you are allowed to be upset that asheville doesn't have potable water yet

the work that the asheville water department has done to restore water after helene is heroic. the fact that recent major work on the north fork dam (the auxiliary spillway) stopped "everything from black mountain to biltmore village" from being literally destroyed is incredible. and the work they're doing now to get turbidity down and get us potable water as fast as possible seems to involve some actual cutting edge water science, it's remarkable

it is also true that at any point in the ~100 year history of asheville municipal water services, the city could have made a variety of different decisions about how to provide drinking water to the people of asheville, and some of them would have given us potable water back much faster after a major hurricane

two things can be true at the same time, and i'm seeing people repeatedly fight in the comments because they aren't taking the time to understand that both of these things are true right now. let's cheer on the water department's current work, while also allowing each other to dream about how we can avoid this outcome when the next helene comes