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Tens of thousands of children across the Southeast remain out of their classrooms one week after Helene, the deadliest hurricane to strike the mainland United States since Katrina. They are cut off from academics, friends and stabilizing routines.
Hurricane Helene ravaged school buildings, demolished football fields and killed young children and their educators. Dozens of schools are closed for the foreseeable future.
Even when they reopen, students in the hardest hit regions, like western North Carolina, could face long-lasting academic and emotional setbacks, according to youth development experts.
In North Carolina, where more than 20 public school districts and several charter schools “face significant damage and interruptions,” according to Eric C. Davis, the chair of the state board of education, students and their families are facing “tremendous trauma and hardships.”
Helene’s toll is extreme — more than 230 people have died — but such tragedies are increasingly on repeat.
As the climate changes and storms grow bigger and more frequent, they are disrupting the rhythm of school districts and threatening children’s academics, physical health and mental well-being.
Millions of students have lost crucial instruction time in recent years after hurricanes poured floodwater into schools or tore apart buildings. Schools have had to shutter more frequently during dangerous heat waves because old buildings lack air conditioning. In California, wildfires forced more than 220 schools to temporarily close between September and the first three days of October alone, according to the state’s Education Department.
These disasters can upend students’ lives in and out the classroom, researchers say. Perhaps the starkest example is that of Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in August 2005. An estimated 50,000 students did not return to their classrooms for the entire school year.
Young children process death and destruction in different ways. While many may bounce back quickly, for others, “it could take years to get over,” said Cassandra R. Davis, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studied the effects of Hurricanes Matthew and Florence in the 2010s on children.
Her research found that some students in early grades fell behind academically for over a year. Others showed signs of long-lasting trauma, becoming emotional or anxious during rainy seasons — even months after a storm.
The recovery is often starkly uneven between rich and poor districts, widening inequality between schools. Low-income communities may receive less assistance to help children after a disaster, and families often have less means to flee harm’s way in the first place.
“Even when things may appear to be back to normal, they’re really not,” Dr. Davis said. “Even if cars are on the road and the Waffle House is open, the storm is still heavily within that student.”
In Asheville, N.C., where Helene caused disastrous flooding, it remains unclear when the local district’s 4,000 students might return to their classrooms.
Several teachers are mourning family members who died in the storm, said the district’s superintendent, Maggie Fehrman. Some lost their homes. None of the district’s eight public schools have running water after the local infrastructure sustained “critical damage.” Half lack electricity.
But Dr. Fehrman said the pandemic laid bare “the critical role that schools play in child development,” so the district plans to put on some football or softball games to help students gather until the buildings can fully reopen.
“Kids need normalcy,” she said in an interview. “They need structure. They need time to come together.”
Near Asheville, one campus at FernLeaf Community Charter School was devastated in the storm. Buildings were ripped off their foundations and flooded. Teachers lost all of their books and classroom materials. “Everything was absolutely ruined and destroyed beyond recovery,” said the executive director, Michael Luplow.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he said.
Douglas N. Harris, a Tulane University professor who has lived in western North Carolina and studied the impact of Hurricane Katrina on students, said it all “has to be pretty disheartening” for educators. “They had to go through Covid. Then they had to try to catch students up,” he said.
“And now it’s like, ‘We have to do this all over again,’” Mr. Harris said.
He added that disasters like Helene can be especially damaging because some children might not receive any form of an education for weeks.
“This isn’t Covid remote learning. This is nothing,” he said.
In Buncombe County Schools, the largest district in western North Carolina, with more than 22,000 students, virtual classes are not possible because internet access and cellphone service remain spotty. Dozens of schools still lack electricity, and many have doubled as shelters for paramedics and power crews.
“I wish we could use remote learning. But we just can’t,” the superintendent, Rob Jackson, said at a Thursday news conference. He adding, “We know our children need to be in school.”
Many students in southern Appalachia have no idea when they will rejoin classmates. Some are already growing restless.
“I want to go back to school!” Kingston Lee, 12, said outside an Asheville middle school on Thursday.
The school’s campus now serves as an impromptu distribution center for residents in need, with water and portable phone charging stations. A nearby high school football field had become a makeshift helicopter landing pad.
Kingston’s mother, Raven Echols, 37, said all four of her school-age children were growing fidgety without their classes, friends and sports. Kingston’s 9-year-old brother, Lorenzo, nodded alongside him when asked if they missed their regular routine.
If the district does not reopen soon, Ms. Echols said she may send her children to live with relatives in Washington, Ga., a town about 100 miles east of Atlanta with school buildings that fared better.
“I don’t want them to fall behind,” Ms. Echols said.
Betty Lai, an associate professor at Boston College who studies the effects of the climate crisis, said “the hallmark symptom” for children after disasters is evidence of post-traumatic stress. One study she conducted found that eight months after Hurricane Ike in 2008, more than 40 percent of children reported continued sleep problems.
Research shows that about 10 percent could suffer from “chronic distress” that lasts for a year after a disaster, or even longer, Dr. Lai said.
Still, the vast majority of young people could ultimately recover in short time, she noted.
Kristen Ozuna, 36, said she hoped to get her 5-year-old daughter, Amaya, back into kindergarten as soon as possible to take her mind off the storm. She has made several trips to a local park “to keep her busy” with arts and crafts.
A single mother, Ms. Ozuna might not return to her job until schools reopen because she lacks other options for child care and the popcorn store she works at suffered flood damage. Still, Ms. Ozuna said that she believed children who were born in the pandemic are more accustomed to an uncertain world.
“These kids have been through so much already,” Ms. Ozuna said, while watching Amaya play on a school front lawn. “She is very resilient.”
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