Posted on the Mountain Xpress website on May 31, 2025
Editor’s note: This story was provided by A-B Tech and written by its staff member. For privacy purposes, the story only refers to inmates by their first names.
When Tropical Storm Helene hit Swannanoa, the lives of the A-B Tech students incarcerated at Western Correctional Center for Women were turned upside down. Eventually, they were bused to area prisons, they spent the next two months adapting to uncertainty and stress.
Through it all, their instructors acted as a lifeline, encouraging them to chronicle their experiences in weekly reflections — some shared here — that offer a poignant and compelling glimpse into the women’s harrowing experience.
Eight of these women have since gone on to graduate from A-B Tech’s Human Services Technology Program (HST) on May 10.
The Beginning Of A ‘True Bond’
Since May 2022, 30 students at Western Correctional Center for Women have earned associate degrees in human service technology through A-B Tech and have gone on to become substance abuse counselors. The college was the first in the state to offer prisoners access to Pell grants in the N.C. Second Chance Project, which has since been adopted by other state institutions.
When Helene hit Swannanoa, 18 women inmates were in the HST program, with eight set to graduate in May. The storm immediately disrupted daily life. After losing power and water, the women began gathering rainwater from the prison yard to use for flushing the toilet.
“There were 28 of us sharing one bathroom with a toilet that didn’t flush for three days,” wrote one student named April. Food and drinking water ran low. Two bottles of water were handed out each day, one for bathing and one for drinking. Exhausted prison staff, unable to return home because of dire road conditions, slept on-site.
Another student, Kayla, recalled, “This is when the true bond between staff and offenders began. We were having to look out for one another and make sure staff had naps, water, and food themselves.”
On the fifth day without power and potable water, the decision was made to transfer the 360 minimum-security inmates to area prisons. Most were bused to Anson Correctional Institution in Polkton; several others were relocated to N.C. Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh. As the prison’s buses trailed through Black Mountain, one student recalled looking out the window to see a woman wave at her and point skyward, clasping her hands together as if to say: “We are praying for you.”
“It really touched me,” the inmate said.
Another student, Taylor, wrote how the bus window offered her a first glimpse of how bad the destruction really was. “I saw a little girl and what appeared to be her mother washing off in a mud puddle. That flashbulb memory replays in my mind.”
‘Western Princesses’
Of the 18 A-B Tech students, only three went on to the N.C. Correctional Institution for Women. The rest arrived at Anson Correctional Institution in Polkton, where staff struggled to adapt their already full quarters. For the majority of the Swannanoa women’s stay, they were housed in a dormitory room with 84 existing prisoners, whom the students felt strongly resented their presence.
“They called us the Western Princesses,” one student said.
Another reflected, “Not only were we displaced and had our lives turned upside down, but so did the people who were already here.”
Luckily, the “Western Princesses” had what could be seen in hindsight as a secret weapon: six weeks of crisis intervention and psychology classes at A-B Tech. The tools they were given by their instructors — including how to function under extreme stress and how to recognize its effects on their minds and bodies — proved invaluable in the weeks to come.
The First 4 Weeks
While students were struggling to adapt to life in their new makeshift home, their instructors were facing their own challenges. The school year had begun six weeks earlier. With the campus closed due to a lack of potable water, A-B Tech’s curriculum students had moved to online classes.
The human services students provided a unique challenge.
They had moved to Anson with only one bag of belongings, leaving textbooks and laptops behind. And their new living situation was not always conducive to study. At Western, the students had a classroom with laptops and desks and a library full of books; at Anson, a high-security prison, they were limited to a communal dorm room.
No classes were held the first three weeks after the storm. According to psychology instructor Mark Daddona, the students — many of whom are serving for drug-related crimes — were anxious about their futures. Some were slated to graduate just before finishing their prison term. If they lost credit for this class, it could affect their chance for a career.
One student, Chelsea, reflected in an assignment: “I am now in a state of fear and uncertainty … from not knowing when or if we are going back to Western. If I will still be able to maintain good enough grades with all this stress to graduate, and if I’ll still be able to go to the transitional house in Charlotte as planned.”
Meanwhile, human services instructors were scrambling to create a new curriculum that could accommodate the displaced students. English instructor Maggie Poist recalls meeting with the program’s chair, Porscha Orndoff, who lives nearby.
“We met in the backyard,” Poist said. “We formed a plan in early October on how to start the class again. It would be like a correspondence course, and we would go to bring them books and assignments.”
There were many challenges to overcome. The first being that students’ textbooks had been left behind at Western. Concerned about photocopy rights restrictions, psychology and sociology instructor Steven Luke teamed up with A-B Tech’s vice president of operations, Cris Harshman, to write and assemble a new textbook that would contain graphs and pertinent information.
Class assignments were changed from in-class discussions to handwritten reflections. Daddona, who has worked as a mental health counselor, soon realized the storm would provide his crisis intervention students a chance to test out new coping skills.
“It made it more personal for them,” he said. “You’re going to be helping people, but now you’re in your own crisis. What do you need? How will you cope?”
Daddona rewrote one assignment to have his students reflect on what was helping them cope with the crisis, what they were feeling in the present moment, and what they felt they were lacking going forward.
Poist, on the other hand, adapted her literature course to have students read and reflect on poems about living in a crisis. “I found poems to help them process what they were experiencing,” she said. This included the poem “Cloudy Day” by formerly incarcerated poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, who speaks of persevering in difficult times.
Soon after this, staff worked out a plan to keep students “in school.” Poist and Daddona took turns driving to Charlotte to drop off and pick up assignments, while Pathway to Freedom coordinator Jay Lively handled assignments at Raleigh.
Poist, who had lost her car during the storm, drove one of the college’s vehicles to meet students. “They were so happy to see us,” she recalled. “They hadn’t seen each other as a group for a long time. The energy in the room was wild. I had to stand on top of a table to get their attention. … They laughed and said, ‘Poist is going to say something important.’”
Daddona came back two weeks later to pick up assignments. He said he had to fight the urge to hug his students, which is forbidden.
The Last 4 Weeks
The last four weeks in Anson brought new challenges. Faced with a stack of assignments, the students had to make up for lost time. A student named Chelsea reflected in her paper: “Right now I am sitting on my top bunk with earplugs in to drown out the other 83 women I live with.”
Taylor, another student, wrote, “I put on my radio and turn it up louder than the constant noise around me. … They literally stay up till 2 a.m., so there is no peace of mind in a place like this.”
Fortunately, the students were using the new tools they had learned. Luke recounted how one student was able to connect her stomachaches she was having to stress. Poist described how one student wrote about taking quiet time for herself so she could help her classmate. The very process of reflecting and writing about what they were going through seemed to be helping them.
“They were able to find a calm center in the middle of a total lack of control,” Poist said. “Writing forced them to stop and reflect in the middle of the noise in the dorm rooms.”
Poist believes her students in prison have an advantage over mainstream students in living without internet access and smartphones. “Being without internet changes the habits of students, and their ability to read long-form is strengthened.”
In the coming weeks, after their return to Western, the students would begin to discuss their writing and compare individual experiences.
The Return Home
Finally, after two months away from “home,” the students returned and had their first class together in Swannanoa on Dec. 4. They began to talk for the first time about their experience at Anson and the distrust and fear they’d felt as outsiders there. This experience, they discovered, paralleled what they’d been learning in a diversity class about what immigrants experience in a new country.
Sociology instructor Luke said, “We talked about how the experience strengthened their bond. How immigrants also cluster together in a new culture out of fear and anxiety, looking for something familiar.”
Although the transition to new facilities was difficult for the students, Lively points out that prison staff members were very helpful during the weekly visits he made to Anson to check in with students. “I am grateful that Anson went above and beyond to keep the students enrolled,” Lively said.
In the weeks following their return home, the instructors noticed some major changes in their students’ attitudes. Luke said, “The experience strengthened their bond. I used to notice little subgroups that were exclusionary of others. I don’t see any more cliques. They’re all there together.”
One student named N’Finity reflected: “Before, we didn’t know each other well because we were only in class together once a week. Now, it’s like ‘Hey, Girl!’ when we see each other walk by.”
Another student, April, said she was more grateful for her instructors at A-B Tech. “They treat us not just like numbers but as humans. They were the only links we had to get updates. It’s had a great impact, being in this program.”
Overall, there was a sense of peace and acceptance that hadn’t been there before. After being at Anson, suddenly their home prison didn’t seem so bad. After living through the storm, staff and offenders felt more connected.
But perhaps the greatest change in the students will manifest in years to come. Eight students walked across the stage at Harrah’s Cherokee Center – Asheville in May to receive their diplomas. Having completed a degree, they are 66% less likely to be recidivists, according to a 2023 study by the Vera Institute of Justice.
In weathering this crisis as counselors and coaches, they will be better equipped to help clients cope with life’s challenges, their professors say. And in helping others, they will realize just how capable they themselves are.
“It is the beauty of [this program],” Luke said. “Teaching others how to help change their lives teaches them ‘I can change my life too.’”