In late September of 2024, Fiora Mecale had just recently moved into a new apartment in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Then came the life-altering moment that nobody was prepared for in western North Carolina – Hurricane Helene. The storm changed that part of the state physically and took an emotional and mental toll on the residents of that area.
Mecale was one of the lucky ones. Her apartment was safe, and she was able to maintain power and water. Next door was a power substation where she was able to see workers toiling away 24 hours a day. Having power and water allowed her to directly help others and she opened her home to family and friends to come and have a hot meal, take a shower, or do laundry. That gave her a sense of purpose, but she wanted to do more.
A Project Begins
A native of the western part of the state, Mecale said, “On day two I left my apartment. I took my camera. I walked into town, and I just started taking pictures and I started to see what had happened.”
She has always been a person who people feel comfortable opening up to. Now joined by her cousin who owned a Prius, Mecale drove around Hendersonville and began to talk to people, just listening to their stories. What she heard were stories of perseverance and a commitment to their community.
She said, “One of my routine questions in all of my interviews has been, ‘Did you lose anything during the hurricane?’ In one of my first interviews, the respondent kind of laughed and said, ‘I lost hope.’ Later she said, ‘I want to go back to that statement where I said I lost hope.’ And she explained how, in all of this, she saw people coming together.”
It was a constant theme in her interviews. Over and over, she heard stories of people supporting one another. Individuals fired up their chainsaws and worked to clear roads. Others helped pull people out of cars.
Mecale said, “There is just story after story after story of how people just kept showing up for one another in this bold, non-stop commitment that we’re going to get each other through this, no matter the external support or aid that came or didn’t come.”
From a Student’s Perspective
During all of this, Mecale has been enrolled at UNC Greensboro in the Department of Information, Library, and Research Sciences MLIS program, taking classes remotely. When the storm hit her classwork was an action research project. Her plan had been to focus on Spanish representation in school book fairs.
A conversation with Dr. Joanna Depolt to check in led to a conversation about the project. Mecale did not think that she was going to be able to do the work that her topic required. After telling Depolt about the photos she had been taking and the conversations she had been having with those impacted by the hurricane, the decision was made to create an oral history collection for her project. She entitled the work “Finding Hope.”
Following what Mecale refers to as her “pilot stage” of the research in which she connected with people in her part of the state and writing her initial paper, she began to reach out to other librarians because she wanted to keep the project alive. Those messages connected her with Come Hell or High Water, a community memory project where people can submit their stories or photographs. The project was in its initial stages and Mecale was deeper down her road of collection.
So, she continued her work. She continued to collect stories. She continued to record interviews with people so that this historic moment, and the impact it had on so many people, will be remembered.
This process has also allowed her to develop a lib guide on oral history collection. This contains numerous resources that Mecale found when researching how to create an oral history. She continues to use class assignments to propel her forward with the project this semester.
Mecale said, “I continued to interview as many people as I could. I’ve interviewed people from Hendersonville. I’ve interviewed people from Asheville. I’ve interviewed people from Black Mountain and I’ve interviewed people from Yancey County, which got hit really hard by landslides.
“In addition to that, I’ve been able to collect a lot more pictures since I’ve been able to drive to more areas. I’ve been able to drive out near Chimney Rock, which got completely swept away. I’ve been able to document pictures at a lot of community events. The school I work at (Cane Creek Middle School) had a community event where they had 1,000 meals from One World Kitchen dropped off and they had the gym completely full of supplies for people.”
Continuing the Work
Mecale, who currently has just under 10 interviews documented, wants to end up with between 13 and 20 recorded interviews that will also be transcribed. Through the connection with Come Hell or High Water, the audio will be publicly available. She also wants to turn her interviews into a creative non-fiction format.
Her work led to the opportunity to present at the recent Library Association at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (LAUNC-CH) conference. Mecale was afforded a 25-minute opportunity to share her work with peers.
She said, “I was honored to have a seat at the table to talk about what I’m doing and represent my culture and my home and my town. My presentation was received very well. It helped me get a lot of direction for telling my side of the story and getting away from the quantitative version I was trying to tell and embracing more of the qualitative side. It helped me realize the scope of what I’m doing.”
Now months after the storm passed through, the region continues to rebuild and heal. Mecale continues to collect stories and build a timeline of not only the immediate impact, but of the recovery process. She wants to be able to record the thoughts and feelings of those working to regain a sense of normalcy and give them a voice for years to come.
Mecale said, “As someone that roots so much of my identity in being in Southern Appalachia, when I think of the people in these mountains, I think of people that are strong and resilient. Nothing outside of what was happening mattered. We were just showing up for one another. I think, in a period where so many people keep saying we’re so divided, and we’re so angry, and there’s so much otherness happening, I think a story that represents when people actually came together and took care of one another is more important than possibly every before.”
Many people in the western part of North Carolina lost their homes, their possessions, their family due to Helene. Now their stories will live on thanks to the work of Mecale.
