Hurricane Helene / Invest 97L

[King Possum]

The lack of reliable reception in many parts of the region increases the danger. You're fucked if you need to call 911 in a holler or even just the wrong part of a building. It seems to have gotten worse since 2G and 3G were shut off.

Elon has proposed using starlink direct to cell satellites to let anyone call 911 from anywhere. That cannot happen soon enough. Hell, even with starlink currently operational with dishes, that should hopefully help the search and rescue efforts. I am praying hard for everyone there and will absolutely be donating to a good charity to help everyone there.

 

[Sithis]

Not surprised it's the Coast Guard getting shit done, the underloved military branch.

Even aside from the rescue shit they do which takes balls of steel, people overlook the fact that the Coast Guard does a lot of the work when it comes to fighting narcos etc. The reason US waters are considered safe from pirates is because a coast guard gunboat can fuck up anything short of a military battleship that tries anything.

Haha nice... Asheville got FUCKED up. I love that area but big schadenfreude on all the faggots (actual and metaphorical) who live there. There's not a huge amount of cool or "based" people living right in the middle of all that noise.

The stretch of 74 going down to lake lure is another story, those are hilltowns and that's where the local rednecks and geriatrics live (also tourists but tourists deserve the rope). I was just up there. Guy I know lives 10 minutes above Chimney Rock overlooking the river... he should have one hell of a story to tell once I get a hold of him, I doubt he's dead, mountain boyz don't die that easy. The riverside tourist/motel/party area around Bat Cave must be gone too if Chimney Rock washed out.

I know that Asheville is like NC's Sodom, but it's not worth wishing harm on all the normal old timers and hillfolk in the surrounding areas dude. I can tell you from experience living in places like those, a lot of those small businesses etc aren't coming back. Those smaller towns that got washed out are basically gone and those people have lost everything. Even the towns that didn't get the full brunt of it and just had a building collapse here or there or some infrastructure crumble, it will be years, maybe decades before things go back to being the way they were, if they ever do. The places that drew tourist bucks will probably see some effort to rebuild quicker but the really isolated communities are just fucked and stuck with whatever losses they sustained.

 

[Nuthatches]

Pics from Lake Lure NC and the surrounding areas:

 

[BIG BILL HELL'S]

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This was literally the only good thing about the old style geostationary sat internet like Hughesnet/Viasat. Everything was completely fucked around me for 2 weeks in an ice storm. No power. No cell service. But I never lost my wonderful 700ms ping internet because the earth station that was feeding my bird was multiple states away. IIRC they also had a backup they could point at it from Canada.

It will be interesting to see how the Starlink LEO service worked out on such a wide spread disaster. That network uses more earth stations closer to the customer.

There looks to be a reasonable number of stations relatively nearby, although I have no idea whether they're online or not. I assume some of them are. Also, the newest Starlink satellites have intersatellite laser comms, so even if a few stations are down the network can route around outages with only a small latency penalty.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

Seeing the land just completely shift to something unrecognizable with destitute remains of what was once there is terrifying alone. Imagine coming back to the aftermath and recognizing none of what's left. That's a depressing scenario beyond measure.

 

[Grim Snark]

Do you know if the area around Raleigh is bad? RTP is there and a lot of colleagues in the area. I think it’s probably out of the main bit hit, but just wondering what work will do Monday

Funny enough, I drove through today. Raleigh is fine, if damp.

You know what the worst part about Asheville getting wrecked? The sheer number of bodies that are gonna be found on popular hiking trails. Think the homeless who didn’t know what was coming or couldn’t be convinced to go to a shelter. People who thought it was another storm and thought it would be fine. People who (while retarded) were camping in the expansive woods. The chances of an accurate death count is nearly impossible. Take the best estimate and tack on a few dozen.

Asheville was a huge source of income for the area, and with it wrecked, I genuinely don’t know how the areas economy is going to recover.

In better news, I finally heard from a friend who had gone radio silent when the storm hit. His house only has minor flooding and managed to avoid the worst of it. No power and cell signal is spotty at best.

Edit: forgot about this! UNC Asheville is almost completely cut off. They’re starting evacuations from campus tomorrow.

 

[A Cardboard Box]

PSA: If anyone here has friends or family, or knows someone that has friends or family in the affected areas, and cannot get a hold of them, please use the Red Cross Unification number at 1-800-733-2767 as to not clog the emergency lines. I don't particularly care for the Red Cross, but in this case they are working with relief officials and have the blessing of disaster response coordinators.

 

[Cpt. Stud Beefpile]

The political implications could be severe too. Lets not forget how Washington DC washed their hands of the East Palestine train derailment, along with their responsibility. Its crass to point it out but it has to be done. Biden and Kamala are in charge here and how they respond will have major implications

To be quite blunt, the only way this could benefit them long term in any political fashion is to start spurring talks of unofficial cooperation and even - drop all the rainbows on me you like - of the beginnings of secession.

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have shown a significant improvement toward actually benefiting anyone from the common man to the governor whose state just got creamed like corn. Not now, not in the last 20 goddamn years. We're now losing our steel industry at which point when a Communist dictator arises or a local conflict pops off in OokaBookaLand our supply lines for the basics of 1st world life will grind to a halt.

I doubt that the affected areas will even be allowed a break from enforced cat-eater diversity while they try to unfuck things from UNDER the ground up (lotta pipes and cables just got screwed bigly; either bent, buckled, broken, flooded or all of the above).

---

Honestly, I'm sitting here somewhat numb. In the span of 72 hours I have gone from speculating how to set out harmless 'decoy' goods for looters (beer with some extra capsacin is always fun!) to assisting various members of the KVAF to "actually GTFO, this is just short of Russia launching missiles" with minutes to spare.

People have vanished off the map. There are pictures of folks deploying DIY rafts out bedroom windows. Shit is truly capital I INSANE even without the infrastructure damage.

Cell phones and landlines are both completely fucked. Break out the CB and shortwave and HAM radios. I've seen a video of people passing out kiddie toy walkie-talkies because there was literally nothing else available.

Current most crazy shit seen: FPV of a KVAF drone dropping a package (of confetti, in Minecraft) on a small group of masked individuals while taking AA fire from shitty Uzi clones. Came home with 1 of the 4 motors shot away.
The looters are in a motherfucking $100 Walmart john boat.
They are, according to the poster, not the only group of enterprising 'water pirates' running around.
DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY TRUST SOMEONE WITH A UNIFORM AND/OR BADGE.​

 

[glass_houses]

@Null sorry to be an annoying faggot, but is it possible to pin a master post of ways to contact or donate to groups and organisations working in the affected areas to the front page? Thanks.

 

[Burd Turglar]

Been monitoring this thread for the past few days. This is Katrina 2.0, holy fuck, and it spread everywhere. Hope people have canned food, fresh water, and guns, it's going to be a wild ride

This shit sucks but it's nowhere near Katrina. I wasn't in New Oreleans but I was on the coast of Mississippi and it was infinitely worse than this. Fingers crossed the cost of housing in western NC will go down now.

 

[BradCarter]

I'd be interested in a list of reputable places to donate or volunteer

 

[mrfresh]

Current most crazy shit seen: FPV of a KVAF drone dropping a package (of confetti, in Minecraft) on a small group of masked individuals while taking AA fire from shitty Uzi clones. Came home with 1 of the 4 motors shot away.

Fake and gay

 

[A Cardboard Box]

Current most crazy shit seen: FPV of a KVAF drone dropping a package (of confetti, in Minecraft) on a small group of masked individuals while taking AA fire from shitty Uzi clones. Came home with 1 of the

Gonna have to press X on this one.

 

[bile demon]

it's also come to my attention that two days ago the Tennessee national guard was deployed to the middle east. Whatever phenomenally retarded faggot decided to send them when there was a HURRICANE bearing down on the area needs to be hanged. It may not be the entire group but sending anyone away when they may bee needed for an immediate emergency is infuriating.

 

[A Cardboard Box]

HURRICANE bearing down on the area

To be fair, I cant really blame the governor of a landlocked state five hundred miles inland for his lack of hurricane preparation.

 

[AMHOLIO]

I think it's funny too when commies in Asheville get BTFO by mother nature, especially since if they hadn't infested the area to begin with then they'd be laughing with their fellow coastal elites at all the flooded out MAGA people.

Enjoy stickers, A-logger child. We need some form of levity in this thread, sadly.

 

[TrainWreckWatcher]

Fuck the people chuckling about this because "everyone who gets killed is just a Trump voter anyways"

I wouldn't consider them people.
Those are ghouls whose useless lives should have been lost instead.
I am surprised this isn't marked as a community feature as this is pretty much a god awful disaster.

 

[Alex Hogendorp]

Some flood footage that may of not been posted yet.

Spoiler

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Looks very apocalyptic. The damage here is mind blowing.

Fuck the people chuckling about this because "everyone who gets killed is just a Trump voter anyways"

TDS really gets a hold on people and exposes the worst aspects out of them.

 

[Bunny Tracks]

Fuck the people chuckling about this because "everyone who gets killed is just a Trump voter anyways"

I wouldn't consider them people.
Those are ghouls whose useless lives should have been lost instead.
I am surprised this isn't marked as a community feature as this is pretty much a god awful disaster.

Fuck anyone who smugchuckles about people dying just because they voted for someone they didn't like, period. Especially in cases like this where politics means jackshit because no amount of voting on either side was gonna stop a fucking hurricane.

News Flash: Mother Nature doesn't give a fuck who you voted for. Trump, Harris, RFK, whatever. It doesn't matter. She's gonna fuck you up regards if she feels like it, politics be damned.

 

[Otterly]

Quote from smug lefty cunt at work: "And these idiots want to defund FEMA. Did you know the moron governor of Tennessee refused disaster aid and instead called for a statewide day of prayer?"

I am grateful for these interactions, as they remind me how insufferable these people are. Here's hoping the casualties are lower than expected.

Edit: Defund, not refund.

Sometimes people show you who they are, and when they do, take note. Some people love nothing more than making themselves better on the misery of others.
And course, my response would be Serious face and ‘I wouldn’t listen to fake news - do you have a source for that?’