Hurricane Helene came to Western North Carolina on September 27, 2024.

It was early fall. The first trees, sourwoods mostly, had just begun to change. The oaks, which each year turn to deep red at the end of leaf season, were still green.

When the storm came, the ground was already soaked. Unprecedented wind and rain then drastically altered our landscape and lives in ways that will take generations from which to recover. Homes and lives were lost.

And many trees. They say 40% in Mitchell County where I live. Oaks were among the most affected— big, scarlet oaks.

The oaks that fell were as old as our young forests, logged within the last century or so. The wind twisted their leaf canopy, breaking their trunks or uprooting them entirely. The saturated soil failed to hold them.

There was no fall in Mitchell County in the year of Hurricane Helene. After the storm, the world was a carpet of green leaves. The rhythm of the seasons was disrupted. From one day to the next, the canopy was gone.

I spent the storm 3 hours and 4 hardiness zones away, in South Carolina. With widespread outages of phones, power, water, and roads, I stayed away for a month, working remotely at my communications job, doing what I could to help from afar.

As I drove the three hours home at the end of October, I watched the progression of the fall in less affected regions. Just to the south, the mountains were a brilliant yellow.

Back home, the world was largely brown. I slowly returned to my favorite places, each of them a testament to the wind and rain, with piles of trees and branches where once an open cathedral of a forest had stood.

For four months now, I have returned to these places. The winter browns and tans are familiar… But there is a new color in our landscape.

It is the saturated, yellow-brown of the leaves that did not fall. These branches and trees died before turning red and then falling to the ground in the natural way. Those hormones were never released. Those bonds were never broken. The leaves remain connected, as firmly as ever, to their tree or branch, their color a bold note in the winter landscape.

I have become enamored with these lingering remains of that catastrophic day. They help me see the beauty all around us and they give me hope for a recovery that is surprising and good.