A year after Hurricane Helene, Butler Taylor says the recovery in his hometown of Arden, N.C., is still ongoing.
Part of the challengeinspired Taylor, a father of two, to repurpose an oak tree that had toppled during the storm. Now, it’s an interactive structure for his young daughters — one that took 25 trips to the hardware store to complete.
“Even though bad things happen, you can’t just stop,” says Taylor, 43, sharing the lesson he hopes to instill in his daughters, Della, 9, and Cora, 6. “You can’t throw up your hands and quit. You got to put your head down and keep going.”…