By Bret Yager
Appalachian State University researchers continue to grapple with the damage, lessons, and opportunities of Hurricane Helene. Aimed at drawing community input for real solutions to problems surfaced and made worse by the storm, multiple projects spanning science and art are funded by the North Carolina Collaboratory and App State's Office of Research and Innovation, and aligned under ORI's Western North Carolina Research for Recovery and Resilience (WNC R3) initiative.
"These projects are striving to improve the resilience of communities and infrastructures in Western North Carolina, so that we are not just building back, we are laying the groundwork for increased quality of life and disaster preparedness in Western North Carolina and beyond," said principal investigator Dr. Katie Shoaf, associate director of Grants Resources and Services in the Office of Research and Innovation.
The following projects offer snapshots of resilience efforts two years after the worst storm in the region's modern history.
Western North Carolina Resilient Power Project
When storm-impacted residents crowded into schools for shelter, water, and other support, it highlighted the vital role of public facilities in times of disaster. Now, App State is engaging counties, towns, and schools in coordinated efforts to armor key sites with resilient power systems as they look ahead to next time.
Dr. Jamie Russell and student researcher Mary Grace McMillan have boots on the ground across High Country communities. To create and keep momentum toward resilience, they are conducting targeted assessments combining technical and cost analysis to lay the foundation for microgrids and related resilient power systems. It's legwork that smaller rural governments often lack the resources to accomplish, and it's the type of groundwork that moves such projects out of the abstract while paving the way for community buy-in and grant funding.
Russell is working with stakeholders at a half dozen sites at varied stages in this process, examining photovoltaic, battery storage, and backup power generation options. In the town of Sparta, stakeholders are keen to ensure a community center in the Emerson Black Building stands strong against flooding, ice storms, and earthquakes. Community members would also like to open educational space for tiny home construction and workforce development.
The collaboration draws in the public schools, Wilkes Community College Alleghany Center, and county government — and is similar to other efforts Russell is leading in Mitchell, Yancey, Avery, Watauga, Ashe, and Wilkes counties.
"There is a huge need for technical assistance in rural places with less resources. It's a win-win if we can help with that," said Russell, director of the Appalachian Energy Center and a professor in the Department of Sustainable Technology and the Built Environment.
The projects that feature entrepreneurial components have the potential to be funded by a $500,000 pending grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.
McMillan, a senior geography major from Waxhaw, said her research has given her technical insight into how microgrid systems operate and allowed her to apply knowledge to modeling and optimization efforts. She is developing a map of vulnerability using power outage data, conferring directly with community members on their needs, assessing natural hazards, and developing site maps.
"It's been a great experience to work with stakeholders and understand how energy resilience can support these communities," she said.
Scoping a WNC Data for Regional Resilience Research and Coordination Network
True not just in the region but more generally, critical information about severe weather impacts, floods, landslides, vulnerabilities, and infrastructure systems is often fragmented, held by various agencies and jurisdictions, but not integrated for maximum value. Led by Grace Plummer, managing director of App State's Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics, a research working group now in development has a key goal of assessing how data integration can strengthen decision-making in small mountain communities.
"Hurricane Helene exposed significant gaps in how Western North Carolina communities access and use data to inform infrastructure and resilience decisions," Plummer said. "This makes coordinated long-term planning difficult, particularly for small and rural communities."
Key steps ahead for the initiative include engaging planners, emergency managers, state agencies, and other stakeholders to identify important challenges to decision-making; a structured review of the region's key resilience-related datasets; and preliminary identification of gaps, redundancies, and barriers to data sharing and use, Plummer said.
"The project will establish a faculty working group to test methods, build relationships, and develop an initial framework for how improved regional data coordination could support infrastructure investment, hazard mitigation, and policy decisions," Plummer said. "Focusing on the realities faced by small, rural jurisdictions, this effort will help inform how future resilience strategies and data-coordination efforts can be accessible, scalable, and grounded in real-world needs."
Community Health Needs Assessment After Hurricane Helene
Hurricane Helene's effects swept through schools, hospitals, and workplaces, with a significant toll on emergency responders and caregivers. A new community health needs assessment centers the region's caregivers and how they navigated school disruptions, healthcare access challenges, and childcare needs, as well as the exhaustion and burnout associated with sustained disaster recovery. With community input, the project team led by Sophie Ryan, Dr. Maggie Sugg, and Dr. Adam Hege has developed, tested, and piloted the caregiver needs survey and is now recruiting eligible caregiver participants across the region.
"Our findings will document caregivers' lived experiences following Helene and help identify actionable, tangible solutions to better support caregivers and families with school-aged children, not only in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, but throughout long-term recovery," Ryan said. "This assessment is particularly important given ongoing stressors compounding with Helene's recovery, including winter weather school closures and the permanent closure of childcare centers in the region."
Lost Province Center for the Cultural Arts Summer Internship
Without concerted curation efforts, the many personal stories of overcoming disaster can be scattered, their value lost. The arts are a key way these narratives are memorialized and perpetuated. Trevor McKenzie '10 '12, director of the Center for Appalachian Studies, spearheaded a summer 2026 internship initiative designed in part to collect these narratives before they vanish, with significant contributions from Appalachian studies graduate student Nina Nicholson '25.
The internship strengthened an ongoing community partnership between the Center for Appalachian Studies and the Lost Province Center for Cultural Arts in Lansing, McKenzie said.
"Nina was invaluable in helping coordinate and promote Lost Province's classes, programs, and the Fly Around Music Festival, founded as a relief event post-Helene," McKenzie said.
The internship accomplished:
A collection of community oral histories for the ongoing Buddy Holler Studios' Ashe County local history documentation project
Logistics, promotion, and operational support for the Fly Around Music Festival
Marketing of classes and workshops held at Lost Province
Plans for classes and workshops
"These community-campus partnerships are vital to Appalachian studies and provide pathways for students into meaningful roles that both sustain and reimagine opportunities for cultural arts within mountain communities," McKenzie said. "Lost Province's transition from a relief station during Helene back to promoting and providing space for traditional arts is one that illustrates the reemergence and viability of traditional skills as we navigate towards a resilient future for Appalachia's communities in the 21st century."
Echoes from the Mountains: Strengthening Student Resilience After Hurricane Helene
Echoes from the Mountains is a research-informed writing and professional development project that taps the power of storytelling to heal in the wake of disaster. Led by Dr. Rachel Nave-Lewis and Dr. Kathryn Watson, both of the Office of Rural Promise, the initiative engages 40 Western North Carolina teachers who pave the way in sharing their own experiences through story and then draw in their students, who participate through writing and research activities.
"Echoes from the Mountains is about Appalachian State creating space for Western North Carolina educators and students to tell their own stories," explained Nave-Lewis, the assistant director of curriculum and instructional design for GEAR UP.
Classrooms across Ashe, Buncombe, Burke, Henderson, Madison, McDowell, Transylvania, and Watauga counties have engaged with the project.
"It uses research-informed writing, teacher professional learning, and storytelling to explore how educators and students make meaning, strengthen belonging, and cultivate resilience following Hurricane Helene," shared Dr. Watson, assistant director of research and evaluation for GEAR UP.
The project has developed resources for educators, and teachers who have completed the program's professional learning are now moving the work into their classrooms, Nave-Lewis said. Teacher reflection and data collection are in progress, and steps ahead include development of a writing anthology; a student, partner, and educator-engaged celebration; and dissemination of project results.
A proposed phase for 2027 would continue the research, add high school educator and student participation, and expand dissemination of the project.
"It's ultimately about what happened after the storm," Nave-Lewis said. "It is about educators returning to classrooms while carrying their own experiences of Helene; students finding words for change, belonging, community, and hope; and the role schools play in helping communities recover and reconnect."
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About the Office of Research and Innovation
Appalachian State University's Office of Research and Innovation supports the scholarly and creative activities of App State faculty, staff, and students by expanding access to and facilitating the management of research opportunities. The office consists of four units: Grants Resources and Services, Sponsored Programs, Research Design and Analysis, and Research Protections. The office also collaborates with the university's Special Funds Accounting on the fiscal management of awarded projects. Learn more about the Office of Research and Innovation
About the Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics
Established in 2008, Appalachian State University's Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics (RIEEE) fosters interdisciplinary research on sustainable solutions to complex problems. RIEEE enhances the research enterprise by supporting faculty in synthesizing and pursuing their visions for high-impact research, developing institutional capacity for collaborative productivity, building shared research infrastructures, and multiplying opportunities through the growth of transdisciplinary networks. Learn more about RIEEE