The storm called Helene devastated parts of the Carolinas on Friday, and now the long recovery begins. WFAE’s Tommy Tomlinson, in his "On My Mind" commentary, says those of us who made it through the storm with our homes and lives intact should count our blessings.
On Friday, when the power went out at our house, we got to experience a rare thing in the city: a dark and quiet night.
There was none of that electric hum that normally fills our ears with white noise. There were no streetlamps to filter out the stars. We lit candles and listened to ourselves breathe. We had no power, but we were warm and dry. We were so lucky.
As I write this, more than 40 people across the South have been confirmed dead as the storm called Helene rolled through. It was a hurricane when it made landfall in Florida and a tropical storm when it flooded the Carolinas. The mountains got the worst of it. Based on videos posted on social media, downtown Chimney Rock looks to be nearly wiped out. I-40 washed out at the North Carolina-Tennessee line. The French Broad River crested at a record level — higher than it did in the historic 1916 flood.
It will take weeks and months and years to repair the damage, and of course, thousands of lives will never be the same.
Here in Charlotte, one man died when a tree fell on his home. People up around Mountain Island Lake had to evacuate because of floodwaters rushing down from upstream. And 1.3 million Duke Energy customers in the Carolinas lost power. Some folks, surely, are still powerless today.
Our power came back on Friday, just before midnight. We went without for about 16 hours. The storm left a bunch of branches in our yard, and our sump pump earned its keep, but other than that we were fine.
Storms don’t care where they go. Helene toppled million-dollar beach houses and single-wide trailers. Those of us who made it through OK should remember — and help — those one neighborhood away or two counties away who didn’t fare as well.
A dark and quiet night was a pleasant diversion for us. It meant something quite different to those who caught Helene’s full fury. It will take a long time for them to come out of the darkness.
Tommy Tomlinson’s On My Mind column runs Mondays on WFAE and WFAE.org. It represents his opinion, not the opinion of WFAE. You can respond to this column in the comments section at wfae.org. You can also email Tommy at ttomlinson@wfae.org
