Lol that first one was us. Helene made everyone here hate the cops. Ingles is a dead zone now since they had cops guarding their stores while no one else did.
The whole situation was definitely presented differently in the media than was experienced on the ground though. Other than the loss of homes and life, there was a ton of community organizing going on. So many free meals and shared resources from everyone. Whole brigades of dads dusting off chainsaws to go clear roads.
It's actually pretty good in the more "urban" areas. Some major roads are still out, but there are bypasses now. If you came here and didn't go out on the trails you wouldn't even know.
Asheville lost it's arts district, literally washed down the river, Marshall got wiped out, and basically anything along a river or stream was totally destroyed. Hendersonville managed to keep power and water on through the whole disaster so it was kinda a hub for the region (glad the town planners built an underground tunnel network that was used for utilities lol).
Everything kinda went back to normal for people who weren't in the new floodplain pretty quick.