Mother Nature can be a cruel mistress. Making landfall as a category four hurricane in Florida, she tore through the Sunshine State with wind speeds of more than 100mph on September 26. But she didn’t stop there. Helene continued her destructive path, cutting across the southeast US and wreaking havoc on communities within Georgia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee.  

Analysts are saying that Helene may wind up being one of the country’s most devastating disasters on record, taking the lives of at least 121 people with hundreds more still missing. A preliminary estimate by Moody's Analytics says the storm could carry an economic cost in the tens of billions of dollars.

Self-storage facilities, which often play a role in recovery, have also taken a hit. U-Haul, which generously offers 30 days of free self-storage disaster relief to people impacted by natural disasters, is no exception. Although the company has 437 U-Haul stores providing disaster relief across multiple states, they’re not immune to the fury of Helene as seen in this photo from a U-Haul facility on Swannanoa River Road in Asheville, North Carolina. The before and after photos are both striking – and heartbreaking.

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