🗣 Hope after Climate Catastrophe: Lessons from Hurricane Helene — SFPL
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🗣 Hope after Climate Catastrophe: Lessons from Hurricane Helene — SFPL
🔆 In late 2024, Hurricane Helene swelled to roughly 500 miles wide and 55 miles high as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico, making landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm. It then pushed 500 miles inland at hurricane strength before reaching the mountains of Western North Carolina, still packing wind gusts up to 106 mph. Flooding, landslides, and widespread tree loss from saturated soils and high winds left catastrophic damage across the region, knocking out critical utilities for weeks. The storm claimed at least 108 lives and destroyed more than 126,000 homes in Western North Carolina alone — a region many had recently embraced as a "climate haven," drawing new residents fleeing California's worsening fire and drought cycles.
Western North Carolina has received just $5 billion of the estimated $55 billion needed for recovery from federal and state aid. Yet remarkable work is underway to rebuild with resilience. In this presentation, Casey King explores the strategies and practices that helped people avoid paralysis — and even find hope — in Helene's aftermath. Her insights offer a broader lesson: how to keep working on the most urgent sustainability challenge on the planet without giving in to despair.
🔸️ Casey King is the Director of Sustainability and a Lecturer in Environmental Science at the University of North Carolina Asheville. She investigates transdisciplinary approaches to climate change transformation.
▪︎ Meet at 4:30 sharp for an early dinner at Gyro King (25 Grove St)
▪︎ PLEASE don't be a no-show. If your plans change, remember to update your RSVP prior to the event.
▪︎ A last minute cancellation will count as a no-show.