This week, we’re sharing this a chat with my friend, Dani Burlson on her recent book, Red Flag Warning: Mutual Aid and Survival in California’s Fire Country! We speak about fire ecology, housing pressures and mutual aid in the wake of natural (and human caused) disaster. Check the show notes for links to a few projects mentioned. You can find more of Dani’s writings at DaniBurlison.com/, books listed here, and more by Caw at CawShinyThings.com
This week we’re sharing recent chat with Jazz and Badger, two residents of Barnardsville, a small village just outside of Asheville, NC. We spoke about the community, the impact of Hurricane Helene, some lessons learned from coordinating among the neighbors and how people are faring now, nearly 5 months out from the storm. You can find their website at MutualAidBarnardsville.com
To hear similar stories from after the storm you can find links to past interviews here. Also mentioned were interviews recorded by Blue Ridge Public Radio: Voices of Helene.
If you’d like to help out after recent flooding in Eastern Kentucky, there are a few links in our show notes to Hillbillies Helping Hillbillies aka EKY Mutual Aid
Recent Storm Support for EKY, ETN, SWVA + WV
Recent floods in middle Appalachia in the middle of an intense winter cold snap have left many without potable water or other basic needs. ATV donation / loan / operation request to help check on people in hollers, help clear roads, drive supplies: reach out to theferalraccoon (a t) proton (d ot) me OR MutualAidDisasterRelief ( at) gmail (do t) com.
EKY
One place you can look for where to send resources is Eastern KY Mutual Aid, found on Instagram or Facebook under the name Hillbillies Helping Hillbillies. And you can find out more by visiting the website or checking social media for Mutual Aid Disaster Relief. Some of the useful links are here for those unable to use the platforms:
In Pikeville, KY, there’s a request for food grade 5 gallon for water filtration where municipal water isn’t running or wells are contaminated there’s a request for restaurants to save buckets for water filtration. People interested can contact Cara at 859_533_0349
DROP OFF LOCATION:
Pike Central HS
100 Winners Circle Drive Pikeville, KY 41501
Other EKY sites:
Appalachian Crisis Aid Fund
The Y’all Squad TheYallSquad.org/donate
SWVA
SAMS Lonesome Pine Mutual Aid Paypal: @SAMSVA
The Care Collective of SW VA Venmo: @carecollectiveofswva
Cumberland Mountain Mutual Aid
Paypal: cumberlandmountainmutualaid (a t) gmail (d o t) com
Mutual Aid and Disaster Relief in Southern Appalachia
Over the first weekend of October, 2024, there was a deluge from two storms (including level 4 Hurricane Helene) descended on southern Appalachia, mostly on the eastern side which includes Asheville and other parts of western NC, eastern TN, south eastern Ohio, and northern Georgia. At the point of this recording there are over 200 known dead and hundreds missing, portions of the region continue to be without electricity or cellular service, and where the toxic mud and water linger and separate people from medical and community care. This episode, we’re speaking with two people who’ve lived in the region and have been helping other residents distribute storm relief.
Our chat with Louis, an anarchist emergency room nurse who has just returned from a second tour doing healthcare work in Gaza and is about to leave again. During this difficult conversation, we talk about medical conditions that he encountered in Gaza, what aid is getting in and how it’s being distributed, health infrastructure and how this relates to his prior mutual aid and anti-border work in the so-called USA. You can find a prior interview with Louis from Living and Fighting blog.
We’re happy to share Scott’s interview with Rhiannon Firth about her recent book, Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action. You can get the book at a discount using the code “firth30”, on the Pluto Books website or you can get a digital read for free, linked in the shownotes.
Welcome to a podcast special from The Final Straw. While William is was busy producing an episode featuring voices of medical professionals and activists inside and out of prison to talk about the impacts of covid-19 on incarcerated people for broadcast, I had a couple of conversations about work folks are doing on the outside that I’d like to share.
Sean Swain [00:08:06-00:15:12]
Hacking To Fight Covid-19
[00:15:12-00:33:01]
First, I spoke with Bill Slavin of Indie Lab, space in Virginia that is in the process of shifting it’s purpose since the epidemic became apparent from an broader scientific and educational maker space to work on the manufacturing and distribution of covid-19 related items in need such as testing kits, medical grade oxygen, ventilators and 3d printed n95 quality masks for medical professionals to fill public health needs. Bill talks generally about the ways that community and scientists can come together through mutual aid to deal with this crisis left by the inaction of the government on so many levels. They are also crowd-sourcing fundraising for scaling up their production and facilities and there’s a link in our show notes on that. The platform that Bill talks about in the chat is known as Just One Giant Lab, or JOGL. Consider this an invitation for makers to get involved.
Organizing With Your Neighbors For Homes and Dignity
[00:35:08-01:45:44]
Then, I talked to Julian of Tenants United of Hyde Park and Woodlawn in Chicago. What with all of the talk about rent strikes in the face of such huge leaps in unemployment during the spread of covid-19 and accompanying economic collapse, I thought it’d be helpful to have this chat to help spur on these conversations of how we seize power back into our hands while we’re being strangled by quarantine and hopefully afterwards. You can learn more about the group Julian works with at TenantsUnitedHPWL.Org. Philadelphia Tenants Union and Los Angeles Tenants Union were both mentioned and will be linked in the show notes, alongside a reminder that the national Autonomous Tenants Union Network (ATUN) is being organized and folks can reach out to Philly TU or LA TU via email to get onto their organizing zoom calls. Finally, if you’re in the Chicago area and need a lawyer for housing, check out Lawyers Committee For Better Housing online at lcbh.org. Julian also mentioned squatting of homes in southern CA owned by the state, here’s a link to an article.
Announcements
WNC Mutual Aid Projects
Linked in our show notes is also a googledoc that Cindy Milstein and others are helping to keep updated that lists many mutual aid projects that have sprung up all over concerning the exacerbation of capitalism by the covid-19 crisis, as well as a similar page up from ItsGoingDown.Org
If you’re in so-called Western NC and want to get involved, the project Asheville Survival Project has a presence on fedbook and is soliciting donations of food and sanitary goods for distribution to indigent, bipoc, elder and immune compromised folks in the community. We’ll link some social media posts on the subject that list our donation sites around Asheville in the show notes and you can venmo donations to @AVLsurvival.
If you care to contribute to efforts in Boone, NC, you can follow the instagram presence for @boonecommunityrelief or join the fedbook group by the same name, reach them via email at boonecommunityrelief@protonmail.com find donation sites and venmo donations can happen up at via venmo at @Bkeeves.
NC Prisons Covid-19 Phone Zap
And check our show notes for an invitation to call the NC Department of Public Safety and Governor’s offices to demand the release of NC prisoners susceptible to infection and possible death of Corona Virus in the NC system due to improper care. Wherever you are listening, consider getting together with others and calling jails, prison agencies and the executive branches to demand similarly the release of AT THE VERY LEAST the aged, infirm, folks in pre-trial detention, upcoming release or who are held because they can’t pay bail.
North Carolina Corrections Department-Prison Division
My name is ________, and I am a North Carolina resident deeply concerned about the safety of the states’s incarcerated people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Incarcerated people have a unique vulnerability to disease due to their crowded, unsanitary living conditions and lack of access to adequate medical care. For humanitarian reasons as well as reasons of public health, we call for the immediate release of all people in the North Carolina prison system. We also urge that you stop the intake of new prisoners during the pandemic. The cost of failing to take these steps will be paid for in human lives, and we refuse to abandon our neighbors and loved ones to die in lockup.
Even while the world burns, our 10th anniversary still approaches and we’re still soliciting messages from you, our listenership. Not sure what to say, likely you have a LOT of time on your hands, so go back through our archives and dive in. If you want a deep dive, visit our website where you can find hundreds of hours of interviews and music. If you want to drop us a line, check out the link in the show notes, or you can leave a voicemail or signal voice memo at +18285710161, you can share an audio file with the google drive associated with the email thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net or send a link to a cloud stored audio filed to that email address. Tell us and listeners what you’ve appreciated and or where you’d like us to go with this project.
Spreading TFS
If you appreciate the work that we do here at TFS, you can also help us out by making a donation if you have extra cash rustling around. The link on our site called Donate/Merch will show you tons of ways. If, like most of us, money is super tight at the moment, no prob, we struggle together. You can share our show with other folks to get these voices out there and more folks in the conversation. And if you REALLY like us and have a community radio station nearby who you’d be excited to have us air on for free, get in touch with us and we’ll help. The page on our site entitled Radio Broadcasting has lots of info for radio stations and how to let them know you want us on the airwaves. Thanks!
. … . ..
Featured music:
From Monument To Masses – Sharpshooter – The Impossible Leap In One Hundred Simple Steps
First up, we share a chat with Lauren Regan of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, or CLDC, to chat about safer practices around technology for activists, as well as the “reverse search” warrant used by the NYPD with Google to capture info on antifascists and the Proud Boy attackers last year. More at https://cldc.org. An article about tech security and phones that Bursts references is called “Never Turn Off The Phone” [starts 10m 08s]
Palm Beach Tenants Union
Following this, Withers (a new collective member at The Final Straw) shares a chat with Adam and Amy, two organizers with the Palm Beach Tenants Union out of Florida about their work and the sorts of mutual aid disaster work they’ve done with Hurricane Irma and advocating for and organizing with renters in their communities for dignity in housing. More on the Union at https://pbctu.org and more on how you can get involved in mutual aid up at https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org. There are a number of donation sites around the region to prepare for this Hurricane season, as well as distribute support to Bahamas that you can find by searching social media for DRASL (Dorian Response Autonomous Supply Line), as mentioned on itsgoingdown.org. [starts at 54m 06s]
#MeToo and Updates from Hong Kong
Finally, you’ll hear a conversation with Enid and Rebecca, who feminist activists in Hong Kong about the current state of protests there. Content warning, that segment deals in part with organizing around sexualized assault by police and by protestors. To hear our prior interview with Ahkok on protests in HK, check our website and see the great articles up at crimethinc. Also, the guests talk about the term 自由閪, or “Freedom Cunt” as a re-appropriation of a misogynist insult by police from the protests. [starts at 1hr 15m 51s]
*Correction to the HK conversation: The full name of the IPCC mentioned in regards to the establishment of an independent police inquiry is called the Independent Police Complaints Council. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam appointed two new committee members to the already existing committee, not independent investigators. However, the IPCC has hired five foreign investigators to participate in examinations, though it must be clarified that the role of the IPCC is observational rather than investigative. The IPCC has no jurisdiction to either call witness nor collect evidence for the independent inquiry called for by citizens.
If you’re listening to the radio version, as usual, we suggest that you check out the podcast version for longer versions of all three chats in this episode as well as Sean Swain’s audio this week. You can hear that at thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org or via various streaming platforms we publish to, such as youtube, soundcloud, stitcher, pandora and so-on.
This week we have the opportunity to share a talk by Coco (they/them pronouns), who is a queer, Black, Puerto Rican anarchist about the recent 17 days of direct action against no-longer-governor Ricardo Rosselló and organizing as an anarchist after Hurricane Maria.
They talk about some of the lead up to these revolts – about the fascist campaign and term of office of Ricardo Rosselló -, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, decolonization and fighting US imperialism as it relates to PR, queer people and femmes on the front lines of the protests about Ricardo Rosselló, the active warping of this situation by media outlets, and many many more topics!
Coco originally presented this talk at the Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair 2019 on Saturday August 24th.
I wanna give voice to something that came up in the Q&A after the talk, which was not recorded, in which Coco made space for an open conversation about revolt in Puerto Rico. They asked of the audience what we thought when #RickyRenuncia was trending on Twitter, and people were saying stuff like “we need to look to PR and learn from people there in order to figure out what to do where we’re at”. And a really good conversation wound out about disaster/riot tourism that has always been a problematic current on the far left, especially where the struggles of non-white folks are concerned. It was located in that conversation that the support of people interfacing with struggle that isn’t theirs is very conditional and fragile, and it was stated by participants of the conversation that there needs to be another way of looking at struggle that doesn’t involve an attitude of entertainment style consumption but rather comes from a place of real solidarity and real support.
As Coco stated, the media has really been messing with the narrative of what has been going on in PR, painting it either as super pacifist or like people are “out of control hooligans” or other such nonesense. For better sources of information, you can visit our blog at thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org where we will post links to people and accounts you can follow who are on the ground or have a perspective that isn’t beholden to the larger capitalist media outlets.
Here is an announcement on behalf of the upcoming Queer Conference at UNC Asheville:
“Communities? Will a rainbow flag on a police car protect queer folks from a culture built around (trans)misogyny / misogynoir and sexual assault?
We are constantly reminded that our culture is still built on anti-black, anti-queer violence by the all too frequent murders of black transwomen, the further criminalization of queer sex workers, and the erasure of rural LGBTQ+ identities experiencing the pains of addiction, joblessness, and lack of resources. Today, we are at another fork in the road, where there is nominal acceptance of certain gay and lesbian identities (namely white, educated, middle-class families), while a wide range of experiences of people under the LGBTQ+ umbrella get forgotten. As queerness becomes hip and queer subcultural styles are being bought and sold, we must ask how the culture, lives, and sexuality behind the looks can survive and thrive. With the rise of global fascism, the impending doom of large-scale environmental collapse, and the inevitable next crash of capitalism, can we still envision a queerness that seeks liberation rather than admission to the status quo and benefits of a vastly unequal US society? How can we balance these visions with protecting the precarious lives most threatened by the current sociopolitical landscape?
This week we had the chance to talk to Sascha, who is a community organizer in the triangle area of North Carolina, about ongoing organizing to help rebuild and continue to aid folks after the multiple hurricanes recently hit this region. This interview went in directions that we couldn’t have predicted, and really went on a deep dive of how to conceptualize of disaster relief in our changing climate, in addition to more practical topics. We hope you enjoy it!
To get in touch with the project that our guest is talking about, and if you have extra monie$ to spare, you can visit maddistronc.org for ways to donate or drop by to 800 Henderson Street in Durham if you’re in the area.
To hear the interview that we referenced about halfway through, you can go to our website and search “Indigenous Activist”, it should be the first item in the search results. You can also hear a 10 minute edit of this interview with Vanessa on how to be better accomplices to Lumbee folks in Lumberton NC in the October episode of B(A)D News, Angry Voices From Around the World which you can find both at our website or at aradio.blogsport.de.
B(A)D News is a monthly news collaboration between projects in the A-Radio Network, which includes anarchist radio from Chile, various places in Eastern and Western Europe, and right here on Turtle Island. Keep your eyes peeled to our feed for when this show updates!
Announcements
Blue Ridge ABC events in Asheville
If you’re in the Asheville area this week, Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross has two upcoming events.
TROUBLE showing at Firestorm
On Friday, November 2nd at 6:30pm at Firestorm Books & Coffee, BRABC will be airing the latest episode of Trouble, the mini-documentary series by sub.Media. This month’s episode is focused on the J20 inauguration conspiracy case that ended some months back. This’ll be followed by a brief chat about the film and the case. This event happens the same time, same place, on the first Friday of every month and is a great way to start of your weekend.
Political Prisoner Letter Writing
On Sunday, November 4th at 5pm, just a little after next week’s episode of our show of this show, BRABC will also be hosting their monthly Political Prisoner letter writing night at, you guessed it, Firestorm! ABC will be bringing info on prisoners whose birthdays are upcoming or who are facing repression or coming up on parole, will provide the materials and a friendly atmosphere and help in writing letters to prisoners. If you’ve ever thought of writing someone in prison before but been overwhelmed by the prospect of it, this is a great way to get started.
Recent Violence from the Far Right and What to Do
We don’t frequently comment on this show about ongoing events we aren’t either announcing or featuring on the episode, but this is a rare example. This last week saw a couple of racist attacks that we want to mention in case you missed them, in order to point to the continued and intensifying need for anti-racist and anti-fascist organizing, research and street presence. On October 24th, a white man named Gregory Bush allegedly failed to break into a black church in Louisville, KY, and instead decided to shoot a black man (Maurice E. Stallard) inside of a Kroger and a black woman (Vickie Lee Jones) in the parking lot, killing them both. The shooter told a witness “Whites don’t shoot whites.”
Yesterday, on Saturday October 27th during shabbat services, a gunman with white nationalist ties named Robert D. Bowers, entered the Tree of Life Congregation Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA, and killed 11 congregants while wielding an AR-15 and two handguns, injuring 3 more congregants. These are just two recent examples of white rage acting out against others, a visible trend and not out of sync with the settler-colonial and anti-black violence of the United States, yet undeniably horrendous. The victims families are in our hearts, as are all of the many unmentioned victims of reactionary violence. On this note, we’re including a couple of anti-racist announcements folks can join in on if they care to.
To literally steal a line from the latest Hotwire episode from crimethInc, “To mark the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht and to push back against the uptick in anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and xenophobic violence around the world, there’s a Jewish call for International Days against fascism and anti-Semitism.” The call reads:
“On November 8–11, we will sing out and celebrate the survival of our peoples. We will say Kaddish for those who gave their lives in the fight against fascism. We will engage in acts of Kherem and ritually excommunicate those Jews who aid and abet the fascists of our time. And we will march on the institutions, the political parties, and the private businesses that collaborate with their genocidal agenda. At the same time, we will show the world that the real threat to our security as Jews isn’t our Muslim neighbors, but “Western Chauvinists,” Christian supremacists, and white nationalists – the would-be pogromists of our day. Starting now and continuing through [the year] 5779 and beyond, we will (re)build an international network of anti-fascist Jews and our allies. From the streets where we live to the places we work and play, we will organize to defend all of our communities from those who would exterminate us. We invite you to join us in the fight: For a world without pogroms. For a future without fascism.”
Atlanta Antifascists are asking folks to contact Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School about one of it’s students, Casey Jordan Cooper. Cooper has made explicit lynching threats against black students, has organized Alt-Right efforts around the school and has documented connections to white nationalists like Sam Dickson. Alongside a bunch of really amazing research that AFAinATL has done, you can find more about Casey Jordan Cooper, including a video and 500+ page dossier on him, the request for a call-in on Monday, October 29th to the University and a script up at atlantaantifa.org. We don’t need anymore nazi lawyers and this school should be ashamed to continue to hold Cooper as a student considering it’s lip service to the importance of it’s students providing non-prejudicial service to their clients.
WNC undercuts Patriot Front
A big ups to comrades in WNC who, very carefully and soberly, infiltrated a new chapter of the white nationalist grouping Patriot Front and were able to disrupt their activities during an attempted banner drop. This sort of high level of engagement is dangerous and not to be taken lightly, but can be quite effective at gaining intelligence on the enemy and ruining their days. More info on this can be found on this IGD post!
Support Malik and Rashid!
In prisoner news, two affiliates of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party Prison Chapter are in the news. Keith “Malik” Washington, whose supporters we’ve had on the show before, shared that he’s on a hunger strike at the McConnell Administrative Segregation Unit in protest against his continued repression and repeated medical endangerment. More info can be found at comrademalike.com. Also Kevin “Rashid” Johnson who we spoke to in September. He has been refused medical aid by guards at Sussex II, denied the ability to send or receive mail, including legal mail. He has been threatened with dogs while chained up, kept in his cell 24/7 and other terrible circumstances. Visit rashidmod.com for more details and the numbers and officials that you can call to protest on his behalf.
This week on The Final Straw Radio, we feature a conversation with Pearson, an anarchist resident of Tallahassee, Florida, and is involved in storm relief mutual aid work in the wake of Hurricane Michael. Pearson is also the co-host of the leftist podcast “Coffee With Comrades”.
For the hour we talk about Hurricane Michael, which just passed through the Florida Panhandle and up through the Carolinas, affecting Georgia and Alabama as well. Within a 36 hour period, the hurricane ramped up from a Tropical Storm to a category 4 or 5 hurricane (depending on who you talk to). Michael was the strongest hurricane to hit that part of Florida ever on record, making landfall on Wednesday, October 10th in the morning and may be the third largest to hit the U.S. mainland with winds surges of up to 175 miles per hour and sustaining at 150. Because of the quick increase, localities in the storms path found themselves under prepared for such a devastating catastrophe. The state of Florida Department of Corrections refused to evacuate about 12 prisons that were in the Mandatory Evacuation areas in the path of Hurricane Michael despite a call-in campaign by Fight Toxic Prisons.
For the hour, we talk about the immediate response efforts in Tallahassee, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, anthropogenic or human-caused Climate Change and it’s various impacts on the residents and environs of Florida, and a bunch of other related topics. Later, Pearson shares about his podcast, “Coffee with Comrades”, available at http://coffeewithcomrades.com/
Here are a few links for info if you’re in Florida as well as ways to donate from a distance:
Florida People’s Advocacy Center in Tally is a safe space for people to come for disaster relief (trans inclusive and very supportive of undocumented individuals)
On Saturday, October 13th in Greenville, SC, there was a racist “Build The Wall” anti-immigration rally organized in support of Trumps xenophobic policies. Naturally, there was a counter-demonstration. Two anti-racists were arrested for picketing ordinances and another for disorderly conduct. If you’d like to help them, there’s a paypal where donations are being collected for legal and any medical fees attached to this at paypal.me/upstatesc
Connor Stevens post-release fund
First, Connor Stevens, one of the convicted Cleveland 4, is up for potential parole as soon as November, 2018! From the fundraizr for Connor:
“Connor Stevens is one of the Cleveland4. He is being released soon so we’re raising funds to help get him basic necessities when he is released! It’s possible he’ll even be released by November!
Click here if you are out of the US and would like to donate via Paypal
The Cleveland 4 were four Occupy Cleveland activists who were were arrested on April 30th, 2012, accused of plotting to blow up a bridge. But it was the FBI, working with an informant, that crafted the plot, produced the “explosives,” and coerced these four into participating.
Connor took non-cooperating plea deals and pled guilty to all charges. The judge applied a “terrorism enhancement” to their sentences, elongating their sentences as well as subjecting them to harsher prison conditions. Connor served 8 years 1 month—all to be followed by lifetime supervised release.”
To hear our past coverage of the Cleveland 4 case, including an interview with Connors mother, you can check out (our website and search Cleveland 4)
Zak Kostopoulos
Zak Kostopoulos, an 33 year old lgbtq+ drag performer and activist who worked against prejudice faced by folks who are HIV positive was beaten to death in a homophobic attack near Omonia Square in Athens, Greece on September 21st. Zak lept into a jewelry store in order to avoid a nearby brawl when the emergency shutters descended, trapping him inside. He was then set upon by the owner of the shop and others who were heard uttering homophobic and hate statements against those with HIV. After escaping the store, by smashing through the window with a fire extinguisher, he was followed out by the owner and another thug. Zak was beaten to the ground while surrounded by mostly male onlookers. When police showed up, they handcuffed Zak. The murder was captured on camera. The shop owner was only arrested after the video went viral and he was only charged with manslaughter, not murder, as he claims to have been protecting his property, which is absurd. Following news of the murder, an emergency anarchist assembly was called and a march of 500 took the streets of Athens with smaller marches happening in nearby cities. Marches followed that week.
Apologies for the wait in announcing this sad news which a listener sent us after the murder took place. We are thankful for being informed.
Mumia Abu-Jamal
There is a call for supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal to fill the court room and the streets on October 29th from 8am til 11am in Philadelphia at the Criminal Justice Center, 13th & Filbert. Mumia is a former Black Panther, is a journalist and Political Prisoner who was put on death row for decades for the killing of a cop he says he did not commit. Mumia’s trial has been recognized internationally, including by Amnesty International, as a political show trial. More info up at http://mobilization4mumia.com
Certain Days Calendar benefit show
On October 19th at the Pine Box Rock Shop, 12 Gratton Street in Brooklyn, NY, there’ll be a benefit for post-release funds by the organizers of the Certain Days: Freedom For Political Prisoners Calendar.
From Certain Days:
In the last year, we have been fortunate enough to welcome home a handful of political prisoners from US prisons. Our movements have not exactly been prepared for this good fortune, and so support committees, families and friends of these folks have been forced to scramble for funds for basic living expenses. In addition to that, many of these people have been targeted in the media and beyond by various law enforcement unions and organizations, making open fundraising online a difficult proposition.
We need to step up our game and aid not only the handful of political prisoners that have been released this year but also, the people who may be leaving prison soon.
The show will feature performances by Despairwolf, MAAFA_Hardcore, High Cost, and Trophy hunt, and we understand that the door fee will be VERY reasonable for a show in NYC.
Over the first weekend of October, 2024, there was a deluge from two storms (including level 4 Hurricane Helene) descended on southern Appalachia, mostly on the eastern side which includes Asheville and other parts of western NC, eastern TN, south eastern Ohio, and northern Georgia. At the point of this recording there are over 200 known dead and hundreds missing, portions of the region continue to be without electricity or cellular service, and where the toxic mud and water linger and separate people from medical and community care. This episode, we’re speaking with two people who’ve lived in the region and have been helping other residents distribute storm relief.
