Voices from the Future | Kolby Skidmore<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Hurricane Florence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Event: <\/strong>Hurricane Matthew was considered a 500-year flood, which means it had a 0.2% chance of happening in any given year. Hurricane Florence was deemed a 1,000-year flood and broke rainfall records set by Hurricane Matthew. Many residents of coastal North Carolina were still rebuilding from Matthew when Florence hit in September 2018, dumping more than 30 inches of water on some parts of the state and killing 53 people.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When the floodwater receded<\/strong>, it left behind scores of fish \u2014 not just on streets, but also in people\u2019s homes. They were everywhere, and they reeked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Kolby Skidmore, a 30-year-old woman who had survived lung cancer, found breathing difficult over the stench of rotting fish, dampness and decay. Having recently moved from Arizona to North Carolina, this wasn\u2019t something Skidmore expected in the aftermath of a hurricane. And then there were the bugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat people don\u2019t realize is that when you have a whole bunch of standing water, then you\u2019re going to get really nasty bugs and mosquitoes, and that\u2019s a problem,\u201d Skidmore says. At one point during Hurricane Florence, people traveling through the floodwater in a boat warned her that they\u2019d seen alligators and water moccasins nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Skidmore avoided getting in the water as much as possible, but as a news photographer, sometimes she got knee-deep to show viewers how bad the flooding was. Normally she photographed weddings, but she\u2019d taken a part-time news job because she needed something to pay the bills while she built up clientele in her new state. Skidmore had only been working for WECT News for two months when, in September 2018, she was assigned to travel to a small town and cover Hurricane Florence \u2014 a slow-moving storm originally dubbed a Category 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After much deliberation, she decided to take the assignment, along with a fresh-faced reporter. Their impromptu base for the storm was the fire station in Whiteville, North Carolina. Unlike other locations in the town of 5,400, the fire station had Wi-Fi even during emergencies \u2014 a service that was prioritized after the record-breaking Hurricane Matthew ravaged Whiteville just two years prior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA couple of people in Whiteville really freaked out, put all their stuff in their car, and then drove to the fire department and just collapsed to the fire department [floor],\u201d Skidmore says. \u201cThey were like, \u2018What am I going to do? I can’t go through this again.\u2019 I was amazed at how the fire department dealt with that. They would calm these people down, let them stay, give them a hot meal.\u201d The firefighters made sure people were okay not just physically but also mentally, which Skidmore respected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The nearby town of Fair Bluff \u2014 21 miles west of Whiteville on the Lumber River \u2014 was worse off than Whiteville during Hurricane Florence. As the rain poured, the river rapidly rose, and more than four feet of water claimed the charming downtown business district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople have done a lot of articles about how Fair Bluff is going to be the first town that\u2019s completely devastated by climate change,\u201d Skidmore says, because two record-breaking storms in two years is \u201cridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout Hurricane Florence, Skidmore and the reporter hitched rides between Whiteville and Fair Bluff with the firefighters, the National Guard and anyone else they could, documenting what they saw along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe saw a lot of sad stories, and a lot of people that lost everything \u2014 soaking wet, with nothing,\u201d Skidmore says. She often rode through neighborhoods with everyone\u2019s ruined possessions in piles on their front porches or lawns. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to watch people\u2019s houses get destroyed for the first time. It is a far different thing for people that have just rebuilt, and they\u2019re finally getting their life back on track, getting to a new normal, and have it completely devastated again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the storm passed and the ad hoc relief shelters closed, housing quickly became a crisis. With houses damaged and growing toxic mold, many people had to find alternate housing \u2014 or were forced to stay because they had no other options. Skidmore recalls entire apartment complexes shutting down due to unsafe conditions, with residents having mere hours to evacuate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some people ended up in more expensive housing \u2014 a difficult situation for families already on a tight budget. Others couldn\u2019t find any available housing, already limited before the storm, and were forced to stay in hotels. Skidmore met one woman who ended up living with her kids in a hotel room for months. But available hotel rooms were hard to find, too, since many of them were already occupied by people who came to offer aid \u2014 or people who saw opportunities to prey on the town\u2019s vulnerability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLootings are a problem of course,\u201d Skidmore says, but other people come to offer much-needed services for astronomical fees. She heard about a woman who was charged $50,000 by a group of men who cut down her property\u2019s falling trees. \u201cDisaster brings out the best in people, but it also brings out the worst in people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Skidmore\u2019s experience in Hurricane Florence opened her eyes to a more uncertain world. A new homeowner in Wilmington, now she\u2019ll never go without flood insurance, even though she\u2019s not directly in a flood zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor some people \u2014 I know for me \u2014 buying a home is a really big deal,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a sense of accomplishment, and for some people, their home is all they have. It\u2019s hard when it gets ruined and you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going to do. A lot of people I talked to didn\u2019t have flood insurance\u201d because they didn\u2019t think they needed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to insurance, Skidmore learned to always have an extreme-weather plan. \u201cWe saw a lot of people that didn\u2019t have a plan, and those were the people that struggled the most,\u201d she says. She also noted that a town\u2019s emergency management team is \u201cvery, very important,\u201d and when choosing a place to live, people should take into account whether the community has a strong and well-funded team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the climate crisis worsens and extreme weather events become more frequent and intense, it\u2019s increasingly vital to prepare for an unpredictable world. Skidmore fears people aren\u2019t taking climate change seriously enough, especially in rural parts of the United States. \u201cClimate change is not a main concern of people that I\u2019ve run into. Here, it\u2019s not something that people really think about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But whether or not people recognize the crisis of a warming climate, it\u2019s happening and people are suffering the consequences. People, and animals \u2014 like fish who met an unsuspecting grave in someone\u2019s living room on a fall day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014 Kayla Frost<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voices from the Future | Kolby Skidmore The Hurricane Florence The Event: Hurricane Matthew was considered a 500-year flood, which means it had a 0.2% chance of happening in any","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10,18,13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hurricanes","category-inequality","category-north-america","category-personal-climate-awakening","category-voices"],"uds_featured_image":{"id":280,"alt_text":"hurricane and space","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":1024,"height":309,"file":"2022\/01\/hurricane-and-space.jpg","sizes":{"medium":{"file":"hurricane-and-space-300x91.jpg","width":300,"height":91,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/globalfutures.asu.edu\/futurevoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/01\/hurricane-and-space-300x91.jpg"},"thumbnail":{"file":"hurricane-and-space-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/globalfutures.asu.edu\/futurevoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/01\/hurricane-and-space-150x150.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"hurricane-and-space-768x232.jpg","width":768,"height":232,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/globalfutures.asu.edu\/futurevoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/01\/hurricane-and-space-768x232.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1","keywords":[]}},"post":162,"source_url":"https:\/\/globalfutures.asu.edu\/futurevoices\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/01\/hurricane-and-space.jpg"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n