After Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina, Blue Ridge Public Radio became a vital source of emergency and recovery information.

The station’s newsroom has been tested like never before to deliver basic public safety information through live updates and news reports. Initially, the news team reported live for 12 hours a day. Some employees slept on the newsroom floor rather than return to homes that had no electricity or running water, said Laura Lee, news director.

“They’ve just shown tremendous determination and dedication,” Lee said of his Asheville news crew. “It’s important to them.”

The storm flooded the landscape of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains nearly 14 inches of rain between September 25 and September 27. Roads were washed away or covered in mud, houses were irreparably damaged, power grids were disrupted and people lost access to safe drinking water. As of Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services reported this 98 North Carolinians had died from the storm.

Initially, BPR was the only source of information for people in isolated communities, according to Lee. People used car batteries or crank radios to tune in to the station’s daily broadcasts, which provided live coverage of government briefings and updates on road closures and drinking water availability. Sometimes entire neighborhoods would gather around a radio to listen to the broadcasts, she said.

In the early days of the storm recovery, BPR focused on the needs of those listening through the car battery, Lee said, reporting “what might really seem like (like) basic or elementary information.”

Lack of water has been the main point of coverage since the beginning. The city of Asheville and surrounding county governments have announced specific, scientific information about water quality, said Tim Roesler, interim general manager, who arrived at the station on Oct. 2. BPR helps listeners decipher these details. “We’re trying to sort that out … and make these announcements and guidelines practical so that people who hear them can actually use them,” he said.

Roesler, formerly SVP and GM of Minnesota Public Radio and director of marketing for American Public Media Group, has agreed to lead BPR as the board searches for a successor to Jeffrey Pope. who announced that he plans to step down as managing director and CEO in early September. The Pope’s last day was October 11.

BPR operates two separate networks of news and classical stations and also dealt with the deterioration of its infrastructure. As of October 23, two transmitters were either down or broadcasting with limited power. Both are in remote locations that are difficult to reach, Roesler said. The music service was taken down due to damage to its server and simulcasts news programs.

Supported by external support

Like neighbors and volunteers coming together to clear fallen trees, hand out food and water, or install a car battery to power a radio, help for BPR has come from many directions.

Other news organizations provided food, Spanish translations of news stories, and technical assistance that made BPR’s online coverage more accessible on digital platforms.

The North Carolina Local News Workshopfor example, he worked with news publishing software companies BlueLena and Pack of newspapers to create a text-only version of the BPR website. The workshop, founded in 2020 and based at Elon University’s School of Communication, supports access to high-quality local news for North Carolina residents. Some of his journalists offered to walk the dogs of BPR employees who were too busy working, Lee said.

Reporters from other stations also pitched in to help edit and review the stories, according to Roesler.

As support poured in, staff scribbled the names of people who volunteered on a giant sticky note in the station, Lee said. She wants to write thank you notes to each of them.

Reflecting on how tired the BPR team is, and how tired they would be without the help of others, she added, “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to thank them enough.”

The financial assistance came from Minnesota Public Radio, which held a fundraiser Oct. 11 for disaster recovery at BPR and stations affected by Hurricane Milton, according to spokeswoman Ellie Pierce. Roesler, who has worked at MPR and AMPG for 20 years, said the state network allocated a percentage of the funds raised on its last day of business.

CPB received a $47,500 grant to support BPR recovery the week of Oct. 14, according to spokeswoman Tracey Briggs.

The grant helps with engineering repair costs; Fuel for the generators powering the transmitting sites; editors, reporters and translators to work with news staff; and assistance with accounting and payroll management, Roesler said. Accommodation costs for temporary contractors working with BPR are also covered.

Roesler credited CPB for responding quickly to his grant proposal. “Their staff got busy right after we filed,” he said. “We had a back and forth and there was never a delay.”

Colleagues at other stations advised Roesler on how to prioritize and manage coverage of hurricane recovery efforts, he said. Now, his advice to others in preparing for natural disasters is to “ask for help when you need it, because people will give it to you.”

In the flood zone

Reporter Gerard Albert III, who covers rural communities for BPR, witnessed the storm’s destruction in Brevard, NC. The community, located in Transylvania County about 30 miles south of Asheville, is near the entrance to the Pisgah National Forest. He volunteered to report from there because the area “had to be pretty bad,” he said.

Albert arrived on Sept. 26 and planned to stay a day or two, he said. Then he watched as the storm intensified overnight. “Around 3 o’clock in the morning, we just saw this rain change,” he said. “It was a lot harder than it had crashed (before).”

Albert attended impromptu community meetings, collected stories and photographed in rising flood waters.

“While I was there, I was mostly a five-sense reporter,” Albert said. “What can you see, hear, smell, touch, feel? What’s going on?”

When he tried to return to Asheville, officials turned him away. The road was closed due to flooding.

“It was like, ‘Well, well, … I’m not going back to Asheville today,'” he said. He finally managed to return on the morning of September 29. On the return trip, he finally regained access to cell service.

Back at the BPR, Albert did a two-way debrief of everything he had observed and reported.

Knowing how much people relied on BPR information motivated Albert to continue during his recovery. “There’s a certain obligation you have to your community, and it’s never more apparent than in these moments,” he said.

Katie Myers, BPR’s climate beat reporter, focused her questions on how communities across the region will survive the climate crisis. She focuses on examining the storm’s impact on roads, homes and utility systems, and how public services can be improved for the next hurricane.

“I hope this is the last time this happens, but we don’t have a guarantee on that,” she said. “If this were to happen again, how will our infrastructure hold up?”