In the throes of Hurricane Helene, a lot of small town mayors found themselves saddled with an enormous responsibility: keeping residents connected to vital resources while also lifting morale even as they were living through the disasters themselves.
Jim McAllister, Mayor of Woodfin, said the experience changed him profoundly.
In the first week after the storm, he remembers “feeling like his head was gonna explode” as he tried to connect Woodfin’s 8,000-odd residents to resources even though there was no reliable communication structure.
“The gravity of the job really landed on me heavily and I've never looked at being Mayor the same way since,” he said.
A year out from Helene, McAllister said he learned that even a small town like Woodfin needs a strong emergency preparedness plan. “The town of Woodfin needs to steal shamelessly from the City of Asheville and the county.”
His Helene experience also taught McAllister that there’s no place he’d rather be.
“The way people came together just makes me want to cry every time I think about it,” he said. “I realized that being in a small town like Woodfin is the greatest place to be on earth.”
