Robin Longinotti doesn’t have much of a home to return to after flood waters from Hurricane Helene tore through her trailer.
Longinotti evacuated her Hot Springs home before the storm and returned to find only a handful of salvageable possessions. The loss didn’t stop the retiree from carrying cardboard boxes filled with household supplies inside the Hot Springs elementary school gym everyday since the storm.
Longinotti is a self-dubbed “shopper” at the supply distribution center set up by the community.
She leads people through the “aisles” of the gym where supplies like canned food, hand sanitizer, hygiene products and even solar-powered lawn lights occupy the gym’s retractable bleachers.
“That's the kind of person I am, and that's what this town is about. I couldn't just sit around and do nothing. I had to jump into action the very first day,” Longinotti said.
The gym is stocked with donations from around the region, including some delivered by helicopters that landed in the school’s field.
“Anytime there's something going on. I mean, this town just pulls together like no other, and this was the worst of the worst,” she said
Down the road by the Hot Springs post office, more volunteers handed out food to people helping clear the town of debris.
Ella Delisle recently moved out of town, but came back when she heard about the destruction. She checked in on her family and then attended one of the community meetings being held daily.
“I saw one of my friends who used to work in the kitchen at the restaurant job that I had here at the Iron Horse,” Delisle said. “They were like, ‘Yo, we need people to serve now.’ So, it feels strangely familiar because we've worked for them but in like a real restaurant before.”
The concept, mutual aid, is not a new one. Neighbors caring for neighbors in difficult times stretches back decades. After Hurricane Helene, communities relied on assistance from each other as they awaited government assistance.
The network of neighbors remains a vital foundation of the relief efforts.
Libertie Valance works at Firestorm Books in West Asheville where staff rearranged their shop to house donations.
“Currently, we've got all the bookcases moved to the outside perimeter to make as much room as possible for folks coming in and out, loading in boxes of bananas or propane stoves or what have you,” she said.
READ MORE: Resilient, resourceful: Small WNC towns holding daily meetings to chart recovery
The store was stocked with buckets, batteries, baby needs and sanitary products. Donations just kept pouring in, Valance said, as she leaned against a waist-high box of bananas that had been donated.
“Larger organizations, nonprofits, the state and federal government obviously ultimately are carrying an enormous amount of weight in terms of actually moving volume of supply,” she said. “But people, neighbors and local community had an oversized role, especially in those first few days, making sure their neighbors were all right, making sure that everybody had food and water.”
A space like this can help bridge that gap and be very responsive to emerging situations.”
Beyond food and water
Mutual aid is not just about physical goods. The exchange of information about how and where to get resources provides up-to-date information for community members. In the parking lot behind the bookstore, people gathered everyday at 2 p.m. for community meetings.
The outside windows of the bookstore became a makeshift community bulletin board with notes written with a permanent marker and pen on pages torn from notebooks or printer paper. The notes range from information on where to find mental health help to an invitation to a chainsaw safety class.
“It's really just a wealth of community knowledge that we don't normally see in this form because of the internet,” Valance said. “Particularly in these moments where people haven't been able to connect and share information online.”
Cell service and Wi-Fi was slow to return to the region and some areas still have no way to connect.
Sinai Moreno-Garcia, who lives in West Asheville with her young son and husband, had a hard time finding work cleaning homes after the storm. They’ve come to Firestorm Books a few times for mostly water.
“I don't know who we have to thank, but to all these people who are here losing their day, supporting us, I hope God will repay you,” she said in Spanish.
On the other side of town, Rebekah Todd leads a group of volunteers through an assisted living complex. Todd works with BeLoved Asheville, one of the biggest mutual aid groups in the area. Most of their volunteers – like Todd – have no background in disaster response.
“I'm a musician … we've lost all of our musical gigs for the foreseeable future, and all we know how to do is help,” she said.
After the storm she had no GPS or cell signal but had volunteered with Beloved before and knew where they were located…
“That's where we went and they knew exactly where the need was,” she said. “They already had the list of the need because they've worked with these people for years.”
Using trucks, massive containers of water and a makeshift pulley system, Todd and her team worked to provide water to more than 30 assisted living complexes. In the days following the storm, people filled buckets in creeks to collect non-potable water to flush their toilets.
Todd’s team delivered water to housing complexes where they stationed massive receptacles of water for residents to use. . They knocked on doors and asked residents if they “need a flush.”
READ MORE: Soiled sheets and overflowing toilets: Public housing residents decry post-Helene
Because most of the city is without running water, basic hygiene practices like flushing a toilet or taking a shower require people to find water outside of their home. For the elderly or disabled, carrying a bucket to a water source, filling it and carrying it back up to their home can be impossible.
“As far as I know, The only people helping these people with toilet flushing and sanitation are rogue teams like my own,” Todd said.
The group also did wellness checks and encouraged those who needed constant medical attention to evacuate to a shelter.
‘Look them in the eye and ask how they're doing”
Beloved is one of the oldest and most well-established mutual aid groups in the area, but even in more rural areas of Buncombe County, mutual aid sprung up.
Outside the Swannanoa library, volunteer Meg Murphy stood next to a red pickup truck with dozens of power strips in the bed. Standing next to a sign that explained the rules of the charging station, she wore noise canceling headphones to drown out the generator.
Generators like these are giving people a lifeline as power in the area slowly returned.
“It's gotten a little quieter as we've gotten more power strips and power blocks and cords. We're able to give folks up to an hour at a time today, where on Saturday we were starting at 30 minutes a pop,” she said. “It's been around 100 phones a day…we're doing medical equipment, iPads for some folks, battery chargers, all of it.”
In the park next door, volunteers offered warm meals and medical supplies. Poster boards in English and Spanish shared information about how to register for FEMA assistance.
“Folks are using this as a place to be, to not be alone in your house, to get resources you need,” Murphy said. “When you see someone, look them in the eye and ask how they're doing and if they got everything they need. And if not, help them find it.”
