“It’s taxing mentally,” she said. “It's just not something you want to talk about with strangers all the time over and over again.”
Last year, two of Winkler’s neighbors died in the floods, and she lost almost everything she owned when the Swannanoa River flooded her apartment. Since then, she’s found a new apartment to rent, but when people ask her about her storm experience, she struggles with how honest she can be with customers.
“It's just the lack of empathy that a lot of people show. They want to empathize, but they just cannot really put themselves in your shoes and just think, ‘Should I ask these questions?’ 'Is this something that this complete stranger wants to talk about?'” she said. “You have to lie about it. Or otherwise it's very depressing to talk about.”
“It's just the lack of empathy that a lot of people show. They want to empathize, but they just cannot really put themselves in your shoes and just think, ‘Should I ask these questions?’ Is this something that this complete stranger wants to talk about?,” she said. “You have to lie about it. Or otherwise it's very depressing to talk about.”
Kala Brooks, the bar manager of Top of the Monk, described this recurring scenario as a “great callousness,” especially when she encountered “disaster tourists.”
“That was very emotionally draining,” she said. “People that came in and were like, 'Where can I see the most damage?' Or people who came in and didn't really quite understand what we went through with the community and just downplayed the whole thing.”
It’s been a tough year for Brooks. Before Helene, she managed a team of more than 20 people at The Top of the Monk, a craft cocktail bar, along with the downstairs brewery, Thirsty Monk, a downtown Asheville fixture. Now she’s down to four.
Over the winter, the 18-year-old Thirsty Monk closed permantly — paired with the anxiety of trying to keep The Top of the Monk open — can be overwhelming to manage, Brooks said.
“There is definitely a feeling of helplessness, because as a manager, I feel like I should be driving this business,” Brooks said. “I should be making these decisions that help us stay open, profitable, and lucrative. But at the same time, I can't physically bring people in the door.”
“We have to take care of each other”
Everyone is dealing with these problems differently.
Skelton, the ButterPunk dishwasher, said that advocating for better conditions through Asheville Food and Beverage United, an advocacy group for service industry workers, helps him feel less alienated.
“We have to take care of each other,” he said. “Because nobody else is going to take care of us. Not customers, not our bosses, not anybody else.”
Some of Asheville Food and Beverage United’s platforms include living wages, paid sick leave and fair scheduling practices. Skelton, who struggles with a traumatic brain injury, says access to affordable health insurance would change his life, if he could get it.
“I make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but I can barely afford to rent my own place by myself,” he said. “Anytime I get sick, that's a whole day I don't get paid, so you’re just out buckets all the time because you don't have health care.”
As Skelton fights for change, and to make his monthly rent payments, he says that having a “dark sense of humor” helps him make it through long shifts at work.
“The only thing holding me together is like dust and trauma, you know, like that's it,” he joked. “Like, if you hit me with soap, I'd just fall apart, you know?”
“The only thing holding me together is like dust and trauma, you know, like that's it,” he joked. “Like, if you hit me with soap, I'd just fall apart, you know?”
For Slusher, the Taco Billy server, healing has arrived in an unexpected form: emotional support chickens, which now cluck around her yard in West Asheville.
She got the chickens last November, and since then, her backyard has transformed into a homestead oasis. Flowers and vegetables lace the garden. There’s a compost pile teeming with vegetable scraps. And Slusher’s six chickens mill around lackadaisically.
“I thought I was getting them for eggs, but they became so much more to me,” Slusher said. “I spend hours and hours just thinking about how to make the coup better for them. And just observing something that gets me out of myself. It’s very therapeutic.”
Communing with her chickens has also helped Slusher heal her relationship with nature, and accept that, sometimes, it can be violent and destructive.
“No matter how much fencing and protection I have. We have bears, we have raccoons, we have coyotes. I know [the chickens] are going to die one day,” she said. “Preparing myself for them to get killed or eaten or sick is important because it helps me let go and accept the inevitable.”
