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Mountain folks just aren’t wired for hurricanes. But then again, who is? Who can possibly wrap their minds around the enormity of a storm like Helene? Who among us could fathom hundreds dead and scores missing in one fell swoop and not be forever changed? 

We have watched television reports of Indonesian tsunamis and Afghan earthquakes, and of course, we shudder, and we pray, and we send relief because that’s what Americans do. But then a witch named Helene mounts her broom in the Gulf of Mexico, skirts Florida and then scampers into Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia, all the while leaving a trail of death and suffering to a degree seldom seen in a world that sometimes becomes numb to both. Besides the epochal loss of human life, there are the towns and villages swept away by rain-swollen streams and rivers and then buried in mounds of mud. We so want to believe that these lovely communities will be rebuilt and repopulated, and yet we fear they will never be the same as they were before that awful September day.

The lessons to learn here are legion. First, we’re reminded that the things of this world are temporary in nature. A storm, a wind, or a fire can change a person’s perspective, as well as their world, in a matter of moments. The Bible often encourages us not to put our trust in those things that can be here today and gone tomorrow. 

Still, another lesson to learn is the importance of leaning on and caring for one another. Mountain people are especially good at this. Yes, they’re independent as all get out, but at the same time, they are especially tenderhearted and apt to go to their neighbor in times of need. One western North Carolina woman said it best when interviewed for the news. 

She declared, “We help each other! We don’t wait for anybody else to do it.” 

I remember a story I heard years ago that makes this very point. A snowstorm of epic proportions had blanketed western North Carolina. The kind of snow that was common in these parts back in the early sixties. But this one was especially fierce. People were stranded for days back in the hills and hollers. Lines of communications were cut off, and folks in the Piedmont and eastern parts of the state were fearing for the safety of their family members stranded on high mountains and in lonely valleys and coves. The Red Cross was dispatched on missions of mercy. One worker trudged down a snow-covered country road to check on an elderly woman who lived alone. 

When he got to her small cabin, he was relieved to see blue smoke curling from her chimney, signifying life. He pounded on the door, and she gingerly opened it. The relief worker asked, “Ma’am, do you have any food left?” Without hesitation, she replied, “I’ve not got much, but what I do have, you’re welcome to it.” 

Helene may demolish property and scar the countryside, but she will never destroy that indomitable mountain spirit embodied by faith, endurance, courage and love.