In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, western North Carolina was a key political arena during the 2024 presidential election. Two years after the storm, the storm still dominates western North Carolina politics and shapes survivors’ views.
Marshall resident Alex Webber pointed out a defunct municipal building as she walked her dog Grover down the sidewalk along the town’s main street. She said a broken downspout on the building still causes problems.
“Every time it rained, it was like a waterfall coming over the top of the building. And it would just give us all dramatic flashbacks,” Webber said.
Webber is an illustrator and owner of On Your Bike, a cafe and bike repair shop. It used to be further down the town’s main drag, but Helene wiped out many of the buildings. On either side of the street, concrete foundations mark the places where buildings used to stand.
“Losing the fire station, the post office, the police department, city hall, and the courthouse-that's a ton of people who are in town doing business on a daily basis, and that's gone,” Webber said.
Webber moved to the Asheville area from New Orleans after Katrina, escaping to the mountains to avoid future hurricanes. She said the storms have shaped her political views on things like insurance reform and FEMA.
“And climate change. We've got to admit it exists,” Webber said. The White House removed the page on climate change from its website after President Trump took office. The EPA also recently rolled back key findings that allowed it to regulate vehicles and power plants for greenhouse gas emissions.
Extreme weather survivors are a fast-growing population
Webber has been sharing her story with the nonprofit group Extreme Weather Survivors. It connects natural disaster survivors to support one another after wildfires, floods, hurricanes and other catastrophes.
Marshall resident and mother of three Gina Heath also volunteers with EWS. The group connected her with survivors of the flooding that hit Texas in 2025.
“Right away, I started supporting those parents,” Heath said. She works as an emotional health practitioner. “I do a lot of parent support professionally, so we started creating things to help the parents support their children in recovering from that type of trauma.”
Natural disasters can have a tremendous effect on families. Heath said that the destabilization from Helene has lasted years now as her family faced school closures, lost municipal services — even delivering a letter became a challenge when Helene destroyed the local post office.
“Anything that would create a sense of normalcy is gone,” Heath said. “I think that that's hard to understand if you haven't been through it.”
Talking with other survivors has helped regain some of the predictability she lost in the storm. Webber echoed her sentiments, saying it took her a decade before she could talk about Hurricane Katrina with someone who hadn’t lived through it.
EWS outreach director Amanda Rosa says in a warming world, more people fall into that category of survivors every year, making them "among the fastest growing populations in the country."
Policies the group highlights include federal aid, debris cleanup and insurance reform. For example, many Helene survivors struggled to navigate a patchwork of insurance policies after the storm.
EWS said that of their 300 members from western North Carolina, only 1% were fully covered. Most properties lacked flood insurance, and owners found their existing insurance policies didn't cover them.
One third received zero assistance from their insurance provider, leaving them even more dependent on government recovery assistance.
“For folks here in Western North Carolina, what they've been talking to us most about is federal aid,” Rosa said.
Politicians have taken notice. During a recent rally in Gastonia, Trump said that the problem of Helene didn’t get, quote, “fixed” until he took office.
“You got to remember, there's two things: crime and Helene,” Trump said. “Remember Helen — such a nice name. Such a vicious, violent storm.”
He joked about withholding FEMA aid unless Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley is elected:
“You're waiting for some additional money to take care of some of the back. And I'm going to get that to you, Michael,” Trump said, addressing Whatley who was just off stage. “Now, if Michael loses, I'm not sending it. Okay. No, I'm only kidding. You're getting it.”
Democratic candidate Roy Cooper has also commented on the slow federal response.
‘We've just got to give people a reason to find value in our people here’
With midterms coming up, EWS partnered with local musicians to put on a concert in Yancey County “to celebrate how far folks have come and also call attention to the fact that there's still a lot left to be done in the region,” Rosa said.
The nonprofit worked with Murphy Campbell, a local ballad singer and banjo player. She collects archival songs from friends and relatives, some over a hundred years old.
“We've just got to give people a reason to find value in our people here,” Campbell said. “And if hearing a battle they really like off of me encourages them to care about other people here by thinking of women from the past, then I've done my job.”
Boone resident Erin Williams Banks joined Campbell on the stage in Burnsville. She performed her song “Ballad of Elk River,” which she wrote about a woman who died in Avery County during the storm. She’s also written a song about flooding in western North Carolina in 1940 and another about last year’s flooding in Texas.
“Where else am I going to share this? Like, I’m not going to play in a bar and play these flood songs. It’s sad. It’s so sad,” Banks said.
Banks said the storm reinforced the importance of protecting the environment. Both Campbell and Heath spoke about the importance of action and presence in western North Carolina.
“I'm paying attention to who actually was in Marshall,” Heath said. She’s also keeping an eye out for local officials who have stayed active in the survivor community.
For Webber, she’s thinking about her daughter’s future in a world where extreme weather is becoming more common.
“I know how much these storms and climate change has affected my adult life,” Webber said. “What the hell is it going to do to her?”
