Sometimes the storm isn’t the worst thing to happen, in a way. It’s the aftermath. The clean-up. The hopeless, overwhelming feeling of “where do we even begin?” The helplessness of losing everything is traumatic, to say the very least.

Even if your home is mostly undamaged, the trees and power lines down, roads unmanageable, and water lines cut will take much longer to put right. Life won’t even begin to get back to normal for a long, long time.

Now, over in North Carolina, some parts of South Carolina, and Tennessee, folks are stunned by the devastation in the wake of Helene. Some smaller towns are completely gone, and with them, all the memories attached to homes, keepsakes, and personal treasures those people held dear.

But not all of the damage is physical.

The mental and emotional trauma in losing everything and having to start over is a painful burden which will be carried for years and leave scars for a lifetime.

Please keep these people in your thoughts and prayers. They need help and will for months to come.

Stay safe, be healthy, but most of all, be kind.