By now, you’ve probably seen plenty of images of a completely inundated Western North Carolina. Water up to the roof of a Wendy’s on Biltmore Avenue in Asheville. An 18-wheeler floating through floodwaters toward the U-Haul building on Swannanoa River Road. The roofs of houses like weird little angular islands in an expanse of muddy water. The random dude in the white water rafting boat near Appalachian State University in Boone, who thought it might be fun to literally “ride it out.”

I live in a little coastal town in Maine now, but for twelve years between 2010-2022, Asheville was my beloved home. I met my wife there. My children were both born there. I lived in an intentional community on the west side of town, where I could walk to coffee and dinner and live music. Whenever I went east to hit the mall or take my kid to a soccer game, I relished the drive back over the Jeff Bowen Bridge on Patton Avenue, where I could see the silhouetted Blue Ridge in front of me, the ever-rolling French Broad River below.

In summer, when the rains came, we would take our daughter down to Carrier Park to “ooh” and “ahh” at the small, but mighty flooding. The way the city didn’t build right against the river — in the name of preservation —  it seemed like a smart move because rivers flood, you know?

But the idea that the French Broad could ever flood like this? Unthinkable.

Then, I watched the images sweep across my social media feeds. All of them were hard to see. But the images of the River Arts District really broke my heart. So many blocks of studios and galleries, people’s bodies of work lovingly created across canvass and glass and ceramics and sculpture, now layered in mud and muck. I worried for the storied Grey Eagle Tavern, where I spent almost every night my first few years in town; and the Salvage Station, where I broke my pandemic concert dry spell the night the Amy Ray Band came to town.

I’m sad to report the Salvage Station was, according to their Instagram, “completely destroyed.” But heartened to know the Grey Eagle remains. Over email this morning, Asheville singer-songwriter Anya Hinkle (formerly of Tellico) told me that the venue was “distributing food and supplies just yesterday.” Hinkle has been focused on her family before she heads out on tour this weekend, though she’s also distributed “baby stuff” and feminine products to the local Latine community.

Indeed, roots musicians all over Western North Carolina are doing what they can to pitch in.

Singer-songwriter David Wilcox told me over email today: “The roads were all blocked with fallen trees, but those of us who have chainsaws started clearing them right away. It’s hard to think about anything past tomorrow right now.”

Still, he added he has a neighbor with a Starlink satellite on their Airstream. “That has become a gathering place for communication and sharing what we can,” he wrote. “I was singing there this morning, and I hope to be over there with my acoustic guitar later today. I posted a simple song about walking outside right after the storm had passed and feeling a deep appreciation and gratitude for life.”

Asheville-based rock group The Get Right Band had been planning for the release of a new song, “You’re My Halloween,” but then Helene came. The band’s main singer-songwriter and guitarist, Silas Durocher, lamented over email, “It feels very strange and borderline inappropriate to be putting out a fun, funky Halloween song in the middle of all this heartbreak and destruction. So we figured the best move was just to donate all the income from the song to causes helping here in western North Carolina.”

The Get Right Band is not alone in trying to use some income from their music to aid the relief effort. Hiss Golden Messenger shared on Instagram that they’re releasing a live album, Sanctuary Songs, today and will donate all proceeds to Beloved Asheville. Partisan Records announced they’ll also be donating a portion of their Bandcamp Friday proceeds to Beloved Asheville. American Aquarium is releasing an exclusive live concert recording of their recent Salvage Station show, and will give its proceeds to Helene relief.

Furthermore, Durocher told me, “Some members of the Asheville music community have been hosting jams to entertain volunteer organizations like World Central Kitchen. Some are getting out of town to make more room for the incredible number of aid and repair workers in town. In The Get Right Band we figured one of our best assets right now is our big touring van and muscle, so we’ve teamed up with Beloved Asheville to pack the van full of supplies and take them to some of the worst hit areas. It feels great to be able to help, but it’s also very heavy to be driving all over the place and seeing how bad the damage is.”

According to Erin Scholze of Dreamspider Publicity, an Asheville-based roots-muisc-centric PR firm, there’s “a rotating cast of musicians at Wicked Weed outside at Coxe Ave.” Local artist Josh Blake is working on organizing a “multi-day, multi-venue event” to benefit local musicians and the wider community.

Granted, North Carolina’s roots community stretches far beyond Asheville, and is a sort of small town unto itself. Rhiannon Giddens (originally from Greensboro) posted on her Instagram a photo of Doc Watson’s Boone, NC, statue appearing to play banjo for an audience of muddy water. In another post, she noted that people should “Please send money. Please don’t go. Don’t send stuff. Just send money.”

Brevard-based Steep Canyon Rangers, meanwhile, noted on their Instagram page how “neighbors are looking out for each [other] and responders and crews are working around the clock. There are too many emotions around this disaster that words can’t do justice to right now.” True, I’m told that, in my old neighborhood, people are driving around with buckets of grey water to give away, so neighbors can flush their toilets. Others are collecting and filtering creek water for the same. Restaurants such as Sunny Point and Tupelo Honey are offering free meals. And over in Cary, Sturgill Simpson just added a second date to his stop at the Koka-Booth Amphitheater. Tickets for the October 21 performance will benefit the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund.

All this to say, in the end, Western North Carolina is a land of makers and caretakers, people who came to town to pick a banjo and saw a fiddle and cook up some of the best food in the region. It’s a longstanding Appalachian tradition to pitch in to help neighbors, regardless of differences that might otherwise divide them. My heart goes out to all friends and musicians, and the wider WNC community, who are working hard to recover a city that’s so rich in music and arts culture.

If you want to heed Giddens’s advice, here are a handful of local groups who are providing services to people in need:

• The Grey Eagle
• Beloved Asheville
• Manna Food Bank
• La MILPA Collective
• United Way of North Carolina
• LEAF Global Artists Relief Fund

**UPDATE: 

Since I posted this, a number of benefits have been announced for and by local musicians. Among them:

• This Friday (Oct. 11 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern), Woody Platt will hold a concert to celebrate the release of his new solo album, Far Away with You, which will double as a fundraiser for Helene relief efforts. To skip the concert and donate directly to Rescue Carolina, ensuring funds will be shared with locally based organizations who are already on the ground in WNC, you can visit Platt’s GoFundMe. To stream the performance on Friday evening, go here.
• Eric Church and Luke Combs have organized a multi-artist concert event that’ll take place at Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium on October 26. Concert for Carolina will feature performances by Church and Combs as well as James Taylor, Billy Strings, Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban, and others. Proceeds will go to an array of WNC organizations including local food banks.
• Dozens of artists have joined together to release Cardinals at the Window — a compilation of more than 100 unreleased songs via Bandcamp this week. All proceeds donated to Beloved Asheville, Rural Organizing and Resilience, and the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina. Among the song listed are Adeem the Artist doing NC native Elizabeth Cotten’s “Freight Train”; a duet between Jerry Douglas and Jason Isbell on “Children of Children”; and S.G. Goodman and Bonnie “Prince” Billy performing together on “Nature’s Child” which was written by Asheville-based artist Tyler Ladd. Other artists on the collection include R.E.M., Sylvan Esso, Drive-By Truckers, Angel Olsen, Tyler Childers, The Avett Brothers, Waxahatchee, Mipso, Indigo de Souza, and so many more. Cardinals at the Window is available for purchase on Bandcamp.

WHAT WE’RE LISTENING TO

Basia Bulat – “Baby”
Courtney Hartman – Glade
Sydney Quiseng – “Wonder”
Meg McRee – “Red Yellow Indigo”
Early Riser – “Cool”
Katy Pruitt & Ruston Kelly – “Standstill”