// Blog
Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
// St. Francis of Assisi
I came to an abrupt stop. It was gone. At least 50 feet across, and deeper than my headlights showed, there was a giant chasm where the road used to be. A guard rail and what was left of the neighborhood’s water supply line hung suspended over the gap. I slowly got out and walked to the edge, looking up ahead to where at least two more sections of the hillside had been washed away by the torrential rains. A light drizzle continued to fall, like smoke after a conflagration.
I had been out of town all week for work, watching from afar each day as the forecast for Hurricane Helene became worse. I was in Bermuda of all places, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean yet anxious about a hurricane hitting my home more than 300 miles inland and 3,000 feet up in the mountains (about 500 km and 1,000 meters up). All I could think about was how to get back to my wife and children, mentally mapping out possible routes around road closures and considering the possibility that I would have to abandon my vehicle somewhere and run the rest of the way.
Assessing the Situation
I cut through a neighbor’s property to get around the missing section of road. There was no power and no water, but my family was safe and the house seemed undamaged. The next morning we walked back down the hill to see the damage in daylight.
Full-sized shipping containers littered the fields. They had been picked up by the floodwaters and carried from the National Guard Armory like little toy ducks dropped in a stream. The wreckage of a Jeep sat on the bike path underneath a bridge. Stone walls that had stood for over a century were now nothing but rubble. A port-a-potty sat perched up in a tree. At my kids’ baseball field the side of the scoreboard, at least 15 feet off the ground, was smashed in where something had floated into it.
This wasn’t some narrow ravine hit by a flash flood. It was a massive open space with fields, parking lots, stores, and apartments. Everything had been under a raging torrent of water.
Regaining Control
We returned home and began by doing what little could be done, then working outward. Get a generator running and save the food in the freezer. Fill buckets of water for flushing toilets and, if necessary, purification. Check the house for damage. Clear downed trees.
Once everything possible was done at the house, we looked outward. I returned to the greenway with my chainsaw and started clearing bridges and other main paths. As some water returned, we gathered hoses from the neighborhood until we could bring the water far enough out for the whole street to have access.
As more roads became passable, we looked outward again. Some areas were hit so much harder than ours. Homes and entire communities were destroyed. As someone who works in the insurance industry, I was horrified to learn that most of these people were not covered. None of these areas were considered flood zones. Some models had the catastrophe as a 1 in 10,000 year event.
We connected with the relief groups who had identified those hard-hit areas and started work again. Dig houses out of mudslides. Clear roads and driveways. Deliver essential supplies. Check on people who were completely cut off.
Step by step we regained agency: the capacity to act or exert power. The storm left us isolated and seemingly powerless. No matter how bad a situation is, if there is any ability to act, there is hope. By regaining that sense of control and reconnecting as a community, we could rebuild.
As I make my way along the Appalachian Trail, I’m looking outward again. There is still a tremendous amount of recovery left for those people and communities who lost everything from Helene. Please hear their stories, and consider supporting efforts to restore their lives, their homes, and their feelings of safety and humanity.
John Kelly is attempting to break the record for the near 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail. This blog series coincides with weekly video episodes following his journey.
Watch this week’s video below:
John Kelly is the original architect and developer of Envelop Risk’s core technology, CyberTooth. After spending a few years in the UK building the team, he now lives back in the US with his family. John is also an internationally recognized ultra marathon runner, one of only three people to complete the Barkley Marathons more than once and the record holder on many well-known routes, including the Pennine Way. The thoughts and views in these posts are his own reflections from experiences as an accomplished athlete and entrepreneur, and do not necessarily reflect the views of others at Envelop Risk.
