When Hurricane Helene hit Augusta, Georgia, over the weekend, I was over 4000 miles away, enjoying some quality time with my family in North Wales. I’d received a voice note from my dear friend and fellow Substacker
the night before, just as we arrived at my Mum’s house. However, due to our late arrival, I didn’t get chance to listen to it.Augusta is the city I class as one of my two hometowns - my childhood and teenage years were split between there and Manchester, UK. Jamal still lives in Augusta and is married to a wonderful woman who I coincidentally went to high school with. He’d sent a couple of photos with his voice note and I’d taken a glance at them as we were unloading the car. It looked like a couple of trees had fallen down in the local area. Or maybe he was doing some particularly hefty yard work. I wasn’t sure. I’d typically catch up on voice notes from friends whilst getting ready for bed but, that night, my battery was almost dead.
The next morning, we had an early start. My Mum and I drove to her studio where she teaches art and my partner headed out for an 8 mile hike with my Uncle. It was a perfect, device-free day.
After class, we went to pick up my Aunt and Uncle’s new dog Monty, took him for a walk and then met my partner and Uncle at our favourite canine-friendly coffee shop.
It was so good to have such quality time with all of us together that everything else seemed to melt away. The only screen time I had was looking at photos of the hike on my partner’s phone.
At closing time, we went to the grocery store and, almost immeadiately after arriving home, I cooked dinner.
It was only when my brother called a little later, that we found out the news: a category 4 hurricane had hit my hometown. My brother started to talk about destroyed buildings, power outages and uprooted trees. And then my brain connected the dots: Jamal’s photos were a tiny glimpse of a bigger, quite terrifying picture. I snatched up my phone and listened to his voice note.
He’d left it whilst charging his phone in his car. He reported that the power was out all over town and that six trees had been uprooted close to his house. I started Googling and the images I saw of storm damage all over the city were jaw-dropping. Houses and cars entirely crushed by debris, signs hanging off the front of restaurants, roads entirely blocked and power lines down. It put me in mind of the film A Quiet Place, the city I’d called home for so many years suddenly the setting of a catastrophic, apocalyptic nightmare.
What followed was a mad scramble to try and contact our loved ones. My Mum tried to get through to my Aunty Annie. When she couldn’t reach her, she tried some of my cousins. It seemed all were without power, their phones not in service. I messaged a few friends, checking they were okay and, as their replies began to trickle through, so did more images of the devastation.
A couple of hours later, I’d heard back from almost all my friends, but we still hadn’t managed to reach our family and had now exhausted all our options. There was a tightness in my chest. A throbbing anxiety that wouldn’t go away. Mum said she felt the same and we both began to imagine the worst. Unable to sleep, we stayed up talking until 4am, by which point we were so exhausted, sleep felt inevitable.
The following morning, my Mum woke up to a message that had actually been sent at 3am UK time but hadn’t come through until hours later: Everyone was okay and camped out at Annie’s. A wave of relief washed over me, so big and powerful, I thought I might cry.
I exchanged a few more messages with friends. Fellow Substacker and life-long Augusta resident
sent me a photo of her mother-in-law’s house. It was totally devastated and Kuleigh told me there was virtually no warning Helene would hit with such force.“We are not okay,” she said and reading those words sent a chill through me. I knew she wasn’t just talking about her family. It was a declaration about Augusta in general that absolutely made sense.
How could Augusta be okay? When I was in high school, the tiniest sliver of frost on the road would mean a day off for all students. It was not… is not… a city that has the infrastructure necessary to deal with extreme weather conditions.
A lot of this is down to how rare it is for Augusta to be in the path of a hurricane. Hurricane Irma did some serious damage back in 2017 but, historically, we usually only deal with the fall out of hurricanes - flash flooding, heavy winds, the odd power outage. But Helene is different gravy. Dozens upon dozens of huge trees pulled out by their roots and tossed into people’s yards as if they are nothing more than matchsticks. News that the power will be out for a least a week, maybe two. And then, as if all that weren’t bad enough, a letter from the council, circulated online, letting all Augusta residents know the water would be cut off for 24-48 hours.
My relief subsided and I suddenly felt anxious again. Sure my family is alive and safe but… now what? How will they survive without water and power for so long? My Aunty Annie is in her 80s and disabled. My cousins all have small children. And I just can’t shake the thought that, as power begins to be restored, the Black neighbourhoods will be lowest on the priority list.
And then another thought: What I’m feeling right now is the tiniest fraction of the anxiety members of the Palestinian diaspora all over the world must feel. A creeping sense of dread that they must’ve have felt every day for the last year, terrified of what might become of their loved ones back home. I’d always known how hard it must be to live with that terror but now that I’ve felt fear for my own family’s safety, I don’t understand how members of the Palestinian diaspora are not completely crushed under the weight of it. Especially, given how totally desperate the plight of the Palestinian people is. The helplessness I feel right now is nothing compared to what they are dealing with in the face of “no red lines” and such unspeakable, seemingly endless cruelty. It’s something Syrian, Yemeni and Lebanese people are forced to navigate right now too. Only none of what they are going through is the result of a natural disaster. It is so very, appallingly man made.
This morning, I woke up to a message from my friend Jo, who no longer lives in Augusta but whose parents do. She told me she’d been keen to get them to Atlanta, where she hoped they’d be safer and have access to power and water. It would’ve been a good idea if it weren’t for the fact that all major highways to Atlanta are now closed due to a chemical explosion at a factory in Conyers. Just when I thought Georgia couldn’t be any more unlucky!
When natural disasters hit, so many naïve people on the outside looking in ask, “Why don’t you just evacuate?” But the truth is, it’s never that simple. You need somewhere to go and enough money and gas to get there.
Jamal had already told me that almost all the gas stations in town have closed and those that have remained open have queues for miles. “If I go try and get gas and fail, I might not have enough gas to get back,” he worried out loud.
I’m pleased to report he and his family are safe. The rest of the story is his to tell and I know he plans to write about it soon.
Meanwhile, my anxiety has turned into something else: Rage.
Here in the UK, two young climate change protestors were sent to jail last week for throwing soup at a painting in a bid to get people to wake up to what’s happening to our planet. But, of course, the impact of fossil fuels, greenhouse gases, fracking, poor waste management and corporate/industrial emissions is nothing compared to the damage they did to the frame of this painting. The judge handed down a two year sentence to one of the protestors and 20 months to the other.
In the same week, a prominent TV news reporter was handed a 6 month suspended sentence for owning over 40 indecent images of children. The message is clear: do what you want to our children but woe betide you if you attempt to stand in the way of capitalism.
Just Stop Oil protestors Phoebe and Anna were trying to make a statement. Trying to save millions of people from the suffering CSRA residents are enduring right now in the wake of Hurricane Helene.
Today I was relieved to hear our family friend Tina made it to Miami safely. She lives in a rich neighbourhood and has the resources to escape, thankfully. Her neighbour, however, was not so lucky - killed in her bed by a fallen tree that crashed through her roof. Her wealth, tragically, did not save her and it will not save the capitalists that refuse to do anything about climate change either. Because, when the hurricane hits, our survival is almost always down to luck.
I hope, wherever you are, you are safe and warm.
With love,
xK
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Hi Karla,
As a native Augustan who is still here since i work for the news, thank you for this post. I haven’t had time to sit with myself and just write about my experiences yet, but you really shed light to what we’ve been through as a community.
If you have a brother that went to DFA and played alto sax, it’s a very small world. Because I saw your last name and Wales and knew you had to be kin to him.
I hope your family is doing well during this time and staying hopeful and safe! I’m glad Tobi introduced me to your work, and I look forward to reading more!
Thank you for this write up friend. I lived it and reflected on it but your words carry a whole other weight to them ❤️🙏🏽