A week after Helene came though, Connie and I walked downtown. Although stores and businesses appeared intact, the city felt eerily vacant, especially given the usual thrum of visitors crowding the sidewalks on a weekend. The few places open were distributing free food and water. We’d heard the World Central Kitchen had opened at Bear’s Smokehouse BBQ on Coxe Avenue. Manned by volunteers they gave out water as well as meals to anyone who wanted one, including us. Handwritten signs advertising free services were taped along the fence. On our way back through town we passed an enormous truck from the NY Fire Department who had come to help coordinate responses with Asheville’s firefighters. A little further on, we watched a dozen police cars from Mooresville NC (across the state) file into the empty post office lot. So much support from towns and cities from across the country. We saw a number of unhoused folks, including an older man and woman sitting on a bench. They greeted us, asked us how we were doing, pet Grover and fussed over him. Then motioning toward the generous collection of cans and packages of food they’d been given, asked if we needed anything.