Seeking guidance, Jackson County Public Library board members met with County Manager Kevin King last week hoping to learn more about what, exactly, the lame-duck advisory board should do to prepare for operating an independent library over the next nine months. 

As on any other rainy late summer morning in Southern Appalachia, the sun rose over densely wooded, knobby green peaks cloaked in a thick downy mist.

At a large, nondescript warehouse off Swannanoa River Road just outside downtown Asheville, it may have looked like any other day — workers bustling about, trucks coming in and out — but for MANNA FoodBank, which fights food insecurity in a historically poverty-stricken region by serving up to 190,000 people a month, this day would be unlike any other for perhaps the last thousand years. 

Five days isn’t enough time to process a disaster like Hurricane Helene, yet as uncertainty swirled and rescue operations still played out across Western North Carolina, Dogwood Health Trust’s 16 board members found whatever internet they could, got on a Zoom meeting and approved $30 million in grants to organizations providing vital on-the-ground services. 

It was a time and a place, and now that place is gone.

Or is it?

I came across some version of that idiom about time and place a few months ago, just as we at The Smoky Mountain News were beginning to discuss how to cover the one-year anniversary of Helene’s historic and deadly impact on this place we call home.

To the Editor:

The Congress has to finalize the Big “Bad” Bill (for most of us) by Oct. 1 or face a government shutdown. This means Congress still has the rest of September to “fix” the worst parts of this bill if they want to before the final vote by Oct. 1. 

Nearly a year after Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina, the federal government still hasn’t delivered on the money it promised to local governments. With the one-year anniversary looming, towns and counties say most of their needs remain unmet, forcing them back to Washington yet again, to beg for help. 

For most of its history, Webster’s elections have been sleepy affairs. At times, there weren’t even enough people willing to step forward and serve. This fall, that dynamic looks much different. 

“I’m really excited to see the number of people in this race,” said Dale Collins, an incumbent Webster commissioner who won his last race as a write-in with just 14 votes.

Eligible livestock producers will receive disaster recovery assistance through the Emergency Livestock Relief Program for 2023 and 2024 Flood and Wildfire to help offset increased supplemental feed costs due to a qualifying flood or qualifying wildfire in calendar years 2023 and 2024.

As anger grows over the slow pace of federal recovery funding for Hurricane Helene and Republicans in charge of recovery continue to scramble for political cover, a spokesperson for Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-Henderson) delivered a long list of false claims relating to Edwards’ role in procuring the help — or not procuring the help — Western North Carolina still so desperately needs. 

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians during a Sept. 4 tribal council meeting passed resolution 576 nearly unanimously, converting its $50 million loan — made pursuant to a February 2024 promissory note —- into equity in tribal-owned cannabis retailer Qualla Enterprises, LLC.