Hurricane Peoples

Things east of Statesville are fine other than some outliers. From highway 321 west between I-40 and 74 you start seeing trees down. Myself, seawell, and Heiserman are all east of Statesville. I had maybe 2-3 inches of rain in W-S. Nomatic is in the Asheville area. Must be some others in NC I'm not thinking of. There will be a lot of temporary migration out of the affected areas, there's just no services there for the foreseeable future. Civilization has been wiped in a lot of places.  They just updated I-40 reopening near the TN line to September of 2025.  It's been closed for gaps close to that in the past from rockslides, so it doesn't surprise me.   I-26 towards TN from Asheville has a section with expected reopening of March 2025.  We had to get an oak off of my father-in-law's house in Shelby, got very lucky, minimal damage.  

Checking in from Johnson City TN... moved about 6 weeks ago relocated out of northern NJ/NYC. 

I'm basically fine, driving around my hood which is up the mountains its sorta like nothing happened. Lost power around 9am Friday morning but had it back around 5pm... stocked up on food etc before the storm because 'ya never know.  

Down the road though? Things are not so good. 

Erwin TN about 20 minutes south is nearly wiped off the map. This drone footage is shocking... the hospital down there flooded & they were airlifting people off the roof in the middle of it all. Water breached a 15 foot berm and flooded the building, waist deep in 30 minutes. Came up real high real fast. 

Asheville is completely cut off from the rest of the world, local news has been saying the only way in is by air. Really devastating images coming out of there... the entire downtown & arts district underwater. Like, up to the roof of Wendy's underwater. It'll never be the same. Unreal. 

FEMA, a government agency offers some assistance to those who do not have the appropriate insurance, not necessarily enough to rebuild and make one whole but there is assistance.  For those who have experienced flood damage the US flood insurance program is subsidized and run by the federal government, but in areas with a history of flooding or considered High risk it is expensive. 
FEMA will do its best to provide temporary shelter for those who lost their homes but in a disaster zone the problem is trying to find habitatable structures is a problem.
Florida is probably the best state when it comes to a state government when it comes to a speedy recovery. The most difficult thing is preparing an area for the return of those who listened and evacuated ( the National Hurricane Center home of the cone of uncertainty is a government agency) is very different from providing for those who choose to stay. The thing here is the difference between those in Florida & Georgia vs those further north. In the Southern Areas close to where it made landfall Government provided transportation and shelters for those who couldn’t evacuate on their own including pets.

Yeah it sucks, in Ike it was 30 days before those of us who had left Galveston before we could even get back on the island. Plus in the last there has been an absolute explosion in the number of NGOs that offer assistance for these types of disasters.
the 2 things that muck things out is you often need to start clean up rebuilding in areas with minimal damage to get stuff to those who need it most. By the same token, to get on the list for aid you need either Cell phone internet or a bunch of people to physically process these requests to the west damaged areas.

So what’s this mean? If your facing a 20 foot wall of water get your ass as far away as possible, unfortunately what this storm has taught us is we are really going to have to think about where we get our asses to and how far inland within the path do we need to evacuate. 

Kinda hard to get more 'inland' then Eastern TN & Asheville North Carolina... we're a long way from the gulf coast! 

I think what caught an awful lot people off guard up here is that, for the most part we ARE so damn far inland that yeah, the storm is going to impact Florida but not too many people were paying attention to things where I am... we'll get some rain from it was the word. 

Yet some spots got 30 inches of rain over the course of about 36 hours (?) and all the rivers, creeks, lakes, everything came up. Water damns crested & broke. Super crazy stuff happened. Water is water and we still had 50-60 mph winds blowing. That's a lotta rain and a little too much wind! 

Again I feel super fortunate that all this crazy could happen a few miles away and not even a scratch here. Yet I see the impact all around, even going to the grocery store this afternoon... forget about whatever's on the news its in your face. 

Feel so sorry for you guys. Our thoughts and prayers are definitely coming your way, and if anyone needs specific help - you need to speak up so that the rest of us can help out.

As for help from the Feds.....OY! Best of luck. Stories are rampant about FEMA being overtaxed because of benefits for illegals. Don't know if that's true or not ( www.fema.gov/es/node/635693 ), but the reality is that we (the Gov) spends SOOOOO freaking much on tons of stuff that is not important, and when there is legitimate need.....we never seem to have enough. (Lahaina comes to mind as well). apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-congress-fema-funding-5be4f18e00ce2b509d6830410cf2c1cb

Anyway, wishing you all safety and comfort. Sorry, @johnkenn can delete this if it seems too "political", but I'd suggest a vote for change as a start.

It’s a multiple of what always happens, priority is getting aid to population centers, because well it’s going to help the most people & the accessible areas because you can get it there. People usually can’t see the work going into developing how to get stuff to those who were trapped but it all starts at the area you can get to. Yeah logic sucks, sucks even more when you’re the one who is screwed.

There's a new on on the way!

My MOM, just called, (Tampa / St. Pete) and said it's raining now, and will be until "Milton" hits sometime on Wed.
More rain, not needed!

She said they have been warned that this might be a Category 6 storm_!
Which is unprecedented !

Will be watching the news very intently.

God knows, we don't need yet another storm in this area...or anywhere North of Florida.

Glad you’re ok!

Just ran into a neighbor who was heading out on vacation guess where ?

Orlando to see Mickey, ahh stupid people

Vincent my friend I was thinking more in terms of first “sorry we have no rental cars” & showing up at your hotel “ we are very, very sorry but because all of the people who evacuated most are on the FEMA LIST, they prefer they don’t move, we are an approved hotel so we have no rooms you really should have called” I hate to say bro but living in a hurricane zone ye shall learns these lessons the hard way at some point ☹️

Really I m just glad you guys are ok because I was worried.

One of the biggest issue in our country today is the sheer amount of propaganda being spewed about both sides of our political system. It has become hard for the average person to differentiate between opinion pieces, fake news, and genuine vetted news. 

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
- George Carlin

Reality being whatever it is - we should be helping our brothers and sisters who went thru this nightmare better.  Glad that there finally seems to be churches and other organizations getting in there to help alongside FEMA.