Hurricane Florence As Captured By Ewan Burns
[The following post was written by photographer, Ewan Burns. For more photos, visit his site here.]
It was a spur of the moment decision to drive down to North Carolina. Storms are pretty interesting visually, and so is the response of people involved or caught in them. I couldn't leave before Friday night because I had a job on Friday in NYC.
I've been to war zones before, and immediately noticed parallels when I arrived in New Burn, NC: an overwhelming mass engagement against a common threat, people demonstrating kindness, selflessness and courage, and, unfortunately, less charitable behaviors also abound. People reveal themselves in times of struggle.
There is something fascinating about a landscape that humans have constructed and called to order when it breaks down. Most of the time we move through it barely paying attention. Sometimes we enjoy and admire it and at others feel the sadness of its neglect, but in an emergency, we glimpse an entirely different landscape. It's the landscape of surprise and shock and chaos. We see things that shouldn't be, visually shocking apparitions emerge that are definitely not as they were intended: a boat valeted by the Atlantic ocean leaning against the side of a hotel, a car partially submerged in water. We are reminded that most of the time we take things for granted but that is not how things have always been nor how things will always be.