This story is part of our series Uprooted: Family Stories of Climate Migration, produced by Moms Clean Air Force’s Latino engagement program, EcoMadres, and coordinated by Danielle Berkowitz-Sklar. Read the first installment in this series here.
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005, Alex Webber was forced to evacuate to Houston with her two-year-old daughter—at 2 AM. “It was rush hour traffic in the middle of the night. It was surreal,” says Alex. She and her family were displaced for nine difficult months. Nearly two decades later, they relived the nightmare when Hurricane Helene hit their new hometown in Western North Carolina.
It may seem uncanny that one family would have to live through this twice, but experts say that climate change is making severe rainstorms that were once very rare more likely to occur, even in areas far from the coast. “People harmed by extreme weather are the fastest growing population in the United States—and world,” says Sierra Lindsey Kos, cofounder of Extreme Weather Survivors. “The notion of a climate haven town simply doesn’t exist, and that’s why we must work together to get through these disasters. Everyone is being harmed, and we’re only going to get through it if we support each other, share our stories, and embrace solutions.”
Tell Congress: Support Families Displaced by Climate Disaster
Turmoil following Hurricane Katrina
With damages of $200 billion, Hurricane Katrina was the costliest disaster in U.S. history, though it may soon be surpassed by the recent Los Angeles fires. While Alex was fortunate to have friends and family to host her family during their extended displacement, she still lost her home and business. Like her fellow Katrina survivors, Alex can recall countless traumatic stories from that period. During the chaos of the storm and its aftermath, it was very difficult to connect with loved ones to see if they were OK, and residents were not allowed back in the city for two months. Their family pediatrician committed suicide. Her best friend’s mother-in-law died the day before they evacuated, and it took months to find her body. She and her friends lost their jobs. “It was a dark time, it was a tough time,” Alex says.
Almost two decades later, Helene hits
Things began to look up after the family decided to settle in Western North Carolina in March 2006. “We came to Asheville, just literally seeking higher ground,” says Alex. She had researched the area and found that it was not prone to natural disasters because it’s not on the coast or at high risk for tornadoes. Exactly what her family needed.
Alex and her husband and daughter, Madeline, settled in Marshall, a small town about a half hour north of Asheville. Building a new life away from their New Orleans community was lonely at first, but soon they started making friends. “It was a beautiful place to land, and a great place for Madeline to grow up,” says Alex. Eventually the family, avid cyclists, opened On Your Bike, a bike shop and cafe downtown, a couple of blocks off the French Broad River.
That’s the river that rose 27 feet last fall, in the horrific aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The business, along with the rest of downtown Marshall, was destroyed by the flooding. Before Alex could get anywhere near downtown, she knew the damage was catastrophic. “We were over the bridge from the river, and we could see the sign of our shop just kind of floating in the water,” she says.
In New Orleans after Katrina, “It was just damage as far as you could see,” she says. Marshall was different, because you could drive two minutes away from piles of rubble and mud to see buildings left unscathed. That meant that Alex and her family had neighbors nearby who were able and willing to help. “The way people immediately started self-organizing and digging out was incredible.”
Even so, their shop had to be gutted, and Alex and her family are starting to rebuild with the help of a crowdsourced fundraising website. “It’s so sad that GoFundMe is what passes for a safety net in this country,” Alex says.
A message for environmental disaster survivors
Surviving two of the most devastating U.S. hurricanes means not only overwhelming logistical and financial difficulties, but emotional challenges as well. Alex had finally felt stable enough to tackle a book about Hurricane Katrina just a week before Helene hit. “I thought, I think I can finally read this,” she says. “It was shocking how re-traumatizing it was and how close to the surface all those feelings were.”
And then, improbably, disaster struck again. It will take Alex years to sort through her feelings about living through not one but two hurricanes, but for now, one fact is loud and clear: “Climate change is real, and if all of us don’t get our heads out of sand, it’s only going to get worse,” says Alex. “People can only do so much. Corporations have to get on board, and they have to start taking responsibility for the damage they’re doing.”
Alex also has a message of hope for environmental disaster survivors, whose ranks continue to swell in the U.S. and around the world as global warming increases the strength and intensity of storms, including hurricanes. “I just want to tell people, and especially the poor people out in California, life comes back. It does. You gotta believe that.”
Learn more about climate migration in our fact sheet.
Tell Congress: Support Families Displaced by Climate Disaster