When prepping for a storm, you may stockpile bottled water and toilet paper. Maybe you dust off your generator and fill up your car with gas. You may set out flashlights, candles, and nonperishable snacks on your kitchen counter. But how many people withdraw enough cash to last themselves and their families days or weeks?
After Tropical Storm Helene hit Western North Carolina, debit and credit cards were rendered useless in many places.
With card readers unable to connect to the internet, cash was the only currency many businesses could accept. Most ATMs were also down, or had run out of money: if you didn’t have cash when the storm hit, you were unlikely to get any in the days after.
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The mountain region of North Carolina already has precarious internet infrastructure , with spotty connectivity and expensive repair protocol.
“In this case, there were power outages and internet outages, and card transactions require both of those things in order to happen,” Brian Haines , spokesperson for North Carolina’s state emergency management, told Carolina Public Press .