I have lived in Asheville since 1999. I lived through the 2004 flood and had friends and clients who lost everything in the River Arts District. At the time, it was such an incredible event that I never imagined something on the scale of what happened in 2024 was possible. Asheville was smaller then. The losses in 2004 were devastating, but the scale was different. By 2024, the River Arts District had been growing for two decades. It had become home to so many more artists, craftspeople, creative brands, small businesses, restaurants, and people who had invested their lives in that community.
Then came Hurricane Helene.
Even now, Helene feels like a movie or a nightmare. It's hard to wrap my mind around the reality of what happened to everyone, even though I saw it with my own eyes. And it didn’t just happen to the people. I remember feeling as if the land were traumatized. The animals. The birds. The trees. The flowers. Everything. Everything could feel the pain of what had happened in some core way that is still hard for me to articulate.
September 27, 2024, was the:
The timing felt synchronistic, and since then, a lot has changed. In the last two years…
I lived for more than a month without water, electricity, and cell service.
I became incredibly grateful for rain barrels.
I realized my partner, Layna, is an incredibly resilient, talented, and strong human. I knew that before Helene, but I know it differently now.
Reminded regularly that chosen family is essential to my survival.
I closed a brand I had built for 14 years alongside incredibly talented, smart, and creative folks.
After 23 years as an entrepreneur, I accepted a full-time job with a nonprofit.
I went back to working from home.
Those circumstances felt difficult, but as time passed they motivated me. I challenged, explored, redefined, and recommitted to my career and work. I cultivated curiosity on every level of myself, personally and professionally. I moved into a deeper state of gratitude. I started taking more time to be with the people I love, respect, admire, and believe in. To tell them who I really am and ask them who they really are. I accepted that it’s okay not to know what’s going to happen next. And somewhere in all of that, I realized that my core mission for the rest of my life is very simple:
Never stop learning.
It's my mantra and my foundation. It's how I will continue to feed my hope and renew my faith in the power of community and people.
There are things about those first days and weeks that I don't think I'll ever forget. One is how profoundly the people around you affect your ability to make it through a crisis. They can make the difference between being swallowed by anxiety, fear, defensiveness, and disassociation or finding kindness, trust, love, and safety. When you experience a disaster like this, you experience a full spectrum of emotions that can feel uncontrollable. But the people around you, whether you know them or not, can help you find your grounding.
Sometimes it was someone sharing information or bringing food or water. Sometimes it was a neighbor checking on another neighbor. Sometimes it was simply another person reminding you, through their presence, that you weren't navigating this alone.
Community became something tangible.
Before Helene, I understood the concept of mutual aid. After Helene, I understood its infrastructure. Mutual aid isn't just an idea or something communities organize after disaster strikes. It is a literal structure made up of relationships, knowledge, trust, communication, people, and systems. And those structures need to be built before they're desperately needed.
Support the people in your community who take the time and energy to build those structures and pipelines of support when disasters aren't happening. Because when a crisis occurs, they make all the difference.
Those people can be farmers and chefs. Massage therapists and firefighters. Musicians and nonprofit leaders. Tourism professionals and public servants. In Buncombe County, even the Register of Deeds office became part of an extraordinary network of information and support.
Resilience doesn't belong to one department, organization, or government agency. Communities need local mutual aid networks and response frameworks that adapt as circumstances change and continuously learn from others' experiences.
The government has an essential role to play in disaster response. But communities cannot afford to wait until a crisis to begin figuring out how people will take care of one another. That work starts long before the storm.
Helene also reinforced something I already believed about tourism and destination marketing. This work is about so much more than attracting visitors.
As DMOs and CVBs embrace larger roles in stewardship, visitor experience, sustainability, workforce development, and economic development, their relationships with local residents become increasingly important.
When disaster strikes, those relationships matter enormously. Destination organizations cannot simply communicate to residents; we have to listen to them and learn from them. No organization will make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time. That's not a realistic measure of community engagement. The people who live in a region possess knowledge that no marketing research report can fully capture.
They know the roads. They know the stories. They know which businesses are struggling and which neighborhoods feel overlooked. They know what makes their community special. And they know how they want their home represented to the people we invite to visit it.
That knowledge matters during ordinary times. During a crisis, it becomes invaluable. The relationships destination organizations build with residents, local businesses, community organizations, hospitality workers, government agencies, and regional partners aren't simply stakeholder relationships. They're part of the community's connective tissue. Building trust before you need it matters.
My relationship with the place I call Asheville runs deep. I always say I've been with my partner since 2001, but the longest #LTR of my adult life has actually been with Western North Carolina and my sweet mountain city. I've always felt connected to this Appalachian land, the people I've met here, and the consistently unique, creative, and delightful vibe our community can conjure, even during times of tremendous change.
My relationship with Asheville is a story of belonging. There have been moments over the years when I've questioned whether that belonging was still there, and somehow, Asheville has continued to answer me with a resounding yes.
Helene changed this place. It changed people I love. It changed businesses, neighborhoods, landscapes, careers, plans, and lives. It changed me, but it didn't erase what makes this place home. It strengthened it.
So it’s been two years since all this change started to happen, and I’m just now able to share my thoughts with others. It has taken time and patience for my heart, mind, and soul to process, but making space for myself has allowed me to ask important questions and listen carefully.
Some experiences make you crave a deeper connectivity to what it means to feel alive. It’s affected my friendships, my marriage, my work day, my professional goals, my civic engagement, and how I love and care for myself. It’s invited me to rethink my beliefs, values, feelings, and perspectives.
Tourism and hospitality go far beyond the number of heads in beds, visitor spending, and dollars saved by each household. Those numbers matter. Economic impact matters, but they're not the whole story. A trip is worth remembering when you feel like you were in the right place at the right time. When you experience that little bit of magic and romance of being where you’re meant to be. When a stranger makes you feel welcome. When someone tells you a story you carry home. When a place becomes part of your own lived story. That's what tourism and hospitality can create for people.
When we create those experiences for others, we aren't simply helping them take a trip. We're helping them tell the stories of their lives. Maybe that's one reason this place means so much to me. Asheville has been part of my story for more than 25 years. It has taught me about entrepreneurship, creativity, friendship, love, loss, reinvention, community, resilience, and belonging. Helene is a chapter I wish none of us had to write, but this land and the community are still holding me. And I'm still learning and still so delighted to call these mountains home.
About the Author - Sarah Benoit
Sarah Benoit is a marketing strategist, technology expert, and adult educator passionate about helping destinations, nonprofits, tourism businesses, and purpose-driven brands connect with their audiences through authentic storytelling and innovative digital marketing. Since 2003, Sarah has spent more than two decades helping organizations navigate emerging technologies, build meaningful relationships online, and develop sustainable marketing strategies that drive measurable results. As Lead Instructor at Learn Tourism, she is a sought-after speaker and trainer specializing in digital marketing, AI, social media, community engagement, and leadership. She empowers professionals to embrace change and lead with curiosity, creativity, emotional intelligence, and confidence. Through her work, Sarah champions lifelong learning and believes that technology is most powerful when it strengthens human connection.
About Learn Tourism the nonprofit academy...
Learn Tourism is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the tourism industry through innovative educational practices and professional development initiatives. Our mission is to harness the power of science, business psychology, and adult education to build sustainable economies and enrich the tourism landscape.