One year on, Helene keeps students from school

Some youths changed schools after the hurricane. Others never came back.

- MAKIYA SEMINERA, LAURA HACKETT AND JOSE SANDOVAL

JOE RAEDLE/Getty Images FLOODWATERS inundate streets in Tarpon Springs, Fla. Hurricane Helene made landfall there on Sept. 27.

When 12-year-old Natalie Briggs visited the ruins of her home after Hurricane Helene, she had to cross a wooden beam to reach what was once her bedroom.

Knots of electrical wires were draped inside the skeleton of the house. Months after the storm, light filtered through breaks in the tarps over the windows.

“All I could think of was, “This isn’t my house,’ ” said Natalie, who had been staying in her grandparents’ basement.

Thousands of students across western North Carolina lost their homes a year ago when Helene hit with some of the most vicious floods, landslides and wind ever seen in the state’s Appalachian region, once considered a “climate haven.”

Across the state, more than 2,500 students were identified as homeless as a direct result of Helene, according to state data obtained by the Associated Press.

At school, Natalie sometimes had panic attacks when she thought of her ruined home in Swannanoa.

“There were some points where I just didn’t want people to talk to me about the house — or just, like, talk to me at all,” Natalie said.

While storm debris has been mostly cleared away, the impact of the displacement lingers for the region’s children. Schools reopened long before many students returned to their homes, and their learning and well-being have yet to recover.

The phenomenon is increasingly common as natural disasters disrupt U.S. communities more frequently and with more ferocity.

In the North Carolina mountains, the challenge of recovery is especially acute. After all, many families in rural, low-income areas already deal with challenges such as food insecurity and rent affordability, said Cassandra Davis, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill public policy professor.