Last August, abnormally warm temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico fuelled Hurricane Helene, before it made landfall and unleashed catastrophic winds and rainfall across the south-eastern United States. The hurricane was the third deadliest in American history, after Katrina and Maria, killing more than 220 people across six states.

Among the hardest areas hit was southern Appalachia, where thousands of homes, businesses, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure were destroyed or damaged by landslides, unprecedented flooding and uprooted trees.

Fast forward four months and I received an email from some volunteers pleading for media coverage of the badly hit rural communities in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, which they said were struggling to recover.

More on what I saw, after this week’s climate headlines.

Part of my role as climate justice reporter is trying to understand who gets left behind after extreme weather events like hurricanes and wildfires, so my photographer colleague Thalia Juarez and I spent a few days visiting some of the most affected mountain hollers.

In Barnardsville, North Carolina more than 50 homes, including an entire trailer park, were literally swept away when the usually calm Ivy Creek transformed into a roaring river that engulfed entire neighbourhoods. Thalia and I found displaced families living in donated RVs, sheds and tiny homes – insulated huts without plumbing constructed by volunteers who had come from out of town to help. Four months on, and the creek remains a menacing presence without its protective tree line.

“It changed the landscape of the place. I am 56, and I don’t think this area will recover in my lifetime,” David Crowder, a Baptist pastor whose church became a major relief hub, told me. “We have very poor people living in what are effectively lawnmower sheds and campers … these are mountain people – they are prideful and resilient but you can feel depression setting in.”

In January, Ivy Creek flooded again after only a couple of inches of rain. No one had flood insurance, and we found widespread frustration with the government, especially the federal disaster management agency (Fema) – even among those who have received some financial help. On one mountain, swirling winds brought down hundreds of trees, including four that fell on top of Sharon Jarvis’ house. Volunteers helped remove the trees but the damaged roof needs urgent repairs – which neither the home insurance nor Fema payout will cover. “There are so many loose trees that I don’t feel safe any more; my nerves are shot when it rains, with every gust of wind,” said Jarvis. “It’s unreal how many people have come here to help, when the government didn’t help us at all.”

Scores of rivers, mountainsides and bridges across southern Appalachia still require major engineering work to stop further erosion – and reduce the risk of future floods and landslides. Anxiety levels are high; faith in government is low; disinformation is rife.

About 30 miles south of Barnardsville, the area around the Swannanoa River still looks like a war zone, with trees, broken buildings and crushed vehicles piled high as if time stood still. Donald Trump visited Swannanoa during his second week in office (pictured above), and mused about potentially dismantling Fema just metres away from where the founder of a Christian nationalist militia group has set up camp to spread baseless conspiracies about the US military intentionally causing Helene.

There’s been a notable rise in rightwing and fossil fuel friendly conspiracy theorists spreading falsehoods in the wake of recent climate disasters, with impacted communities bombarded with false messaging designed to sow doubt, Sean Buchan, research director at Climate Action Against Disinformation, told me.

Only one person I interviewed on this trip believed human-made global heating played a role in the devastation caused by the storm, while many are taking comfort from a belief that Helene was a once in a lifetime storm. The science is clear: the intensity of the wind and rain during Helene was supercharged by the climate crisis, and the frequency and severity of such storms will increase if the planet continues to warm. I left Appalachia thinking we have to find more effective ways to communicate this to ordinary people.

Read more:

The good news

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Profiling an inspiring individual, suggested by Down to Earth readers

In 2007, residents of Williams, Oregon came together to figure out how to protect their local area. Almost 18 years later, the Williams Community Forest Project is thriving and its objective remains the same. “The primary goal is to protect our watershed containing streams, forests and wildlife,” one founder, Cheryl Bruner, explains.

The group has three prongs to its strategy, which include sponsoring education on ecological preservation and holding government and industry to account for its treatment of the area. The group also prioritises what it calls “recreation” through the maintenance of the forest. “We have created and maintain the 13-mile Layton Ditch forest trail for the enjoyment of residents to encourage people to have a relationship with the forest,” says Bruner.

In the past, the group have successfully limited the work of the timber industry in the forest, and today are fighting to prevent the clearing of a forest in the larger Josephine County.

Nominated by reader Linda Pace

If you’d like to nominate a climate hero, email [email protected]

Demystifying a climate concept you’ve heard in the headlines

Describes how at-risk people or ecosystems are from the adverse effects of the climate crisis. High vulnerability is often the result of a combination of environmental, social, and economic factors that increase the risk of harm from climate impacts.

For more Guardian coverage of climate vulnerability, click here

One image that sums up the week in environmental news

Credit: Alessio Mamo

As the Ukraine war reached its third anniversary, the Guardian’s Luke Harding, with photographs from Alessio Mamo, looked back on the conflict’s torrid impact on Ukraine’s natural environment.

In the above photograph from the essay, a soldier takes part in a training exercise in one of Ukraine’s many abandoned fields wrecked by shells and military machinery.

For more of the week’s best environmental pictures, catch up on The Week in Wildlife here