More than 100,000 residents in western North Carolina are now allowed to drink and bathe with water from their home faucets.

It was the regionality and subject matter but also the steel underneath the quiet tale that called it to mind when I spoke to Jennifer Greene, the Executive Director of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association recently,

When something hasn’t happened in more than a century, you can understand why it’s not top of mind for some folks. And then when it happens, you wonder why you didn’t see it coming. When Hurricane Helene dropped a couple of feet of water on the North Carolina mountains over a day or