When Hurricane Helene tore through Southern Appalachia on September 29, unleashing trillions of gallons of water and leaving more than 1 million people without power, it caught many in the mountains by surprise.

“I was off-mountain when everything went haywire,” said Moriah Cox, a native of eastern Tennessee who now lives near Boone, a town of 19,000 in the northwest corner of North Carolina. “I was two and a half hours away from home, watching things coming in on social media, and realizing how bad it was getting. I don’t think any of us knew how bad it was going to potentially be.”

Cox learned that a house across from hers had slid into the river, and was terrified that her own house would flood and her cats would drown. After waiting for a tornado warning to lift, she jumped into her car........

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