WNC Final Blog
Written by: Dr. Samantha Montano

Our first ever experiential learning trip to Western North Carolina has come to a successful end!
Hurricane Helene affected communities from Florida to the mid-Atlantic. Among the most severely
impacted was Western North Carolina (WNC). As a department we always are looking for ways to
help students gain hands on experience and apply what they are learning in the classroom to the
benefit of disaster-impacted communities. Post-Helene WNC was an opportunity to do so.
The faculty, led by Dr. Wesley Cheek, began making plans for a winter 2026 which would put
students in WNC just a little over a year after Helene and still early on in the recovery process.
Over the month we spent in WNC we were able to take students to meet with a wide range of folks
working in government agencies on the recovery. We visited FEMA’s Joint Field Office in Asheville.
We got to chat with FEMA staff including the current federal coordinating officer and multiple
community liaisons (a position started during Helene in which locals are hired to be a voice for the
community within FEMA and represent FEMA in their communities). We met with a structural
engineer who deploys with North Carolina’s search and rescue teams and heard from a research
meteorologist from NOAA. In Hot Springs, we met with the Mayor and attended one of their
community recovery progress meetings. We met with the fire chiefs/ emergency managers in
Chimney Rock and Lake Lure and Asheville Emergency Management.
Each of these folks spent an extensive amount of time with our students going through their
personal and professional involvement in the Helene response, how education and training
supported their work, the importance of protecting your mental health, and how they ended up in
their current jobs.

In addition to these educational visits, we also worked with many different types of recovery
organizations. This variety helped students understand the different ways organizations approach
recovery work. We volunteered through Marshall Relief Alliance (an emergent grassroots recovery
nonprofit), Hearts with Hands (an international disaster recovery nonprofit which happens to be
based in WNC), Mountain Valleys Resource Conservation and Development Council (a
longstanding local environmental nonprofit), and a local food pantry. We also visited with All Hands
and Hearts (an international recovery nonprofit) and Swannanoa Grassroots Alliance (a grassroots
coalition).

In total, we contributed somewhere in the ballpark of 2,500 hours of recovery work through these

organizations. As you have read in the blog, we did all kinds of things! Students ripped up the
flooded floor of a business that hopes to open soon, cleared brush and trees from people’s yards,
did some river erosion prevention projects, tore down and built some decks, and started clearing
some space for community gardens, among other odds and ends. We also worked in a community
art space (Community Make Space) to help a local artist rebuild her studio for community use
at Marshall High Studios.

In all, these trips were incredibly impactful for the students who are just at the very beginning of
their emergency management careers, and we are grateful for the people in our field who very
generously give their time to talk with our students.
Thank you for following along with the blogs.
See you next winter!