A Dream That Warned Me Before the Storm

Three days before Hurricane Helene made landfall I had a vivid dream — not the fragmented kind you forget at breakfast, but the kind that sits with you like a memory of something that actually happened. In the dream I saw my mother's house in the mountains east of Asheville with water rising around it. I saw her standing at the second-floor window. I woke at 3am and could not shake it. I called my mother first thing in the morning and told her what I had seen. She laughed it off — the forecast at that point was for moderate rain. I pressed her. I told her I felt strongly she needed to go stay with my sister in Charlotte before the weekend. She thought I was being dramatic but agreed, mostly to stop me worrying. You know what happened to those mountains. Her house sustained significant flood damage. The first floor was destroyed. If she had been there she would have been trapped. She calls me every few months just to say she still thinks about that phone call.