Political lies undermined my WNC community’s recovery and healing after Helene | Opinion
No one could have predicted that the deadliest tropical storm in a coastal state’s history would strike a mountainous region hundreds of miles inland and thousands of feet above sea level.
What does seem predictable is the speed with which Donald Trump and other morally bankrupt politicians translated this tragedy into another moment to seed disinformation and distrust.
Four days after Hurricane Helene tore through our Western North Carolina community, my husband and I huddled around an emergency radio in our dark living room to hear the vice presidential debate. The broadcast was among the first we’d been able to access from the outside world in those early days without electricity, water, internet, cell reception and navigable roads.
On the same day my children watched cadaver dogs search for the remains of missing people amid the debris and crushed homes along the creek outside our neighborhood, it was disorienting to hear JD Vance call climate change “weird science.” Vance downplayed the lethal storm as “crazy weather patterns,” despite evidence that this unnatural disaster was made more powerful and hundreds of times more likely by continued growth in greenhouse gas emissions — largely driven by the fossil-fuel industry.
Ground zero for this disinformation campaign plotted onto several of my family’s favorite places to commune with nature and loved ones, including Chimney Rock and Lake Lure. These communities belong to the people who built their lives there, not to opportunistic politicians who have reduced the victims and all that we’ve lost to nothing more than political capital. The dangerous disinformation being circulated in the aftermath of this disaster is directly harming the very people who most need the support, those in vulnerable rural or marginalized communities that are instead being manipulated into turning down and even chasing away with threats of violence the help our region needs.
Contrary to what these bad actors would have you believe, many of us here on the ground have been blown away by the Herculean relief efforts underway, including a massive coordination of state and federal resources, as well as local and national mutual aid. It’s enough to restore even the most cynical person’s faith in humanity.
While the primary perpetrators are consistently connected to one party, the pushback against this disinformation has been bipartisan. In conservative Rutherford County, local emergency management worked to set the record straight and highlighted how these inaccuracies were hindering recovery efforts. Rep. Chuck Edwards, a North Carolina Republican, rebuked in no uncertain terms the disinformation being spread by his MAGA colleagues in a scorched-earth missive titled “Debunking Helene Response Myths,” where he condemned “untrustworthy sources trying to spark chaos by sharing hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and hearsay about hurricane response efforts across our mountains.”
However, despite his prior certitude, Edwards joined Trump last week as he toured damage near Asheville and stood by as the presidential candidate repeated falsehoods the congressman had previously labeled as a harmful disservice to his constituents.
People are vulnerable to disinformation in times of fear and uncertainty. But we have an opportunity to move beyond divisive rhetoric, toward acceptance of one another and the shared reality of extreme weather disasters that are harming all of us.
When the flood came, political yard signs were buried beneath water and mud. Even if they were visible, I doubt the locals who hopped in their kayaks to rescue residents stranded on their roofs or the emergency responders who sacrificed their physical safety and mental wellbeing to save lives would have cared about the political affiliation of the people in need.
In the coming months as we pick up the pieces, it’s up to us whether the community we found dries up and fractures, or we instead hold tight to each other against the current so that we might rise together.
This story was originally published November 1, 2024 at 12:00 PM.