Thread by @magpiekilljoy

Disaster compassion is real. Here are some things I've seen today and yesterday in Western North Carolina:

The Asheville Tool Library and a repair clinic teamed up behind firestorm to fix countless broken generators and chainsaws, just folks sitting around on their trucks fixing two-stroke engines, cheering as each one starts running and then goes out to where it can save people

Appalachian Medical Solidarity and countless unaffiliated medics and doctors running a free clinic outside of a punk bar under tents and easy-ups, connecting people to meds and first aid supplies

I drank unlabeled canned water, because there are countless breweries around here and at least some have turned their equipment to canning water to get it out to where it needs to go

I met some college students (I think) with a hatchback who are running back and forth 90 minutes to the most reliable gas stations multiple times a day with gas cans, giving away gas to anyone who needs it, prioritizing the people doing mutual aid

I met a man from a permaculture farm who has water equipment so he drives up the mountain to a spring above the flood contamination and fills water tanks, delivering 55gallon drums with spigots he makes and then returning to fill them up.

His truck doesn't have a working fuel gauge and it was still hard to convince him that he should accept free diesel for the work he's doing. He's convinced someone else might need it more than him.

A woman I met years ago because she's in a radical choir wrote instructions for how to make and use dry toilets, in English and Spanish, and set up to give away instructions and toilets. She thought she'd give away the 3-4 she brought. 2 hours in, when we talked, it was 20...

because people saw what she was doing and brought her 5 gallon buckets and pipe insulation (for the seat), and meanwhile a man with a saw mill had been driving around with saw dust thinking "I bet someone will need this sawdust for dry toilets."

Crew after crew of volunteer delivery drivers showed up at all the central supply dropoffs to load up and bring them to the more isolated communities that don't get as many donations, such as poorer neighborhoods in the cities and more remote areas in the hills.

I met someone who has spent the past few days driving around back roads on a dirt bike, connecting people and delivering supplies.

All I can think during all of this is that... disaster compassion is real. And also? Human compassion. We are wired to take care of each other. People are struggling, tired, nervous. They're also hopeful.

I'm seeing a biased sample, of course: people who can make it into town for supply runs, or who were waiting to receive supplies we drove to them. But mutual aid relief funds and supplies are pouring in and it's being used, and I am seeing people well, smiling.

There is a carnival air to the disruption of the status quo.

All I can think though, is that we could live like this.

We could fix each other's shit, we could give each other things, we could talk to our neighbors, we could check in on each other.

It takes organization. What's happening is grows out of grassroots organizing that goes back decades. It's organic organization, not simply raw chaos. It's directed. It's wielded. No one person or group is in charge or coordinating, but instead people are doing it together.

And again: I feel so terrible pointing out the positives, because the harm is ongoing and has not been alleviated. People are trapped. People are dying. People need help.

I've left NC now because I am on book tour. But next week's Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is going to be about all these folks in NC who are helping each other out.