People frequently ask Bill McKibben where they should move to survive climate change. He tells them to live anywhere that they have neighbors that they can count on.
I said that my evil plan was to retreat from South Florida to my folks' house in Western North Carolina during the peak of hurricane season—and then Hurricane Helene walloped Western North Carolina! Our neighborhood, which is populated mostly by senior citizens, was lucky. The high winds knocked over many trees, which took out lots of power-lines, yet no injuries occurred, and only one house and zero vehicles received damage. The waters of Country Creek rose to levels residents had never seen before, but the houses stayed dry up on the ridge. Between washouts and fallen trees, our neighborhood woods trails (which were volunteer passion projects led by my mom), will be impassable until they get some professional attention. Before the storm, I was in our woods tethering benches (handcrafted by some of our crafty neighbors) to prevent them from washing away. I didn't get any photos or videos of the hurricane in action because when I awoke at 3:00 AM on Friday, September 27, to swirling winds and trees swaying like breakdancers, I rushed to fill containers with the last remaining trickle of water from the pipes; by 3:30, running water and electricity were out. Three miles away, the French Broad River overflowed much more dramatically than our Country Creek. 
Post-hurricane, neighbors came together for a spontaneous work party to clear fallen trees from the roadway, using any hand or battery-powered tools we had. My brother Carl (who was visiting from Boston) and I rushed to join, armed with sawzall, pruning shears, and baseball bat (which he likes to use to break dead limbs). Throughout the hurricane aftermath, residents of our street have helped each other find drinking water, matches, non-perishable foods, and other essentials. A neighbor with a generator kindly offered my family and I the opportunity to charge our electronic devices, and he ran an electrical line to the home of another neighbor who sleeps with a CPAP machine. On Monday morning, I had my first bucket bath since this situation began, and getting clean was a huge morale booster (despite my aversion to cold water). Another morale booster was gathering around a laptop computer at night to watch a video (we had some saved on hard drives, jump drives, and DVDs); Surivorman was relevant to our situation.
My folks' three rain barrels proved to be worth more than their weight in gold, and I also got a lot of exercise hauling buckets of water from the neighborhood swimming pool. (Up the road in Weaverville, large numbers of people filled water containers from Lake Louise.) Our refrigerator was well-stocked, and we ate well by candle-light post-storm. We regained the ability to text and call after a few days of near-total cell phone blackout in North Carolina. On Sunday, we connected to the web for the first time since the hurricane by accessing a temporary cell tower near the Pack Library downtown (at a neighbor's suggestion). By mid-week, after more trucks with bottled water and other supplies had gotten through and more retailers had reopened, post-hurricane life felt less like survival and more like camping (although camping is still a lot of work). I returned to Florida two nights ago feeling that things are stable out by Country Creek. Many communities of Western North Carolina had it many times worse than we did, and their road to recovery is long.
Nowhere is safe from extreme weather, and future events will be worse. Get to know your neighbors if you want to survive.
Photographer Credits: #1: Susan Studlar. #3-4, #7: Carlton Studlar. #9: Donley Studlar. #2, #5-6, #8: Ross Studlar.
