Special Collections Team Nets Prestigious Awards for Come Hell or High Water Project

An extensive and ambitious project aimed at recording the devastation Western North Carolina suffered during Tropical Storm Helene continues to garner attention and awards. The talented team at Buncombe County’s Special Collections diligently and respectfully curated a grassroots collection of stories about loss and survival in the aftermath of our region’s most devastating natural disaster. The mixed-media approach authentically represents the horrors and humanity of Helene and provides a way to preserve, share, honor, reflect, and facilitate the healing process for those affected while giving outsiders a glimpse into the realities of a catastrophic natural disaster. And for this monumental undertaking, the Come Hell or High Water project continues to receive accolades and praise.  

Most recently, the community memory project was the recipient of the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County’s Griffin Award for the research, publication, and education category. And the Historic Resources Commission of Asheville and Buncombe County tapped the archive for its Historic Resources Champion Award. Special Collections Manager Katherine Cutshall says her entire team, project manager Emily Cadmus, the Friends of Special Collections, and countless community members all played a significant role in making this initiative a success, which gathered more than 1,000 accounts of Helene via written and oral stories, songs, pictures, zines, poems, emails, screenshots, and other means of storytelling.  

“In the aftermath of Helene, the Come Hell or High Water project stepped into the silence of our collective trauma to ensure that our history would be written by our people, not just our statistics,” explains Katherine. “What began as a local response to the disaster of 2024 has become a national model for trauma-informed archiving, garnering attention from NPR to the Getty Conservation Institute. By integrating these records into the County’s official recovery plan, our team has successfully bridged the gap between grassroots storytelling and official history.” 

In fact, Katherine was invited by the globally renowned Getty Conservation Institute and the City of Los Angeles to present how Come Hell or High Water created a successful template for community-based cultural heritage and resource mapping projects. “It has been exciting to share our project with both the public and others in our field. The feedback we've received is so encouraging and validating,” says Katherine. 

Gathering narratives that are emotionally charged is a delicate process, and Katherine says her team is profoundly grateful the community has trusted them with this project. “It’s an honor to be able to steward for future generations these stories of loss and survival; inspiring examples of heroism, cooperation, and fortitude; and thoughtful descriptions of the many challenges and emotions that accompany recovery,” she says. “Even relatively early on (for a historic resource) the stories held in this digital memory bank have been used in various ways: for community members to reflect on our collective experience, as well as for researchers both within and beyond WNC to understand what happened during and after Helene, and plan for the future. A few examples of research uses so far have included studying the archive to inform public health recommendations, improve weather communication, and develop community resilience.” 

The project is currently in a maintenance phase and still receiving some submissions. It will be the focus of an upcoming presentation and panel discussion about documenting natural disasters with web archiving during a virtual event hosted by the Internet Archive. It’s also been the subject of conferences hosted by the Public Library Association and the Society of North Carolina Archivists.  

Thank you to all the talented members curating these important testimonies and for the generosity and vulnerability of all those sharing their stories. The Buncombe County Special Collections team is Carissa Pfeiffer, Jenny Bowen, Kathy Hill, and Katherine Cutshall. 

Additional praise for Come Hell or High Water

“My family, friends, and neighbors are profoundly grateful to be where we are today, and I am thankful for the Come Hell or High Water community archive. I see it as more than a collection of images—it is a living record of resilience, a safeguard of memory, and an enduring reminder of the history we all share. Its preservation, thanks to you and your team, ensures that future generations will understand not just what we endured, but also the strength of the community that carried us through.” —Come Hell or High Water contributor Mark Bastin, email received October 2025  

“Your project quickly caught our attention because it displays an excellent combination of purpose—truly inspiring—as well as collection, and visualization methods.  It also shares some common goals with [our upcoming project]: offer the community who has experienced loss and displacement a pathway to come together for reflection and healing.” —Getty Conservation Institute 

Left to right: Katherine Cutshall, Ami Worthen, Elizabeth Garland, and Todd Gragg

Left to right: Jenny Bowen, Cariss Pfeiffer, Emily Cadmus, Susan Kraft, Catherine Amos