Hurricane Helen turned me into a climate refugee.

I wasn’t ready to be a climate change refugee.

melissa hanson

I wasn’t prepared to become a climate refugee. Not after moving my family from drought- and wildfire-prone California to the “climate haven” of Asheville, North Carolina, but less than two months after moving to a welcoming community with lush trees and a mild climate. Before long, we were forced to leave.

Even before I left the country, I knew that North Carolina would play an important role as a battleground state and that the presidential election in November would be the most important election of my lifetime. But Hurricane Helen made that danger frighteningly clear.

On Thursday, September 26, the hurricane moved inland from the Gulf of Mexico, passing through Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. In the process, it tore apart one community after another. And it hit western Appalachia. Located 2,000 feet above sea level and 300 miles from the coast, Asheville is where people came to escape devastating hurricanes.

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I couldn’t sleep that night. Trees fell around my house as emergency alerts blared on my cell phone. The power lines were down. Roads were flooded. Landslides tore apart houses. Even though we were within a mile of the French Broad River, we were not told to evacuate before the storm.

One morning, when the worst seemed over, my young son was playing with Legos when a large pine tree crashed into the roof directly above our bedroom. Luckily he was unharmed, but it made me realize the seriousness of what was happening around us. My little daughter kept clinging to me, saying “I’m scared” over and over again.

Information about what was happening throughout Asheville was hard to come by. Within hours, the power, internet, and even cell phone service were down. A neighbor told me I could get information on the radio, so I sat in my car and listened to the latest updates on the local radio station. Then I found out that the water was not safe to drink. The treatment facility was under 8 feet of water and water pipes were washed away.

When I heard that it would take more than a few weeks to restore basic services, I made plans for my family to leave town. we were lucky. We live near the one freeway that is open, we have a full tank of gas, and we have places to go. So on Sunday we left Asheville and stayed with family on the Outer Banks.

I’m working on climate change and now I’m a climate refugee. I feel an urgent need to speak out and say this was an extraordinary disaster. Climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels is making the earth hotter. The ocean absorbs much of this extra heat. As Hurricane Helen approached the Florida coast, it gathered energy from unusually warm ocean waters. The storm underwent “rapid intensification” and became a major hurricane before hitting the coast.

Warmer air also becomes more humid. For every 1 degree Fahrenheit increase, atmospheric moisture increases by 4%. Hurricane Helen hit two cars. feet Rain fell in some parts of North Carolina. Scientists have already determined that Helen dumped 50 percent more rain than climate change has brought to parts of Georgia and the Carolinas. The extreme levels of rainfall we observed are 20 times more likely because the planet has warmed.

After a few hours of driving towards the coast, my cell phone was working again and the full extent of the devastation became clearer. Many others are still trapped, stuck between extreme flooding on one side and mudslides on the other. There is a lack of water, food and essentials. Two million people across five states remain without power. Four days after the storm, emergency services were still in “search and rescue” mode. Hundreds of people are missing and at least 199 people have been killed. There is no doubt that the number of deaths will continue to rise. Recovery will take years and billions of dollars.

Asheville was supposed to be one of the places where people were safer from climate disasters. It was listed among the top three cities in the country to escape the effects of the climate. It’s not Florida, where rising sea levels threaten to submerge coastal areas, California, where wildfires are raging, or Arizona, where a record heat wave is in the air. But now I know firsthand that no place is safe from the climate crisis.

This disaster is a direct result of our failure to address the climate crisis. We must connect the dots between images of floating homes and policies that support fossil fuels. And you have to think about how the people who are waiting in line for drinking water will have to do so with just over a month left until the election. Because our votes matter to the future of our country and our planet.

I’m voting for Kamala Harris. She has vowed to take action on the climate crisis and has a long history of holding big polluters to account. Meanwhile, Donald Trump claimed climate change is a “scam.” He told big oil executives that if they donated $1 billion to his campaign, he would do his bidding. He has worked with the people behind Project 2025, which calls for the dismantling of the National Weather Service, which allowed my family to prepare for the storm. Without their warning, we would not have been able to stock up on water and food, and many more of our neighbors would have died.

One candidate has a plan to deal with the crisis that caused Helen. The other plans to ignore it completely.

A few days later, my daughter is still having nightmares. But even though she is still a child, you can see that she can connect the dots. she asks me: “Why do humans do this?” Why is the smartest species on Earth still polluting the planet? Why don’t we fix it? ” and I have a hard time giving her an answer.

I wasn’t prepared to become a climate refugee. However, my family and I were fortunate to be refugees and not victims. I hold my kids tight and tell them it’s okay. Because I believe it’s not too late. Immediately after this terrible disaster, I can make choices to improve my situation. Next month you can vote for a climate change champion.

This is an opinion and analysis article and the views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of the author. scientific american.