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appalachia
Appalachian Apocalypse: Reflections on a Climate Catastrophe
In the aftermath of Helene, we are now all grappling with the realities of a climate that have made such extreme weather events increasingly common.
Oct 07, 2024
In the heart of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, the impending arrival of Hurricane Helene transforms the serene landscape of Asheville and Marshall, North Carolina into a battleground against nature's fury. As heavy rains pour down, rivers swell to dangerous levels, the catastrophic winds from Helene down power lines and crash into houses, residents brace for the worst.
In the aftermath, we are now all grappling with the realities of a climate that have made such extreme weather events increasingly common. This personal account delves into the chaos and uncertainty brought by Helene, offering reflections on resilience, community service, and human connection in a region caught in the throes of a climate disaster.
Wednesday, September 25
Heavy rain begins to fall in the Asheville/Marshall area of North Carolina, where I have lived for 17 years. A cold front, slowed by the high mountains, has brought a flood of precipitation ahead of Hurricane Helene's arrival.
The city of Asheville, situated along the French Broad River, is known for its many yoga studios, artists, and exotic restaurants. Tiny Marshall (population 796), also located along the river, is known for its organic farms, Appalachian music, and the Civil War massacre in Shelton Laurel in 1863.
I imagine a grotesque sight: The Swannanoa River flooding through the windows of Andaaz, my favorite Indian restaurant. The water is a mixed soup of mud, plastic bottles, and pieces of wood.
I stock up on extra candles, a new flashlight, oil for the old-fashioned oil lamps, extra dry food, and fill up about 100 liters of drinking water in anticipation of life without electricity. At midnight, Asheville Airport reports over four inches (10 centimeters) of rain. I imagine that creeks and rivers have already reached record-high flood levels and sleep only a few hours at a time. We had flooding on an island in the middle of the river in 2021, but I know it has never rained so much in such a short time before. I anticipate the worst.
Thursday, September 26
Climate hurricane Helene rages up the mountains from the unusually warm waters off the Florida coast. Precipitation and winds intensify. The neighboring county of Yancey experiences over 8.5 inches (22 cm) of rainfall in just over a day. The rivers, especially the French Broad River, swell dangerously with water from rushing creeks and smaller rivers.
I talk on the phone with my 89-year-old mother in Norway. But suddenly we lose contact. A few minutes later, I go out on the porch and see that a large pine tree has fallen over the power lines. Without electricity, there's no Wi-fi and no water from the well for drinking, cooking, showering, or flushing the toilet.
In the evening, after not being able to call or write to my wife on a study trip in India, I read the classic travel book To a Mountain in Tibet by Colin Thubron by the light of two candles. As I go to sleep, I worry about my mother worrying about me.
Friday, September 27
Helene crashes through the forest around the house with heavy rainfall and strong winds. In the afternoon, I nervously drive down to the French Broad River and see rooftops, car parts, and plastic pipes violently streaming by.
A few days later, I read that Asheville Regional Airport lost communication after recording 13.8 inches (35 cm) of rain in less than 72 hours. That resulted in major flooding in the lowest parts of Asheville and many surrounding villages.
I imagine a grotesque sight: The Swannanoa River flooding through the windows of Andaaz, my favorite Indian restaurant. The water is a mixed soup of mud, plastic bottles, and pieces of wood. I envision Marshall completely underwater, the frozen food section in Madison Natural Foods store submerged in chocolate-colored water and industrial sludge.
I wake up after only an hour's sleep and listen to the strong wind and heavy rain drumming on the roof. I sleep restlessly for the rest of the night. Branches occasionally falling onto the roof. What if one of the large oak trees outside will come smashing through the bedroom ceiling?
Saturday, September 28
In the morning, the wind has calmed down somewhat. I make a primitive oven from flat stones and cook breakfast with pancakes and a compote of berries over the fire. The floodwater in the French Broad River has begun to recede, and the extent of the destruction becomes clearer.
From a friend, I hear that the muddy water reached the roofs of many buildings in downtown Marshall. Some wooden houses were smashed to pieces by the strong currents. I drive around the neighborhood and see that several metal structures from an asphalt company have been swept into the river along with a wooden house. Further downstream, a whole row of houses and trailers have been crushed or swept away by the violent river. Some people chose not to evacuate and disappeared downstream along with their houses. One woman was later found in the neighboring state of Tennessee.
In the afternoon, electricity and running water return to Prama Institute, the retreat center where I work, but not to my home or my neighbors'. (It would take nearly two weeks before power was restored.) Our neighborhood of about 30 adults and children gathers for a warm lunch, the first in several days. I can finally check email and occasionally make phone calls. I receive an email from my Norwegian friend Trond Øverland: "You must be experiencing both tragedy and great solidarity in your area right now."
"Good summary of the situation," I write back.
Sunday, September 29
The radio reports that the death toll has risen to 30, but 600 are still missing. A neighbor tells me that our friend Tom has lost his house in Chimney Rock, a place known from scenes in the movie The Last of the Mohicans with Daniel Day-Lewis. Like many of the other houses, it was swept into Lake Lure.
Over 70 roads are destroyed, and Asheville is only accessible by car from South Carolina. The damage to houses and roads is, according to a politician, "post-apocalyptic." Thousands of anxious, hungry, and thirsty people are without electricity, water, and mobile coverage. On the radio, I hear that tap water may not be available for several weeks, perhaps months in some areas.
Rich or poor, we are all fast becoming climate victims.
I take my first shower in several days, and I feel the guilty pleasure of privilege. As tragic as it is everywhere around us, we are among the lucky ones. We, up here in the now quiet, sunny forest.
Monday, September 30
Governor Roy Cooper inspects the damage from the air and on the ground, calling it "unlike anything ever seen in western North Carolina." The government organization FEMA begins registering residents for assistance as the long rebuilding process starts.
Anthony, a friend from Shelton Laurel, stops by with his truck. Despite a large oak crushing the kitchen in his new house, and his parents' home in the mountain town of Hot Springs now floating down the French Broad River, he is willing to help. He knows of a place in Tennessee where we can buy food and gas.
Later that day, I try my luck locally. But the lines are long at Ingles supermarket, and you need cash. With no open banks, I drive home disappointed. In the afternoon, some neighbors go to Marshall with shovels and rubber boots. They shovel half-meter thick mud out of Madison Natural Foods store and Zadie's restaurant.
Tuesday, October 1
Anthony finally returns from Tennessee with his truck full of vegetables and fruit. We have plenty of rice and beans stored, so we start cooking and serving hot meals to people in need outside our neighborhood.
In the afternoon, I check the propane tank for the kitchen stove; it's only 35% full. With the amount of food we're now cooking, this will only last just under a week. Then we learn that Southern State Gas Company, where we get our propane from, is closed due to flood damage.
We are tired from all the cooking, serving, and the thick mud. We are filled with tragic and despondent feelings from all the destruction. We wonder if we can handle such physical and mental pressure for another day. But what else can we do? We must just keep on keeping on.
Wednesday, October 2
We cook hot food at the retreat center and serve 150 people in an apartment block in Asheville. They are mostly low-income retirees and partially disabled. They are victims of an unevenly distributed economic system and a failed healthcare system. Now they are also climate victims.
I read the following on CNN's website: "Asheville was touted as a climate haven, a place to escape the worst ravages of extreme weather. But Hurricane Helene's deadly path of destruction reveals this North Carolina city, like any in America, was never safe—it's just that memories are short, and the reach of the climate crisis is consistently underestimated."
Rich or poor, we are all fast becoming climate victims.
Thursday, October 3
I listen to a NASA climate scientist, prerecorded from a few days ago and speaking on his own behalf on the news program Democracy Now! He says that none of the news reports have mentioned the connection between Helene and climate change. Well, that's because they've been too busy reporting on the destruction and human suffering. And rightly so.
But today I read the following on Salon.com: "The destruction after Hurricane Helene in Asheville confirms that we cannot hide from climate change. The city in North Carolina was meant to be a climate refuge."
That's true. Since the mid-1990s, hippies, artists, environmentalists, organic farmers, musicians, and yogis have arrived in the area to find Shangri-La. I was one of them. Over the last 10 years, this liberal, progressive, and colorful cultural area was discovered by the more well-to-do from New York and California.
Now the area has become too expensive to live in for many. The restaurant, Airbnb, hotel, and tourism industry dominate the economy. Some talk about wanting to escape to another haven. But as we have painfully experienced in recent days, there are certain problems we cannot escape from. And certainly not from the effects of climate change.
Friday, October 4
Some last thoughts. You may still wonder why our area was so hard hit by what is termed Hurricane Helene. Because we were not just hit with Ms. Helene; we were hit by two weather systems. We had already had days with heavy rain before Helene hit us.
A "perfect storm" of circumstances led to this catastrophe. The ground was already waterlogged before Helene arrived. Thus, two storm systems stalled over the area, unleashing an extraordinary combination of hurricane winds and rain in a relatively small geographic region.
Then the mountainous terrain funneled this massive volume of water into the valleys below. This combination of preexisting saturation, extreme rainfall, challenging topography, and extreme winds toppling trees and power lines created the "ideal" conditions for this devastating disaster.
In this time of crisis, we discovered our capacity to rise together, transforming challenges into opportunities for connection and service.
But why were we not better prepared: You don't prepare for hurricanes in the mountains any more than you prepare for snowstorms in Miami. But that should not be an excuse for not preparing better, for not becoming less dependent on the electrical grid, for example.
During the climate change era—with severe droughts there and rainstorms over here—erratic and extreme weather patterns have become the new normal. According to climate scientists, never-before-seen weather patterns, or extreme ones experienced once every 100 years or so, may now take place every 10-20 years. Or even more frequently.
So, what can we do to combat climate change? Business as usual offers quick-fix solutions through schemes such as carbon capture. But there are no quick fixes. From a larger systems perspective, we need to rapidly move away from economies designed like extractive machines focused on maximum profit and production. Instead, we need economies emerging from and supporting the ecosystems of people, nature, and cultures.
We need political systems supporting regenerative and cooperative communities and regions. While recognizing that humans have basic needs to be met, we must align our economies with nature's processes to support dynamic balance and biodiversity.
In our own, small systems community, we have learned that we should have installed that solar well pump we talked about long ago. It would have saved us from going without water for over a week. It has now been ordered, and it will be installed soon.
We also need more solar generators in our homes to produce electricity for fridges and computers. While some of us already have whole-house solar power, we need to expand that capacity as well.
In this time of crisis, we discovered our capacity to rise together, transforming challenges into opportunities for connection and service. As the storms of the outside world intensified, we turned inward, nurturing our resilience through daily meditation and yoga. These practices became our anchors, helping us avoid the pitfalls of burnout and despair while serving the community at large.
Change on a systemic level requires a holistic approach, one that embraces transformation both large and small, collective and individual. It is about fostering well-being not just for small, exclusive groups, but for the entire community, weaving individual growth into the fabric of collective change and resilience.
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MVP Is Burying the Truth Along With Its Shoddy Pipes
Faced with a troubling report that reveals multiple pipe defects, Mountain Valley Pipeline spins and misrepresents.
Sep 17, 2024
Almost four months after high-pressure water testing blew a
gaping hole in an elbow pipe fitting section of the Mountain Valley Pipeline on Bent Mountain in Virginia, the pipeline operator filed a report with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on August 29 addressing the cause of the pipe failure.
The incident, which occurred on May 1, roughly six weeks before MVP went into operation, was first noted by local land owners, who observed sediment in a nearby stream, reported it to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), and then photographed the burst pipe as it was hauled away a day later.
MVP sent the 43-page report to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) on August 28, a day before the report was filed with FERC. In June, PHMSA and MVP entered into a consent agreement to resolve a 2023 notice of proposed safety order, which had alleged that conditions existed along MVP’s route through West Virginia and Virginia that posed “an integrity risk to public safety, property, or the environment.”
This fight will continue until MVP is held accountable and this ruinous disaster is stopped before the unthinkable happens.
MVP’s report—and the company’s reaction to it—leave more questions unanswered than answered.
But one thing is clear: MVP tried to mislead PHMSA and FERC, as well as the press and the public at large, by including with the report filing a two-page cover letter that downplayed the incident and omitted crucial information contained in the report.
Also troubling—and unexplained—the report went through three drafts, dated July 23, August 1, and August 21. It was prepared by risk management firm DNV GL USA, which described MVP as its “customer.”
MVP provided DNV with a 12.5-foot section of pipe that contained the burst elbow fitting as well as two smaller sections (1.5 feet and one foot) from a “sister fitting” from the same test section.
MVP claimed in its cover letter that the sister elbow fitting was the only piece of pipe along the 303-mile long pipeline that had a “matching pedigree.” It gave no supporting evidence, nor did it even describe what it meant by “matching pedigree,” and DNV did not address the claim, much less verify it.
DNV did tensile tests on the blown pipe and “duplicate tensile tests” on the two samples from the sister fitting. The purpose of the analysis was “to determine the metallurgical cause of the failure and identify any contributing factors.”
DNV concluded that “the elbow fitting failed at the longitudinal seam weld as a result of ductile overload.” Ductile overload is “the failure mode that occurs when a material is simply loaded to beyond its ultimate tensile strength.” That seems simple enough. Indeed, it is almost self-evident. Obviously, the pipe burst because pressure was put on it that was beyond its capacity to bear. But that does not tell you why there was ductile overload.
A Tale of Two Pipes—and Two Defects
DNV reported that “a majority of the failure was at or near the fusion boundary of the seam weld metal and base metal, indicating a lower tensile strength at or near the fusion boundary compared to the base metal and weld metal.”
That brings us to the second goal of the testing: to determine contributing factors. And that’s where the report gets very interesting—and very scary:
Contributing factors to the lower tensile strength at or near the fusion boundary was (sic) softening of the base metal mid-thickness... and possibly a yield strength lower than the requirement as the base metal yield strength of the sister elbow fitting did not meet the yield strength requirement.
Here, DNV is talking about two different defects in the pipe that burst, and a different defect in the sister pipe.
First, there was inadequate tensile strength , which is the maximum stress that can be applied before an object breaks, in the pipe that burst.
Second, there was possibly also inadequate yield strength, which refers to the maximum stress before an object’s shape permanently changes, in the pipe that burst. The evidence for this is that “the base metal yield strength of the sister elbow fitting”—which MVP admitted had a “matching pedigree”—“did not meet the yield strength requirement.”
Of note, the inadequate yield strength of the sister fitting was not in a welded seam, but rather in the base metal of the pipe itself.
Two pipes tested.
Two pipes defective.
Two different defects.
MVP Pipe Fails to Meet Industry Standards
Taking things further, DNV concluded that “the tensile properties of the sister elbow fitting (base metal) do not meet the tensile requirements for MSS SP75 Grade WPHY70 steel at the time of construction as the yield strength is lower than the required value of 70 ksi; the values are also lower than the MTR value of 70.9 ksi.”
As DNV noted, MSS SP-75 requires a minimum yield strength of 70 kilopounds per square inch (ksi). The two sister elbow samples had a yield strength of 63.5 and 66.8 ksi.
In plain English, the sister elbow would be expected to permanently deform at a level of stress below what was required by industry standards, and the elbow that burst would be expected to break at a level of stress below what is required by industry standards.
Presumably, it is not good for any section of MVP to be either susceptible to permanent alteration or, worse, a straight blow out, when subjected to high pressure. The tested pipes were subject to both. It is terrifying, when one considers that MVP carries explosive methane gas—which is pressurized at up to 1,480 psig—that people live well within the pipeline’s blast zone.
Yet Another Defect in MVP Pipes
And it gets worse.
DNV reported that there was a separate problem altogether: The sister elbow pipe’s fracture appearance transition temperature (FATT) value, which is the temperature at which the steel’s fracture appearance goes from being mostly flexible to mostly brittle, was “higher (poorer) than typical when compared to 2018 vintage line pipe steel.” Simply put, this means that the sister elbow DNV tested was more susceptible to cracking as compared to other pipe steel made in the same time period.
MVP Misleads and Buries the Truth
Mountain Valley Pipeline’s cover letter did not mention any of these problems.
Instead, MVP simply said that its pipeline burst on May 1 “due to a manufacturer’s defective weld,” on one pipe elbow. MVP bragged that a sister fitting “was proactively removed… to provide material for a portion of the mechanical testing aspect of the failure analysis,” but conveniently omitted the fact that the second fitting suffered from multiple manufacturing defects. Incredibly, MVP then misleadingly stated that “a single failure,” when there actually were two defective pipes (out of only two tested), was “a negligible fitting failure rate.”
That’s not even accounting for the fact that this was not the only “failure” that MVP experienced during hydrostatic testing. On June 4, a “jumper pipe” burst, sending a geyser of water hundreds of feet into the nighttime sky and then into a stream that feeds into the Roanoke River. Local residents caught the incident on video. MVP has yet to provide a full explanation of exactly what occurred.
As to the May 1 pipe burst, MVP no doubt was betting that reporters would not dig through 43 pages of highly technical material and instead would rely on MVP’s two-page “summary.” And indeed, with one notable exception, virtually all media outlets did exactly that. Many simply reprinted a story circulated by The Associated Press, which parroted a separate blogpost from MVP that noted that the report found that “there was no evidence of external or internal corrosion.”
By highlighting that DNV found no evidence of corrosion, MVP was cleverly suggesting that widespread concern about corrosion of MVP’s pipes is unfounded. However, concerns about corrosion do not focus on pipes, like the ones at issue here, that were installed and buried in 2018. Rather, the danger of corrosion focuses on the fact that most of the pipeline was installed in 2023 and 2024 using pipes that had been baking in the sun for many years after construction was halted in 2018 and thereafter by federal courts and, in one brief instance, by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. In fact, according to federal court testimony from an MVP executive in 2018, the pipe needed to be installed within one year to avoid having the sun degrade its protective coating, which is designed to prevent corrosion.
MVP Wants Everyone to Take Their Word for It
All of this is very troubling. MVP has a long history of flouting the law, as evidenced by the fact that it has been fined millions of dollars and cited for hundreds of environmental violations as far back as 2018 and as recently as last month.
Now MVP wants those who live along the route and others concerned to accept their claim that the sister elbow fitting it gave to DNV for testing was the only pipe among the 2,500 fittings and thousands of other pipes along the route that had a “matching pedigree” with the pipe that burst, whatever that means, despite the fact that no one—not even DNV—has verified or even evaluated that claim.
MVP likewise does not want anyone to wonder why DNV produced three drafts of the report for its “customer,” MVP. Who knows what MVP asked to be added, deleted, or changed between July 23, when the first draft was completed, and August 21, when the final report was done? Nor is there any explanation as to why MVP waited until August 28 to provide the report to PHMSA.
In short, the people who live next to this polluting and dangerous nightmare, as well as the public at large, are left with many questions and very few answers. And regulatory agencies, whose job it is to protect the public, are simply asleep at the wheel.
As Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights Coalition (POWHR), a local advocacy group, commented:
After four months of waiting, communities near the pipe rupture finally have details from MVP on what caused the pipe explosion during testing. The lab hired by MVP blames the rupture on weak steel and a defective weld. This is a pathetically predictable outcome; we know the MVP has used shoddy materials for their rushed construction job on this massive methane pipeline project. This is yet more evidence of the threat MVP poses to everyone along the route, and why the government never should have greenlit this corrupt project.
Appalachia Is Not a Sacrifice Zone
MVP continues to assault Appalachia. Week after week after week, MVP files environmental “compliance reports” that instead reveal environmental noncompliance, as sediment is deposited in once pristine and protected streams. This damage would be illegal but for the fact that Congress and the White House exempted this project from environmental laws by legislative fiat in June 2023. And just recently, MVP revealed that it is working to remedy an untold number of “slips,” a euphemism for landslides, that could rupture a pipeline that crosses 75 miles with slopes greater than 30%.
Being treated as a sacrifice zone, the people of Appalachia are left to protect themselves and each other.
It is the latest chapter in a centuries-old story.
But the people of Appalachia are strong—and they are not alone. This fight will continue until MVP is held accountable and this ruinous disaster is stopped before the unthinkable happens.
Because it is not just about tensile strength and hydrostatic testing.
It is about the people who live there. And the land they love.
And in the end, the people will win.
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Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
Apr 23, 2024
Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
"Requesting an in-service decision by May 23 leaves the company very little time to implement the safety measures required by its agreement with PHMSA," Sims added. "There is no rush, other than to satisfy MVP's capacity customers' contracts—a situation of the company's own making. We remain deeply concerned about the construction methods and the safety of communities along the route of MVP."
Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
"During construction, MVP has contaminated our water sources, destroyed our streams, and split the earth beneath our homes. Now they want to run methane gas through their degraded pipes and shoddy work," Chisholm added. "The MVP is a glaring human rights violation that is indicative of the widespread failures of our government to act on the climate crisis in service of the fossil fuel industry."
POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
"Federal, state, and local elected officials have spoken out against this unneeded proposal to ship more methane gas into North Carolina," said Sierra Club senior field organizer Caroline Hansley. "The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over. After MVP Southgate requested a time extension for a project that it no longer plans to construct, it should be sent back to the drawing board for this newly proposed project."
David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
"FERC has again failed to protect the public interest, instead favoring a profit-making corporation," Sligh added.
Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
"The endangered bats, fish, mussels, and plants in this boondoggle's path of destruction deserve to be protected from killing and habitat destruction by a project that never received proper approvals in the first place," Center for Biological Diversity attorney Perrin de Jong said. "Our organization will continue fighting this terrible idea to the bitter end."
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