The river that runs through Asheville, North Carolina, is littered with artwork drifting downstream after deadly floods from Hurricane Helene decimated the mountain city's arts district, a linchpin of tourism in the area that some residents fear will never recover.

Nestled in the bucolic Blue Ridge mountains of western North Carolina and far from any coast, Asheville was touted as a climate “haven” from extreme weather. Now the historic city has been devastated and cut off by Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic floodwaters, in a stunning display of the climate crisis’s unlimited reach in the United States.

The destruction reveals this city — like any in America — was never safe, it’s just that memories are short and the climate crisis consistently underestimated.

The city is home to the world’s largest collection of weather data. But it’s inaccessible as the federal data center that houses it remains without power.