Relentless reporting by The Washington Post about Hurricane Helene’s impact on western North Carolina revealed a staggering human toll, the struggles to prepare for the storm, the science behind it and a crisis of trust in how officials responded.
More than a day before Hurricane Helene made its landfall in Florida in late September, The Post warned that its floodwaters could wreak havoc hundreds of miles away. When the storm’s outer edges began pouring rain down on western North Carolina, our Durham-based climate correspondent headed to the region. A native of the area, he sought out the hardest-hit places, beginning in Swannanoa, where homes were “tossed and mangled, then deposited far from their foundations — sometimes upside down, sometimes torn in half — wherever the river left them.”
Post journalists began chronicling scenes of destruction, the vast human toll, the early stages of what would be a difficult recovery, and the eroding trust in the response that took hold for residents trying to make sense of a catastrophe. The ensuing coverage combined moving reporting about the fallout with deeply insightful explorations of the systematic and scientific factors that exacerbated this crisis and contributed to a halting response.
The Post’s reporting over the remainder of the year underscored our commitment to this story. Because of our reporters’ deep knowledge of the region and exceptional ability to uncover the profound impacts of extreme weather, The Post’s coverage succeeded at conveying the full breadth of this uniquely American calamity.
Stories about extreme weather events are often confined to the immediate aftermath. The Post’s coverage of Hurricane Helene’s toll in North Carolina went deeper, painting a portrait of what disaster looks like in America. Our journalists revealed broader truths about the nation’s vulnerability to extreme weather, with details about towns destroyed by a storm made worse by climate change and revelations about misinformation in its wake.
We captured how people’s lives were altered by Helene — simple memories forever changed by floods. We exposed a drinking-water crisis and showed why the region was unprepared for such a storm. We published a comprehensive account of the harrowing ways people died in the storm, and we produced critical work about why the disaster unfolded as it did. We visualized how water vapor powered the storm and how already-saturated grounds allowed water to flow downhill into hollers, sweeping homes away. We reported on FEMA maps failing to account for flood risks, leaving homes uninsured. We produced immersive maps showing how critical forests were wiped out. We also broke the news that FEMA had pulled back workers because of threats.
Post journalists revealed how a conspiracy-fueled group gained a foothold in a battered town by handing out supplies. We assessed distrust in the federal response, which resulted in strikingly few residents applying for aid.
And months after the storm’s landfall, we conveyed the disaster’s never-ending nature through an immersive multimedia project on the lingering impacts on a single street.
