As the rain clouds of Hurricane Helene finally receded from the Appalachians, Brian sent me a voice text.
“Caleb, there’s just nothing quite like this… Nothing that I’ve ever seen. I mean… it’s absolute devastation, man.” I heard him get choked up. “These towns… I mean… you can’t even get into Boone right now. Roads are shut down, and water is everywhere…”
He was calling me from his home, dealing with his own flooded basement, but from Hickory, NC, he was looking up at the mountain communities and the absolute destruction they had experienced, worried for the people we both knew and loved there.
I had moved from western NC to Maryland just a couple of months earlier, so my mind flashed to all the rivers and falls of the area, rushing with water, spilling over their banks, toppling trees. But my imagination didn’t quite capture the magnitude of the destruction.
It was the same day Brian called me that I got another call from a friend, who had been woken by a knock on his door at 6 a.m. — a fireman telling him and his roommates they needed to evacuate immediately. When they returned later that afternoon, the river had crested and was running right through their house.
I arrived with my family in tow a couple of days later to volunteer however we could, and I was awed by the destruction. But what really stayed with me after I left was something much more profound: the resilience and generosity of those who were suffering.
This goodness is what our new label from Bright Barrel — Good People IPA — aims to highlight.
The Good People of the Appalachians
I’ve worked as a humanitarian relief worker in all kinds of contexts: war-torn communities in the Middle East, islands wrecked by tsunamis, migrant camps filled with people fleeing collapsing economies, and regions where food and water were scarce.
Some people consider me a hero, but it was simply my job. And what I found time and time again that stood out most to me were the people — the good people — who pitched in and helped their neighbors.
In the Appalachian Mountains, those good people were everywhere.
My first job with the organization I was volunteering with was to drive out, assess the damage, and find places where people needed clean drinking water systems.
In holler after holler, I was greeted warmly by people who would chat for a bit, but when I asked whether they could use our help, they would point further down, telling me that if I drove just a bit farther, I would find someone who really needed it.
It was ubiquitous.
I could meet someone with a tree through their house, and they would say something like, “Well, yeah, it was pretty bad up here… but there’s this community down that’a’ways that just really got it much worse than we did here. I mean, yeah, I might have lost my home, but at least you were able to drive up here.”
As an outsider, it was sometimes challenging to offer help because people were caring so well for each other.
Cardboard signs became symbols of someone giving rather than asking for a handout.
I met firemen who went into work and just stayed — their normal 24-hour shifts stretching into triple digits of hours worked in a row.
A major international aid organization based in Boone, North Carolina, directed hundreds of its corporate employees to show up to work with boots and shovels and sent them straight out into the community.
Churches that were only open on Sundays suddenly became central distribution points, operating 24-hour command centers and offering everything from hot meals to diapers and clothes.
A recently married couple I worked alongside had been on a slightly higher rise from their neighbors in the area that became known as “Ground Zero”: Swannanoa. They quickly swung into action, offering their neighbors refuge and serving up the rest of the food and water they had left in their house.
In another community, once rescue crews finally reached them days later, people were still celebrating a local hero who had set up a Starlink satellite, allowing everyone to connect with loved ones and request support.
Bright Barrel’s New Label: Good People IPA
Our new label, Good People IPA, was carefully crafted by our Bright Barrel Appalachian artists to show the destruction in the mountains — but that destruction simply provides the backdrop for what you truly see when you look at the can: the people who are helping.
It’s the story we want to tell: that what really stands out in the darkness and destruction are those who — experiencing their own devastation — choose to give back.
It will take years to fully rebuild these beautiful mountain communities. With a portion of the profits Bright Barrel receives, we will give back to those in need.