North Carolina farms face depleted, toxic soil after historic Helene flooding

Mark Dempsey's roommates had to swim to safety when Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters ravaged Swannanoa, North Carolina, and the once-green field adjacent to his home there has been reduced to a mud bath. Photograph: Courtesy of Mark Dempsey

Hurricane Helene took much from western North Carolina where I live, farm and raise my family. The stories are harrowing: houses obliterated by landslides, whole families washed away, corpses revealed as the waters receded.

Suddenly, there’s deep climate trauma here, in a place where we mistakenly thought hurricanes happened to Floridians and coastal communities, not us. Helene stole our sense of security: we now side-eye trees, which crushed homes, power lines, cars and people. And the rain, the farmer’s frequent wish, turned our rivers maniacal.