2 years after the storm, graphic novel shares stories of Hurricane Helene survivors

Geoff Bennett:

Two years after Hurricane Helene ripped through much of the Southeastern U.S., many of the communities affected by that storm are still recovering. And now a new project has chronicled their journey using what might seem like an unlikely medium, a graphic novel.

Our William Brangham has more for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

William Brangham:

In 2024, Hurricane Helene crossed the Florida Panhandle, went through Georgia, and stalled out over the Carolinas. In all, six states were badly damaged, and thousands of homes and buildings were destroyed. The storm officially killed 250 people, making Helene the deadliest hurricane since Hurricane Katrina.

But out of that storm also came stories of resilience. It's a theme that's explored in a new graphic novel called "Islands in the Sky: A People's History of Hurricane Helene."

In the book, 11 different stories are told, each from the perspective of a different person or family in North Carolina, and all illustrated by different artists.

The book and project founder is Andrew Aydin, and he joins us now.

Andrew, so good to have you here. Such a tremendous piece of work you have done.

In the preface to this book, you write this about what Helene has wrought -- quote -- "It was the total, thorough existential collapse of the infrastructure that makes life here possible."

I mean, I remember reporting back during Helene that it was, again, seemingly the final nail in the coffin to this idea that anywhere in this country was protected from the climate crisis. What was it from your perspective that made that storm so unprecedented?

Andrew Aydin, Appalachia Comics Project:

It was both the level of rain, the number of days in which it did rain, and then you had the mudslides and the trees and all the debris and everything that then started to fall and coalesce around, just damaging whatever it could over a series of days.

That was the physics of what actually damaged everything so much.

William Brangham:

And is that where this title come from, "Islands in the Sky," that they're all of these mountain peaks that are now flooded becoming islands?

Andrew Aydin:

The title came from the fact that the region is known as the Land of Sky.

And I was listening to a radio broadcast. It was the first signal I could get after the storm. And it was from a tiny little church just perched up on a mountain, and they were broadcasting the names of the survivors.

And he said: "We are known as the Land of Sky, but, tonight, I think, as the water surrounds us, we are islands in the sky."

And that phrase just stuck in my mind.

William Brangham:

You had created several award-winning graphic novels before this book. But this idea of doing this in the first person, where each individual person tells their own story with different artists, how did that coalesce for you as the idea for what you wanted to do for this story?

Andrew Aydin:

There's a long history of outsiders telling the story of Appalachia. And I thought this was incredibly important to be a moment where Appalachia got to tell its own story.

And it also needed the support of professionals who maybe have done comics before, so that the survivors of these storms could really bring their vision onto the page, not be burdened with learning how to do something in all its complexity, but be supported and be able to put their vision into the telling of what they went through.

William Brangham:

Did you feel like the media did a bad job of -- I mean, both historically, but also with regards to this storm, to telling those people's stories?

Andrew Aydin:

I think they have been doing a bad job for a really long time, probably 100 years, since there was a mainstream media.

But it's not as if there's one outlet or one thing that's a problem. There's so much misinformation online, on social media, and that seemed deliberate and systematic to me, like it was trying to make something political in the face of the election, in the face of all the exploitation of Appalachia.

They were trying to use this in a way that it just seems wrong.

William Brangham:

We talked with one of the contributors to your book, Jessica Stepp Edney. She's a community college director and she lives in Henderson County. She told us about why she did this and what the legacy of this storm has been. Let's take a listen.

Jessica Stepp Edney, Hurricane Helene Survivor:

I wrote this for my son Carter (ph). Carter struggles with a lot of anxiety, and I would not wish a storm like that on any human being that faced anxiety.

Every storm that we have now terrifies him in a way that I can't help, right? We are all terrified. Every heavy rain, every thunderstorm, many of us here in West North Carolina are triggered by every boom and by every additional inch of rain and the fears that it will come back.

William Brangham:

I see you nodding along as she's talking.

Andrew Aydin:

Yes.

William Brangham:

I mean, she's both memorializing this for her son, she said, but also acknowledging that, recovery aside, these things leave a mark.

Andrew Aydin:

Yes, I mean, it hurts. You live in this place that you thought was safe. I mean, everybody said Western North Carolina was a climate change haven.

And to have your safety violated, not just by a person or an object, but in some ways by God or by Mother Nature, it changes the way you look at the world and where you feel like you can be human, where you can be safe, where your future is, where your past was. It changes everything.

William Brangham:

The media and the cameras have largely left now. What is it like? I know this is a generalized question.

Andrew Aydin:

Yes.

William Brangham:

But how is recovery going there?

Andrew Aydin:

Not great.

There's still debris in my yard. There's burned-out buildings. There's a building just down the street from my house where someone passed away and still sits there condemned. It hasn't been dealt with. Small businesses are struggling. That's one of the reasons we're doing this project. It's not just about preserving the history, though that's our primary mission.

It's that every time we do an event in one of the cities, in one of the small towns that we go to, we generate economic activity. And this is our way of rebuilding ourselves. I mean, I think there's this pride in Appalachia of taking care of yourself. And if you give them a handout, they don't want it.

But if you give them a way to take care of themselves and help them out that way and work with them, that's dignity. That's what they want.

William Brangham:

I mean, as you say, the book does deal with the rampant misinformation, the slow government response. But the real thread that seems coursing through this is how people came together to help each other.

That seems to be like the overarching mission of this is to remind us that people bound together.

Andrew Aydin:

Yes.

The storm made us put down our phones. It made us put down all the distractions, the social media that tells us we should be this, all of the identities that come with it, and talk to our neighbor, help our neighbor. Are you hungry? Here's food. Are you thirsty? Here's water. You need fuel to power your generator? Here, I have got a tank.

We shared. Everybody talks about, are you far left, are you far right? Nobody talked about that during the storm. They just talked about sharing. They just talked about each other, life, nature. And I think there's a part of us that all look back on that as that was when it was simple. That was when we were human. That was when we just showed that we cared.

And I think, if you read this book and you take that from it, which is a constant theme in all of the stories, maybe it's a guide for the rest of the country in how we deal with what we're going through.

William Brangham:

The book is "Islands in the Sky."

Andrew Aydin, great to talk to you. Thank you so much.

Andrew Aydin:

Thank you for having me.