I'm Ayesha Roscoe and this is a Sunday story from up first.
Every Sunday we do something special,
going beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story.
Today that story comes from Laura Sullivan,
a correspondent on the investigations team here at NPR,
who was on the ground in western North Carolina last fall,
five days after Hurricane Helene.
Laura, tell us what that was like.
Okay, so first,
you have to understand that as much as 30 inches of rain fell in some places,
and all that rain came slamming down North Carolina's mountains,
just wiping out entire towns.
And when we got there, many homes were like piles of matchsticks.
Tractor trailers were smashed into homes.
There were helicopters carrying pallets of water over our heads to people who were trapped.
Now, you've covered a lot of disasters.
Did this one feel different?
No, that's the thing.
I've covered disasters in Florida, New York, Texas, Puerto Rico,
and each time the type of destruction is different,