Communities affected by Helene and Milton celebrate Halloween

The Monte Vista Hotel, in partnership with a local restaurant, held a fall festival on October 26, 2024 in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Credit – Courtesy of Kelley Floyd

KRista Gamble and her family love Halloween. But this year, as her community in Asheville, North Carolina, was still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene — a Category 4 storm that devastated the city last month — she wanted to make sure families in the area would be able to enjoy the holidays.

“It traumatizes a lot of the things that some of these kids have seen or learned,” Gamble said of Helene. “It’s important to let these kids still be kids; they have had a tough month.”

Helene reaches Florida on September 26 and tore through the southeast. The storm destroyed western North Carolina– Nearly half of the deaths from Helene occurred in North Carolina, and 42 in Buncombe County, where Asheville is located, according to The Associated Press. Less than two weeks later, Hurricane Milton hit came ashore in Florida as a Category 3 hurricane, wreaking havoc on communities just beginning to recover from Helene. Officials are still calculating the damage from the two storms, but that’s it estimated will cost tens of billions of dollars.

Gamble says she and her family were fortunate to have only minimal flooding in their basement, but they were without power and running water for a few weeks after Helene struck. Gamble says much of Asheville is still under pressure boil water notice from Tuesday. But as the community has begun rebuilding and cleaning up, people like Gamble are also coming together to help each other find moments of levity, like celebrating Halloween.

North Carolina celebrates Halloween despite Helene

After Helene, Gamble began collecting donations of Halloween costumes, eventually bringing about 150 to a local community space in Asheville, which held a free fall festival on October 27 that includes face painting, candy and a costume ride. Gamble was one of many people organizing costume donations or Halloween events for children and families.

Nearby, the Monte Vista Hotel and a local restaurant, Goldfinch, hosted the first-ever fall festival on Oct. 26, which included Trunk or Treat, hayride and even therapy horses. There were also about 400 costume donations for people to choose from. Everything offered at the event was donated from within and outside the state. The hotel, located in Black Mountain, provided free meals to people in the days after Helene struck, and has been housing people whose property was damaged during the storm and who qualify as survivors with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA has been providing assistance and coordinating assistance to states – such as North Carolina – that were influenced by Helene.

But still the hotel staff wanted to do more.

“None of us thought this would last as long as it has in our small town,” said Chloe Greene, the hotel’s assistant general manager. Black Mountain, like Ashevillewas one of many communities destroyed by Helene – the storm brought serious flooding and damaged numerous properties in the area. Black Mountain is also still under one boil water notice as of Tuesday, according to Greene.

“We just wanted to provide relief to parents who were so concerned,” said Ken Floyd, the hotel’s general manager. He says nearly 1,500 people attended the event.

“We handed out about 200 kilos of candy. And to see the children’s faces light up when they got to pick out their costumes…” Floyd adds. “People got to sit down, relax, have some food and watch their kids just have a good time, and that’s really… what it was all about.”

Read more: How you can help the victims of Hurricane Helene

Morgen Stanzler, like Gamble, wanted to raise costume donations to help the Black Mountain community, where she and her family own a second home. After Helene, she began collecting decor sets for the Monte Vista Hotel’s Trunk or Treat and costumes for the festival’s costume drive.

“I love this place so much,” Stanzler says. “In the wake of a tragedy like this, I can’t rebuild the roads, there’s not much I can do. … (But I wanted to help the community) to just find a little bit of joy in the midst of something that is really devastating.”

After back-to-back storms, Florida residents come together

Shortly after Helene swept through Florida, residents had to prepare for another storm: Hurricane Milton. Officials issued evacuation orders for millions of people in the Tampa area. Although it wasn’t as serious as meteorologists expected, Milton brought more destruction to the state – tornadoes hit parts of the state, and the storm flooded neighborhoods and toppled trees.

In the wake of Milton, Karen Aucoin, owner of an event and wedding venue in LargoFlorida, in the Tampa Bay area, decided to go ahead with her company’s annual Halloween event. Studio 131 has hosted the event in recent years, and this year’s event featured a Trunk or Treat, vendor market and haunted house at the event location on October 13. Most of the event was free; the haunted house had a $5 fee, but Aucoin says they waived it for people who didn’t have it. Between 100 and 200 people came to the event, Aucoin estimates. Studio 131 is also working with local organizations to raise donations for people affected by the hurricanes.

“I just knew that no matter what, we had to do something really good for the community: give everyone a sense of normalcy,” Aucoin said.

Read more: How to Help Victims of Hurricane Milton

Some Halloween-themed events in the area helped raise money for those affected by the storms. Gerry Cachia, in Seminole, Florida, witnessed parts of it significant storm damage of Helene and Milton – hosted this year’s Rotary Club of Seminole Lake Haunted Graveyard event. In the past, proceeds from the event have gone to foster children in the area, but this year the club decided to donate half to hurricane relief efforts.

The Oct. 26 event included a haunted graveyard in the parking lot of a local mall, candy stands everywhere and a costume contest. Cachia dressed up as “The Pumpkin Master” by wearing a suit with pumpkins all over and a pumpkin mask. He had hoped the event would distract people from the impact of the storms and give them some peace. And he says he thinks it did just that. About 1,200 people showed up and the club raised almost $6,000.

The lengths friends and neighbors have gone to ensure children and families can enjoy Halloween are similar to the way communities are coming together in the wake of two brutal natural disasters, people say.

“Neighbors who didn’t know each other are best friends,” says Cachia. “You drive around and there are people who have set up water stations, just people who want to help. There are people driving around the communities with ice and garbage bags and just giving them to people. When you experience such a disaster, it does indeed bring out – it sounds corny to say – but it brings out the good in people.’

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