Before and After Diptychs from the River Arts District in Asheville
Where Have All the Trees Gone
The devastation along the French Broad River is cataclysmic even for people who have never seen the area before, but when you compare the images with what it looked like before the storm it is even more shocking. Water is one of the most destructive forces on Earth. We need it to survive, but when it rains too much it is terrifying. The image on the left was taken in August 2021 on a bridge over the French Broad looking up river. The image on the right was taken on October 24, 2024 looking in the same direction but taken from the walkway–much of which is falling into the river. I knew there had been trees along both sides of the river, but I didn’t remember exactly how many had been on the east side that are no longer there.
A Changed Landscape
The history of the region where the River Arts District is located is checkered, since in the 1600s Cherokee were displaced by White Settlers. The area became the city’s first industrial hub and flourished after the Western North Carolina Railroad was built by railway workers, many of whom were incarcerated African Americans. The railroad connected Asheville with New York, St. Louis, New Orleans, Jacksonville, and Savannah (https://avltoday.6amcity.com/asheville-nc-river-arts-district). The population expanded and the Cotton Mill Building was built in 1888, followed by other factories and industrial buildings. People began moving to Asheville and this area and the population rose from 500 to 10,000. But then the flood of 2016 occurred after it rained for three days straight. Property damages were estimated at $1 million ($23 million in today’s dollars). This area was never the same after the floods, although it remained a mix of industrial, commercial, and residential uses. A black community eventually thrived here, until the advent of the Urban Renewal Movement in the 1970s when many structures were demolished and they too were ousted. A few iconic buildings remained, like the Cotton Mill Building (the home of the Asheville Guitar Bar) and Riverview Station.
In 1987, the non-profit organization River Link was established to help revitalize the area along the river. The Riverfront Plan was unveiled in 1989 and, in 1994, The French Broad River Park was officially opened. In 1995 the first paved loop of the greenway was opened. Then in 2004, Asheville City Council unanimously approved The Wilma Dykeman RiverWay Master Plan, a detailed master plan for urban areas along the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers. Dykeman’s plan connected clean air and water with economic development and human well-being and was a link between historical conservation movements and the environmental movement that arose in the 1960s. (https://www.wilmadykemanlegacy.org/articles-and-resources/the-river-arts-district-in-asheville-north-carolina-part-two). In 2005, the idea of a River Arts District was formulated and it ended up drawing art galleries, breweries, restaurants, and music areas. On Earth Day in 2021, the French Broad River East Greenway was established, a major culmination of Dykeman’s plan.
The image on the left was taken in 2018 and to me it has a nostalgic feel, evoking memories of past industrial activities. The image on the right was taken after Helene hit and flooded the area, the second disaster of a magnitude echoing the 2016 flood. The street lamps along the road were pushed over, as were the trees and signs. There is a large industrial range in the middle of the field. Eighty percent of the River Arts District has been destroyed and the damage this time is estimate at $1 billion dollars for this area alone.
Activities Along the French Broad, Then and Now
The French Broad has been a mecca for kayakers, tubers, and even swimmers. There were places you could stop along the river for a meal or beer, but now all the restaurants and breweries are closed, and the water is not clean enough for people to enter. Instead, people are pulling off debris from the remaining trees and cleaning up what Helene left behind from up river.
Riverwalk
These two images were taken in roughly the same place. I used to walk down this path a lot and I would always see people reading under the trees or sitting on benches in the shade enjoying the day. Now this section of the Riverwalk have been reclaimed by the river and branches and flipped cars are snagged by the fallen branches and tree trunks. There is little shade left and it’s not healthy to even breathe here due to all the dust and toxic debris.
It may have been 108 years since the flood that first destroyed the River Arts District, but Helene was not the only extreme weather event to impact Western North Carolina. Tropical Storm Fred flooded Haywood County in 2021 and in January this year Cane Creek near where I live became a raging river and took out multiple bridges. There have been numerous other more minor flooding events. The mountains act like funnels when there is too much rain, exponentially increasing flooding events in our rivers and low lying areas. Everyone who lives here that I have spoken with lately seems to be experiencing some form of PTSD from Helene and many of us are afraid it will happen again. It’s time to get off the sidelines and use our voices and our votes to demand that our elected officials take action. We and the rest of the world cannot afford for the citizens of the United States to elect someone who doesn’t care about the future of the planet and who has said he would withdraw the United States from the Paris Accord and the whole negotiating framework. As David George Haskell rightly surmised, “The number of people who will be killed or have their livelihoods and communities destroyed by accelerated climate chaos will dwarf the war crimes of our present age.” The current verified death toll from Helene in Buncombe County is 101 as of November 4 out of a population of about 278,000. We cannot waste our votes on independent candidates this election, even if we don’t believe enough action has been taken yet because the alternative is so, so, much worse. At least, as Haskell also pointed out, we will still be able to protest under a Harris presidency (this quote was taken from David George Haskell’s post on Instagram yesterday).