When this Blue Ridge mountain town in North Carolina gathers on Saturday morning to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the devastating floods caused by Hurricane Helene, the agenda calls for survivors to give witness, for voices to rise to “America the Beautiful,” and for a moment of silence.

The ceremony “is a way for us to try to wrap this up,” says Old Fort Mayor Pam Snypes.

But a year after remnants of Helene spilled historic torrents of rain down these mountains, Mayor Snypes admits that while progress has been made, there’s still so much left to do. Recovery efforts have not, in fact, been wrapped up – at all.

Why We Wrote This

Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene, a storm that pounded – and flooded – North Carolina’s mountain towns, and where politics

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