Safe Water Helps Students and Schools After Hurricane Helene

In the United States, we are used to having access to safe, clean water at our schools. But when Hurricane Helene struck in September of 2024, schools in western North Carolina were without water access for months. 

In Asheville, NC, the Category 4 storm devastated the city’s municipal water system. Asheville’s water supply was coming straight from its reservoirs—untreated and unsafe to drink—so residents had to rely on bottled water.  

Asheville High School reopened a month after the storm, providing bottled water for its students and faculty to drink. Derek Edwards is the high school’s principal and has worked in Asheville City Schools for more than 20 years.  

“The storm was honestly traumatic, not just for myself, but for our entire community,” he said. “I literally stood and looked out the windows of my own house, watching trees blow and fall and get blown over. You could hear the cracking and the crashing as it all went down.” 

After the storm, Principal Edwards got to work clearing the road so that he could reach his school. He needed to prepare the campus so that helicopters could land on the football field to transport hospital supplies and provide medical evacuations.  

“We landed two helicopters at a time on the field for five days straight, as fast as they could land,” Principal Edwards said. “It was all really sad and tragic—and yet weirdly uplifting to see how the community came together. Also, people who were not inside our community came…to help us however they could.”  

However, the school could not perform its key purpose of educating students because it did not have access to a basic necessity—safe, clean water.  

Thanks to an outpouring of generosity from friends around the country, Water Mission installed an emergency water treatment system and tap stand outside the school cafeteria. Students were able to fill their water bottles on campus, and they even received five-gallon containers if they needed to bring water home.  

“Water Mission stepped in at a very critical time,” Principal Edwards said. “We had…about 1,800 souls on this campus that we were trying to figure out how we were going to provide water for. That is a lot of bottles of water. We were planning on 4,000 bottles of water each day, which is a logistical nightmare. Water Mission stepped in [to enable us] to filter our own municipal water here on campus.”  

Now that their school has reopened, students are grateful to have safe water on campus that they can easily access as they go from class to class. One student said “Look at that nice, clean water! It's filtering the tap water so we all have water to drink that's not from plastic bottles. Thank you, guys, so much.”

In addition to providing safe water for local schools, Water Mission installed emergency water treatment systems across North Carolina that provided more than 457,000 gallons of safe, clean water. Our team distributed 124,000 emergency water purification packets, more than 1,000 collapsible water containers, and 1,100 generators for families without power. We also addressed spiritual needs through trauma-informed care and resources to help people process the enormity of loss that was experienced in the region.  

Because of Hurricane Helene, students at Asheville High School experienced what millions of children around the world experience every day. This back-to-school season, you can help provide access to safe, clean water for children in rural schools that lack it.