Weathering the Storm: Hurricane Helene Response and Resources
Dear STAY family,
We are with y’all in the heartbreak. Across our region, we are in the midst of an unnatural disaster. We are experiencing the tremendous loss and devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Helene. We are with y’all in our grief and righteous rage. We are with y’all in coordinated action to take care of and move resources to our communities.
In this moment, we want to amplify the organizations and groups working to move resources and coordinate rapid response on the ground across the region. Please reference the ongoing resource lists linked below. Please follow the leadership of folks on the ground, move resources to community, and sustain your effort! We are with y’all now and for the long haul recovery, rebuilding, and preparation and organizing of our communities for protection in the midst of ongoing crises.
Hurricane Helene is an unnatural disaster that is responsible for the deaths and trauma of our families, neighbors, and community members; and a disaster that is directly due to the deadly consequence of climate collapse. The catastrophe we are experiencing is the direct fault of colonialism and capitalism, of greedy extractors—coal barons and oil tycoons, capitalist bosses, billionaires, and colonizer politicians who have extracted, stolen, and killed for every bit they can of the precious gifts of our land, labor, and humanity as Appalachians. We see how our ‘rulers’, historically and presently have pillaged this place and left our land and our people abandoned as sacrifice zones.
Instead of our communities stewarding the riches of this place, our riches are stolen and used to build the wealth of the extractors and the power of the largest polluter and most LETHAL force in the world—the US military. We demand that our riches be returned.
While we are without power, without homes, and without resources, cowards like JD Vance ignore our hardships in favor of pushing policies and narratives that will harm us on national television. TVA and Dominion Energy post on social media about the flooding as if THEY aren’t the ones poisoning us in the first place. Cops stand in front of the grocery stores and threaten to arrest people for evacuating family members and neighbors trying to escape death. Impact Plastics workers in ETN are murdered at work after being forced to stay by management or to lose their livelihoods. The Supreme Court rules to criminalize homelessness, and now thousands more people are left with nowhere to return.
As WE are left to fend for, care for, and protect ourselves and our communties, we see our leaders directly funding, aiding, and abetting genocide in Palestine with bombing expanding to Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. The same day FEMA announced that it is facing a $9 Billion shortfall, the US gave $8.7 Billion to Israel to continue expanding its military aggression and occupation in Gaza, the West Bank, and across the region. While Appalachian and Southern communities are washed away, Palestinian and Lebanese communities are bombed to destruction. This is the choice that our politicians have made.
We choose liberation for all people and for the Earth. We know as Appalachians that we are well practiced in taking care of ourselves and our communities through crisis. We know that we deserve to steward the resources and infrastructure to protect, defend, and care for our communities. We deserve to live. We are committed to building with our communities through rapid response mutual aid and toward long term recovery, rebuilding, and preparation of our communities for the storms of all kinds to come. Appalachians and Palestinians deserve self-determination, we deserve to have communities where we can STAY, live full, meaningful lives, and care for each other and the land.
To our broader community, we urge you to remember that there will no longer be anywhere to evacuate to, and that we must move forward accordingly, in solidarity and action. We urge our broader community to sustain your material, mental, spiritual, and physical efforts in showing up for our communities, and understand that the people who are surviving and fighting here are some of the most oppressed and invisibilized people who deserve our deepest trust and respect, and our fiercest solidarity. Every catastrophe we face and every win before us is interconnected in every way. As much as fascism and white supremacy work around the clock to dehumanize us or execute us, remember that we are responsible to each other, to our survival, and to our freedom.
“As goes the South, so goes the nation.” - WEB Du Bois.
We will continue sharing resources, funds, drop-sites, and clean up delegations on our Instagram @stayproject. Please be in touch via our IG or email via connect@thestayproject.net if you need support or connection to resources in your area.
Sending deep love and solidarity, and please be in touch,
The STAY Project