This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
One video shows the muddy French Broad River, swollen with rain, moving over Asheville’s River Arts District. Another — a submission titled “at least someone is having a good time” – documents a blue heron hunting for fish in the pools created by receding floodwaters.
These pieces of media – curated by Buncombe County Special Collections – are among those sent in from all over Western North Carolina to preserve the stories of Hurricane Helene survivors for the public and for future generations.
The project is called Come Hell or High Water.
Submissions from the public range from first-hand video accounts to poetry and songs – like a rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” recast as “Helene,” written and performed by Michael Hatch. Other personal accounts describe neighbors helping one another or visual observations of the destruction and experience, including from the hundreds of landslides in the region.
Katherine Cutshall, the Buncombe County Special Collections manager, said the concept was conceived soon after Helene but staff held off asking for submissions until earlier this year. “We don't want to be begging people for photographs or documentation of something really traumatic that they just went through,” she told BPR in a recent interview.
The library also has photographs and documentation of Asheville’s 1916 flood, which set the records that Helene shattered.
Oral history gives its subjects a chance to think through their experiences and fully come to terms with their interpretation of events, something that other forms of story collection and fast-moving forms of media - such as news gathering - don’t always allow the time for.Katherine Cutshall, Buncombe County Special Collections Manager
The Helene project shows how we’re all archivists of our own lives, Cutshall said. But, she added, the thousands of pictures and videos we take can disappear and degrade as software evolves and changes, and as we lose access to accounts and devices.
“These items that are born digital are actually pretty fragile and ephemeral, in a way,” Cutshall said.
The submissions so far have been thoughtful, she said. “I really appreciate that a lot of the image descriptions aren't, you know, standing on the Riverlink Bridge, looking south. It's more like, here's what I was thinking when I was standing on the Riverlink Bridge looking south.”
During the year, archivists and library volunteers will also record oral histories for Helene survivors to tell their stories, at length, uninterrupted.
Oral history gives its subjects a chance to think through their experiences and fully come to terms with their interpretation of events, something that other forms of story collection and fast-moving forms of media - such as news gathering - don’t always allow the time for, Cutshall said.
In addition to digital media, part of the mission of Come Hell or High Water is to gather data and photographs of previous storms in the region, in hopes we can learn from the past.
“Some of the items that we have in our collection are, you know, 400 years old,” Cutshall said. “And then we have the responsibility and ability in the 21st century to gather things that are happening right now. History happens every single day. It's not all, you know, old books and letters and physical photographs.”
"History happens every single day. It's not all, you know, old books and letters and physical photographs."Katherine Cutshall, Buncombe County Special Collections Manager
Anyone interested in contributing their videos, art, photos, or a story to Come Hell or High Water can do so through the project’s “digital memory bank” hosted on the Omeka platform. Community members are also encouraged to volunteer for archive-related events, oral history collection, and other parts of the project, and can express interest through this contact form.
Though the project is housed in Buncombe County, residents of any Helene-impacted county in Western North Carolina are encouraged to contribute.
