What Works After a Disaster Happens?

When Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina, the Swannanoa River rose three storys above its shores, all but erasing the town named after the river, and leaving hundreds homeless.

But the challenge for Swannanoa was not just recovery. It was regeneration. For that, Swannanoa’s residents formed new kinds of partnerships and problem solutions that could prove a model of what to do after disasters hit communities anywhere—such as Altadena and Pacific Palisades, on which I’ve been reporting lately in my News Commons series.

Kevin Jones, one of the founders of SOCAP and curator of Neighborhood Economics, is a Swannanoa resident reporting on what is working in real time. This next Wednesday, January 29 at Noon EST, Kevin will be doing exactly that in our Salon Series at Indiana University—and live on the Web.

If you care about recovery and regeneration for your neighborhood—or anybody’s—after disaster strikes, this is a one-hour required course. As a salon, it is participatory. Come with questions, answers, or helpful stories of your own. Let’s teach and learn together, for the sake of a world larger than each of our own.

Go here for more information and the Zoom link for the salon.

Photo by Bill McMannis.