Local educators reflect on the lessons learned from Tropical Storm Helene

by Clark Wilson

Elzy Lindsey, a middle and high school math teacher in his 19th year with Asheville City Schools, awoke the morning of Sept. 27 to see a sycamore tree on fire in his Montford neighborhood. An exploded transformer had ignited the tree’s branches, and the fire was extinguished only after the sycamore crashed down upon a neighbor’s roof.  “It was easily 30 feet high, just on its side, and basically blocked the entire street,” Lindsey recalls. 

For Kaeta Seimer, a second grade teacher at Weaverville Elementary in her seventh year, it was the silence that signaled something was amiss. “We sleep with a sound machine, and so I remember waking up because the power had gone out and it was too quiet,” Seimer says. 

Meanwhile, Jessica Bragdon, a high school earth and environmental science teacher at The Franklin School of Innovation, recalls the anxiety she felt in the days leading up to the storm. That Wednesday, she spent a sleepless night listening to sheets of rain beating down on the roof of the primitive cabin she was staying in as part of the school’s annual ninth grade trip to the Green River Preserve. The impending Friday storm forced the staff and students to hastily return home first thing Thursday morning.

With the new year upon us, Xpress recently caught up with these three educators to reflect on the demands our local teachers navigated in the immediate aftermath of Tropical Storm Helene and how they’re using what they’ve learned from the previous three months to inform the remainder of the 2024-25 school year. 

‘Emergency mode’  

Like many Asheville residents in the days immediately following the storm, Lindsey determined his best option was to seek supplies and relief outside of town. Ironically, this led him back to his hometown of New Orleans, a city he left 19 years prior in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, after he and some 4,000 other displaced teachers were dismissed by the Louisiana legislature. Despite his visceral experience with the 2005 storm, Lindsey reflects on feeling unprepared for the devastation wrought by Helene. 

“This was very different,” he says. “I thought it was going to be kind of like where Biltmore Village and maybe the soccer field would flood. But I didn’t expect this at all. When I got to New Orleans, I found out Asheville was now a nationwide story.”

What followed was nearly a month without classes, replaced with tenuous days of upheaval and uncertainty. Despite initial challenges caused by service outages, the educators who spoke with Xpress say school leaders worked diligently in verifying teachers’ well-being while they extended similar efforts toward their students.

“You just hit emergency mode,” Bragdon says. “Our No. 1 mission was to contact students’ families to see if they were OK. … I’ve been a teacher for 23 years, and I’ve had to do memorial services for students we’ve lost [in the past]. We were very lucky we didn’t lose any [during Helene].” 

At Weaverville Elementary, Seimer had a similar experience. “As soon as cell service came back, it was like ‘Go through your roster and call everybody,’” she recalls. 

Back to school   

In the post-COVID world, educators and families understand more than ever the lasting impact a prolonged disruption to learning can have on students. But during the worst of Helene, little from the COVID-era playbook was applicable for trying to continue any form of learning. 

“In a lot of ways it was actually more of a disruption than COVID because during COVID we had these set rules, and yeah, it wasn’t comfortable, but we knew everybody was going to be remote and we were going to have a system,” Bragdon says.

But during Helene, she continues, “it was really difficult to get a system when you had people that were not even in town, you had people who were leaving for resources and you had people who didn’t have a home.” 

When schools finally announced reopening dates, teachers were relieved but also apprehensive, knowing students’ capacity and needs would vary widely in the aftermath of the storm. In a profession heavily dependent on establishing consistency and routine, Seimer didn’t know if her second graders would essentially be starting over. “We were basically out of school for the same amount of time we had been in school,” she says. 

Lindsey agrees, saying that in his freshman math class, “I had just gotten them ready to use all the algebra basics, and that’s when the storm hit. ” 

Balancing students’ social-emotional needs with a practical recognition of how dramatically the school year had been truncated required a deft touch, these educators say. 

“I definitely try to relate my personal experiences as a teacher,” Lindsey explains. “Every kid knows my Katrina story — I think these stories are important so [students] have an appreciation and understanding of me as a human being. But, I also let them know we aren’t going to sit around and not do school. ”

New normal   

Despite the severity of the storm, the educators who spoke with Xpress say their students’ first days back were predominantly joyful experiences. 

Of her second graders, Seimer says, “they were just really excited to be back in the school environment and getting to be in a routine. I was pretty impressed with them getting back into the swing of things.” 

Bragdon recalls a similar response. “I was afraid that coming back to the classroom the kids were going to be disheveled like they were with COVID [but] they weren’t. They were appreciative to be back in the school and to go back to normal.”

Still, schools recognized the need to manage the pace of returning. Both county and city schools initially returned with modified schedules, granting families later start times and shorter days. Seimer says this approach was helpful to her second graders in readjusting. “The day we got back, I was like, OK, we’re going to do extralong morning circle time, and I’ll give everybody the floor to share if they want to share something,” she recalls. 

And just as masks and social distancing signs were the signifiers of a new normal back in 2021, taped off water fountains, crates of prepackaged water and countless forgotten, half-empty bottles were the ubiquitous icons of making do after Helene. 

“The sound of a crinkling water bottle is an ever-present din around our building,” Lindsey says with a laugh. 

However, water access was also a rallying point for meaningful partnership. Bragdon says of her experience at The Franklin School of Innovation, “This is the first time I’ve seen charter schools and public schools work together. The county said ‘OK, we have bottled water and we will ship it and bring it to you so that everybody has access to water and can go to school.’”

Looking ahead

Despite teachers’ attentiveness to their students’ emotional well-being, the educators who spoke with Xpress say there is always the imperative to deliver content, stressing that most classes are beholden to covering statewide standards.  

In her advanced placement earth/environmental sciences class, Bragdon saw an opportunity to connect her lessons with everyone’s shared experience. “One of the standards for the AP class is that they need to know about water treatment,” she explains. “[Post-Helene] was a good example for my class about the importance of the EPA, or any environmental protection agency, and how in situations like this, there is a national standard..” 

But continuing to acknowledge the storm’s impact on the students’ learning remains important. For Lindsey, making time to address the most essential math standards has required some experience-based discretion. “What I ended up doing was ‘Nice to Know’ and ‘Need to Know.’ But I also hipped them to the process. I let the students know that I understand how much they can handle on a daily basis and they trust me, because it is about trust.” 

For Seimer, the final three months of 2024 were a mix of complex but rewarding work. And at the end of the day, she says, “I was just very pleased with how happy everybody was to be back and that my kids just seemed happy to see their friends and be back in a routine. That was a big early win.” 

Lindsey adds, “There is so much individual responsibility on a teacher. What a person in this position has to do in times like these is make really informed decisions about what these kids need to learn to be able to go on to their next class, to minimize the learning loss and instead maximize the learning opportunities. And to make it so that our students are going to be successful in the future.”