This year, the North Carolina Disaster Resilience and Response Network (NCDRRN) proved that survival isn’t about waiting for help—it’s about showing up for each other.
Anita Cunningham and Lily Roth of NCDRRN at the NCEJN Conference in October 2025
When Tropical Depression Chantal flooded central North Carolina in early July 2025, I was on the ground within hours. In North Durham, where the Eno River surged over its banks and covered entire blocks with sewage-contaminated water, I spent weeks helping families whose homes were devastated. We carried waterlogged furniture to curbs, tore out soaked carpets, pried up floorboards, stripped drywall, and cut into collapsing ceilings.
Throughout Durham, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro, faith groups, grassroots organizers, and neighbors mobilized before FEMA arrived. We worked shifts at a community-run resource warehouse in Carrboro, helping families find essentials. Church groups ran demolition crews. Communities raised funds directly for survivors. This was mutual aid in action—relief coming from the bottom up.
The disaster exposed what many of us already knew: North Carolina doesn’t provide state-managed flood insurance, leaving working families with no safety net when disaster strikes. We had to become that support for each other.
Beyond emergency response, NCDRRN spent 2025 building long-term community resilience through organizing and education. We organized five film screenings across North Carolina counties, showing powerful documentaries that expose environmental injustice: “The Smell of Money,” “Burned,” “There’s Something in the Water,” “Freedom Hill,” and “A Pipeline Runs Through It.”
These weren’t passive movie nights. Each screening brought neighbors together to grapple with environmental justice issues in their own towns—from industrial hog farming to water contamination and pipeline construction. After the films, facilitators guided conversations connecting what communities saw on screen to their daily realities. What emerged wasn’t just awareness—it was strategy. Community members identified concrete challenges and began mapping out action plans, from organizing against polluting industries to building mutual aid networks.
We also attended the 2025 Blueprint NC Convergence in Asheville, in partnership with Southern Vision Alliance. The convergence offered invaluable forums, talks, teach-ins, and discussions on power-building, movement safety, disaster response, and more. These spaces deepened our analysis and strengthened connections with organizers across the state working toward collective liberation.
These screenings demonstrated that disaster resilience isn’t just about responding to hurricanes and floods—it’s about addressing the root causes that make our communities vulnerable in the first place.
If this year has taught us anything, it’s that scarcity is manufactured and abundance emerges when we share what we have. Community care isn’t just a response to crisis—it can be the groundwork for a different kind of future. Even in the midst of loss, we’ve found renewed faith that we can overcome the structures that fail us and build a world rooted in connection, care, and solidarity.
Lily Roth of NCDRRN with Kemp Burdette, Cape Fear Riverkeeper, and Jessica Thomas of Duplin County NAACP
The North Carolina Disaster Resilience and Response Network is a grassroots network building community power to respond to and prepare for climate disasters. Learn more at ncsurvivalschool.org.
