Hurricane Helene: Bathing and General Hygiene Access Tips for the Asheville Area

Asheville is Sauna House’s first home, where we built our OG bathhouse and grew the community that still keeps us going strong. In the weeks following the unprecedented devastation brought on by hurricane Helene, we’ve been working to keep our team and families safe, fed, hydrated, housed, and clean. Many of us have relocated to Durham, either temporarily or permanently, but a handful of folks have stayed put. We asked our #AshevilleStrong team members to help create a bathing resource roundup for our fellow AVL community members that are sticking it out in the area. 

Bathing is our bread and butter. However, without access to running, drinkable water, bathing and water access in general looks pretty different. Here’s some awesome shower DIYs and resources straight from the ingenuity of our local community:

This is a multi-functional solution: showers, hand washing, doing the dishes, etc! It requires buying some supplies, all of which can be found at a hardware store and purchased for around 60 bucks. Huge shoutout to Darë Vegan Cheese, a fellow Asheville small business, for creating and sharing this step-by-step guide for building your own garden sprayer shower. 

Here’s what you need:

1. Home garden sprayer
2. Kitchen faucet sprayer with hose
3. Hose barb ¼”x¼” 
4. Hose clamp ¼” to ⅝”

How to build:

1. Remove the mister attachment on the sprayer hose by cutting with a box cutter or scissors.
2. Place the hose clamp on the hose line coming from the sprayer.
3. Insert the hose barb into the cut hose end and secure with the hose clamp by tightening with a screwdriver.
4. Thread the end of the faucet sprayer hose to the other end of the hose barb.

How to use:

1. Fill with water by removing the pump handle, then replace when full. (Of course, clean, drinkable water is recommended. But if you are only able to fill your garden spray shower with non-potable water, boil it beforehand and exercise caution.)
2. Create pressure within the spray chamber by using the hand pump. May require multiple pumps depending on wash length. 
3. Wash hands, face, dishes, etc. with a little less worry. 

Toilets of AVL is a crowd-sourced Google map of public toilets, portapotties, laundry facilities, showers, and handwashing stations available to the public in the Asheville, NC area in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. It was created by Lark Frazier, a local graphic designer, and has been shared widely in recent days. Check it out, and add to it if you find a new spot!

As everyone impacted by hurricane Helene knows, things change rapidly! There are constant updates, changing distribution centers, and new information. This is by no means intended to be a comprehensive guide to water and bathing resources - we couldn’t make one if we tried! 

Here are a handful of online sources our team has turned to for regular information, specifically for Asheville and surrounding areas:

• City of Asheville General Updates landing page for regular updates, straight from local government. It includes updates on the water system recovery, when and where to tune into daily news briefings, and more.
• French Broad River Brewery, in collaboration with other accounts like Travel Guide Asheville and others have been posting daily, in-depth resource roundups covering announcements, food and water distribution, volunteer needs, donation needs, pet resources, shower/laundry/hygiene resources, and more. 
• Emote, a local queer-run art and secondhand shop that has been focused on mutual aid even before the hurricane, has been actively sharing helpful info, distributing resources, participating in free markets, and much more.
• ROAR (aka Rural Organizing and Resilience, Hurricane Helene Mutual Aid Hub) is focused on the rural communities outside of Asheville and a great spot for donations, helpful resources, volunteer information, and more. 
• Madison County NC on Instagram has become a hub for hurricane relief and rebuilding information for places just outside the city like Marshall, Hot Springs, and Mars Hill. 

Community has been the inspiration, drive, and lifeline for Sauna House since day one. As we navigate running a sustainable bathhouse affected by a climate-crisis-exacerbated natural disaster, we’ll continue to focus on keeping our team supported, relocating our plants, donating to local organizations, using our mobile sauna popups as donation drives, and eagerly anticipating the day we can re-open the Asheville bathhouse.

Stay safe. Stay hydrated. Stay strong.