Gravy

In “The Long Recovery: Farmers and Hurricane Helene,” Gravy producer Irina Zhorov looks at how North Carolina farmers are building back after Hurricane Helene and finds that many still have a long way to go. The storm hit in late September, 2024. It killed at least 250 people and left nearly $80 billion worth of damage, the majority of that in mountainous western North Carolina. Farmers, who work flood-prone bottomlands and steep slopes in the high country, suffered catastrophic losses. There are thousands of farms in the region, which prides itself on its local foodways and strong network of producers. On many of these farms the floodwaters either deposited feet of sand on fields or washed away topsoil, sometimes to the bedrock—it just depended on where in a creek’s bend their land lay. Soil takes hundreds of years to form and is a farmer's most important asset, but it's not yet clear how to address the effects of such dramatic land shifts. Extension agents are recommending farmers try planting special c