Greg Carr

Greg Carr

Greg Carr's experience of losing most of his belongings as a result of Tropical Storm Helene and his engagement in grassroots mutual aid based disaster relief efforts in the days following the storm.

English

1 digital audio recording

mp3

00:02:21

Hi, my name is Greg Carr. I'm an Asheville artist and I go by the name “Tall Greg Art.” For me the flood was pretty intense and sad. I lost the majority of my belongings which were in my storage unit along Sweeten Creek. And you know, I watched so many of my friends lose all of their life's artwork, which was just so incredibly tragic for all of us. But through all the loss, we also all came together in such an incredible way. And we were there for each other to provide for the needs that were happening. Because I'm an artist, I don't have like a regular 9 to 5 job to go to, and so I immediately became a delivery man and I was delivering supplies from donation sites to people that didn't have access to get to those places, and we were finding out who those people were through social media. And so, these incredible networks of people coming together to help each other were created and we saw helicopter pilots rescuing people who were stranded, and them getting information from other community members, and community members doing wellness checks, and just all of this incredible volunteering that happened, not through any particular organization, but just through community members caring about each other. And for me, that was the biggest takeaway from Helene, it was all politics aside, loving your neighbor because they are your neighbor. And loving the people around you because we are all humans who live here in Western, North Carolina. And it was incredibly difficult for everyone and we're in the process of rebuilding but it was a really powerful experience and I hope that we can learn some lessons from it.