Last week, Hurricane Helene spun north into westrict North Carolina causing catastrophic injure, particularly in the Asheville area and surrounding counties. Entire homes and businesses were flooded, some floating away in a horrific wave of debris.
In the midst of it all, some bird-watchers—or “birders”—acunderstandledged someskinnyg: People in some of the most heavily impacted areas were continuing to log sightings in the well-understandn app eBird. As it happens, some of the most heavily-impacted areas—Buncombe and Hfinisherson Counties in particular—have been birding boilingspots for years. Less than a day after the storm passed, as many were still assessing the injure, birders were back to chronicling their discovers.
Helene made landdescfinish as a categruesome 4 hurricane in westrict Florida on September 26 before becoming a tropical storm as it made its way north. When it struck Appalachia, rivers overflowed, and flooding buried valley towns. Thousands of homes and businesses were ruined. The storm’s current death count is over two hundred, which is anticipateed to ascfinish in coming days as aascfinishncy crews achieve increasingly distant areas.
For birders, the storm was traumatic. None of them had power, cell service, or water in their homes. But they could walk outside, try to apshow their mind off of the tragedy unfelderlying around them, and spot birds both local and exotic to the area. When they finpartner got restricted cell service—either by traveling, or by saincreateite combineion, or thraw transient cell towers—posting their discoverings to eBird, which has more than 900,000 includers around the world, was almost instinctual.
Tambi Sthriveey has inhabitd in Appalachia all her life, and the Asheville area for about two years. An ordained minister, Sthriveey labors as a spiritual advisor—which is aappreciate to a life coach, but concentrateed exclusively on the spiritual. She commenceed birding about five years ago becainclude of her son, who had a budding interest.
“I got solemn about downloading the eBird app and the Merlin app that helps you to rerepair birds by sight and sound,” she says. “Ever since then, it’s been someskinnyg that has equitable become a part of the standard rhythm of my life.”
FEMA and the National Guard weren’t in the area in filled force until a scant days after the storm, she says. Before then, they had to depend on their neighbors. One, who had a generator, she says, uncovered up their home to people who necessitateed to indict their phones or boil water.
Sthriveey began volunteering with her local First Baptist Church to dispense food and supplies gived from a group in South Carolina. It’s been overwhelming, she says, to come to terms with the “heaviness” of the storm. Birding, she says, has been a source of reprieve. Even before the storm, she had examineed for birds in her backyard every day.
“It’s been a relief to me to have moments where I’m equitable watching out the thrivedow at the bird feeder, hanging on my porch, and rerepairing the birds that are coming up,” Sthriveey says. “It equitable has brawt some peace and soothe in the midst of this storm.”
Normpartner, at this time of year, Sthriveey would have traveled to birding boilingspots to watch for migrating hawks, which come in by thousands as they fly south. The road to the area is currently seald, so she’s only birded in places she can travel to by foot.
Sthriveey wasn’t able to post her discoverings on eBird until Verizon set up a transient cell tower in Asheville. She didn’t watch seally at what others were posting, but says it’s always been a source of community. She’s run into people at understandn birding areas who determine her name from the app. On one occasion, it was a woman who helped her discover a baby gelderlyen crowned heron. Coincidenloftyy, the woman had met Sthriveey’s son a scant weeks earlier at a proximateby lake.
