This coverage is also made possible through a partnership between Grist and BPR , a public radio station serving western North Carolina.

Kyle and Ashley Johnson are one of those “opposites attract” kind of couples. She’s a Tennessee mountain girl with a penchant for “screamo” music, raised to buckle down for winter with extra canned goods and a rifle on hand. Kyle, on the other hand, is a polite South Carolina guy with a classic country playlist, whose idea for a first date involved “an extended cup of tea.”

They married in 2019, and their tastes moved closer together over time. What differences remained worked for them. At least until September 2024, when the remnants of Hurricane Helene came barreling toward their home in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

They hadn’t argued much

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