Since we publish NC State Magazine three times a year, we are usually working on our features pretty far in advance. However, sometimes an event happens that is so important that we have to respond immediately. Such was the case when Hurricane Helene touched down in western North Carolina in September 2024. The magazine staff felt we had to respond in some way, knowing many North Carolina State University community members had been affected. Instead of launching a story that might take a month or so to report, the magazine’s managing editor and Asheville, North Carolina, resident, Chris Saunders, offered his firsthand account of living through the storm and in its aftermath. Choosing a reflective tone, Saunders was able to respond immediately, and as a result we had this story ready in just a week’s time. We posted it online and slated it for a feature in the winter issue. The main idea from the story was Saunders thinking about his move to Asheville in 2020 and seeing that the very Walgreens parking lot he and his family had stopped at during their move was destroyed by Hurricane Helene. The image haunted him until he had to write about it nine days after the storm. That image is the lead image of the feature.
From the Judges
Chris Saunders captured the devastating toll of a storm through one personal narrative in this compelling reflection. We appreciated the balance of memoir and science writing to portray the effects of the storm in two disparate ways.
