Never mind that nearly 27 million people live in parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Unless you live in a large city in Appalachia, the news media struggle to show up or to report the story with cultural understanding.

Think East Palestine, Ohio, where a train derailed in 2021. The media were slow to show up, and the White House took weeks to acknowledge it. President Joe Biden famously went to Ukraine at the height of the Ohio crisis, and he took a year to show up in the Columbiana County village forever changed by the incident and subsequent controlled burn of toxic chemicals that left still-unknown effects on communal health.

There are a handful of “large” cities in Appalachia, with Pittsburgh being the largest. Others are Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Huntsville, Alabama; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Erie, Pennsylvania; Youngstown, Ohio; and Asheville, North Carolina.

The region also is home to state-recognized Native American tribal communities in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, New York, and North Carolina.

It is here where many of the first plots of land were carved out long before there were colonies or states. Many of the early settlers were Ulster Scots, French fur traders, and native Indians. Some were nomadic, while others were clannish and stayed put, still sitting on the plots of land their families homesteaded.

The terrain throughout the region that follows the diagonal stretch of the Appalachian Mountains is equally breathtaking, but it is also its greatest obstacle to economic success. The mountainous topography and winding roads make it hard to access in person and are often prohibitive to broadband or internet access.

Why is that important? Well, the automation and technology that is now the center of our society aren’t always available here, and even where present, it’s often unreliable. As for transportation on those winding roads, one bad snowstorm or rainfall can bring life to a standstill. Just going from one town to the next involves snaking along creeks, streams, and rivers that can overflow onto the roadway or over mountaintops and rain catastrophic debris on your home or flatten your small town.

In the days since Hurricane Helene hit the heart of Appalachian Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, it has been remarkable to see, once again, the news media barely mentioning the devastating impact that has destroyed a large chunk of the region. As of Monday, there were 116 confirmed deaths as a result of the storm. The hardest hit county was Buncombe, North Carolina, which includes Asheville, where at least 35 people died.

The number of people missing as of publication in one county in North Carolina alone has reached 600. The people have been cut off from the world more than they usually are. Cell service, which has always been well below national averages, is almost nonexistent, and entire communities have been physically cut off because of downed bridges and washed-out roadways. Power is out, access to water and food supply is also cut off, and entire blocks of homes and business districts are now memories.

The images of cars, homes, and bridges being swept away, along with people desperate for water, food, and shelter, have been hard to consume. We are looking at our fellow citizens, our neighbors, and our families, and not understanding where the help is. We also don’t understand where the national news has been, as the story of Helene has earned scant coverage from NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. Only Fox, which has a lot of local affiliates spread out across the region, was on top of the story.

So why is that? Well, in part, this region has no center of power among U.S. cultural curators; no Hollywood studios, only a few corporate headquarters compared to those located in places such as New York and Washington; and no big centers of wealth.

In fact, many people who work in Appalachia are in industries that are in the crosshairs of elites such as Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Kamala Harris. According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, the regional planning arm of the federal government, the region’s top industries are natural gas extraction, mining, manufacturing, and textiles, all of which have been disfavored by various liberal policies.

Nonetheless, despite the lack of political power, the people of Appalachia are more likely to be the first to sign up to serve their country, and they place value in faith, place, and community.

In 2012, when Hurricane Sandy slammed the East Coast and affected New York and New Jersey, the national media covered the devastation that came with it nonstop, and the White House was quick to respond. Conversely, when Oliver Anthony sang his haunting ballad “Rich Men North of Richmond” last year, it was the people of Appalachia of all races, who sang along.

When reports started flickering through X over the weekend about Helene’s devastation, both David Axelrod and Brandon Friedman, former Obama administration officials, immediately pointed to climate change, an issue elites often blame on the very working class who work in the industries they disapprove of.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Climate change is not what people who are trying to survive this hellish disaster want to hear at this moment — but these are the people of Appalachia, they are used to hearing it.

When Anthony’s ballad came out, elites mocked it and tried to tie politics and race to it. What they missed were the words that apply deeply to what is happening right now to the people of Appalachia, and how the world, until forced by social media, has been forced to pay attention, at least for a moment:

“It’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to

For people like me and people like you

Wish I could just wake up and it not be true

But it is, oh, it is”