Dispatches from Firestorm in Asheville, NC

From It's Going Down

Original title: “The Utopia we Dream of Becomes Most Visible in the Dark”: Dispatches from Firestorm in Asheville, NC

The following are several dispatches from Firestorm, a radical anarchist community center and cooperative bookstore in Asheville, NC, which in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, has become a growing hub of mutual aid and autonomous disaster relief efforts in the area. While these dispatches have been posted to social media, we are publishing them here so people have an opportunity to read them in their entirety.

Disaster Compassion is Real in North Carolina

From Birds Before the Storm by Margaret Killjoy

Late last week, a massive rainstorm hit Asheville, North Carolina and the surrounding areas, dumping eight inches of rain in a single day. Then, the next day, Hurricane Helene hit. This was the worst hurricane to hit the city in its recorded history.

Building Autonomous Mutual Aid Infrastructure in the Wake of Hurricane Ian

From Its Going Down

On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with someone from Mutual Aid Disaster Relief about autonomous responses in the wake of Hurricane Ian, which rampaged through the Caribbean and slammed into the coast of Florida in late September of 2022. During our discussion, we talk about both the response from the State to the crisis and from autonomous mutual aid groups which mobilized in the aftermath of the storm.

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