For a couple of weeks I’ve been checking in with several friends who live in some of the communities ravaged by flooding following Hurricane Helene.
Initially it was hard to reach people I know who reside in and around Asheville, North Carolina. Cell service and internet connections were not reliable for days — and when they could respond to my text messages, I was one among dozens of people waiting to hear from them. Many in the region still don’t have water or electricity. It will take months to rebuild roads and bridges.
You cannot hear about these hardships and not wonder. What if that had been me? What if a natural disaster crippled Hopkinsville and we were cut off from the infrastructure and technology we take for granted to keep us connected to the world? How would we respond? Who would come to help?
A news story I saw highlighted in The Rural Blog reported on the ways small mountain communities have dealt with their inability to communicate through technology.
“Spotty phone service was just one of the many problems facing western North Carolina and the surrounding region, where floods and landslides turned some communities into rubble,” wrote Jacey Fortin of The New York Times. “Being cut off from the modern world left many residents feeling frustrated and alone. So they turned to methods that have been out of date for a century or more.”