Hurricane Helene / Invest 97L

[Jump]

tbh in a way this is worse than Katrina, people had been warning the New Orleans government that those levies were deathtraps for 20 years which is why NoLA got fucked up so hard, but this is a situation nobody could have stopped, you can't stop rain from falling.

NOLA was a city you could see all parts of and after the flood waters dropped you could clear and move through. And and gtfo by car or bus because when the waters dropped the roads and bridges where all mostly still there. You where able to gut the houses and rebuild them if you wanted since they didnt get washed away.

This is a ton of little towns now all isolated and cut off from each other that likely wont be reachable by car for a long time. A good number I fear are just wiped off the face of the earth by fast moving water. My guess is a lot of these little poorer town wont ever come back.

 

[a hapless toad]

Likewise I assume the Eastern Band Cherokee may be completely screwed. It would be a horrible tragedy if that small population (continuously living in the land for hundreds of years) were basically destroyed in the flooding.

All I can find in the news (can't check Xitter ATM) is that they were granted federal assistance...

https://www.wxii12.com/article/north-carolina-receives-federal-help-25-counties-eastern-band-of-cherokee-indians-helene/62430130

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

NOLA was a city you could see all parts of and after the flood waters dropped you could clear and move through. And and gtfo by car or bus because when the waters dropped the roads and bridges where all mostly still there. You where able to gut the houses and rebuild them if you wanted since they didnt get washed away.

This is a ton of little towns now all isolated and cut off from each other that likely wont be reachable by car for a long time. A good number I fear are just wiped off the face of the earth by fast moving water. My guess is a lot of these little poorer town wont ever come back.

NOLA was also in a place where they could have a million boats around come in and help (Cajun Navy). In the mountains there's no guarantee people can just hop in a boat and go somewhere else.

I wonder if there's any graphics to watch the estimated volume of water moving through the watersheds. I know it changes as dams break, rivers burst and flood into other rivers or carve new paths, and so on. I assume flood experts are capable of predicting, with a great deal of precision, how the water will move.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I AM going to be a douchebag and just brag, for a moment, about how I have a month's worth of water.
What I did not do was actually disinfect it with bleach, or rotate it recently. So it might be sketchy.
I also have six months of food, but I don't have a means to cook it properly. I bought it for inflation/supply chain collapse, not grid collapse. I am definitely going out and getting a grill after this. My Pa owes me for a birthday gift (his view).

 

[Bowl of Ramen]

In a rare move of decency for a news outlet, the Asheville Citizen-Times has suspended its paywall. While I still recommend Blue Ridge Public Radio, this helps with communicating as well. Props to them.

 

[Burd Turglar]

tbh in a way this is worse than Katrina, people had been warning the New Orleans government that those levies were deathtraps for 20 years which is why NoLA got fucked up so hard, but this is a situation nobody could have stopped, you can't stop rain from falling.

Agree to disagree. I was down working with FEMA after Katrina, I sat through Rita and I saw the devastation there. I saw the bodies. Rita wasn't just a couple days after Katrina and shit was fuuuucked already. This shit is bad here in western NC but it's not Katrina bad.

I'm here. I sat through it, I'm living with it but I saw the other shit too. Perspective is a thing lost on most people. It's fine for everyone to get together and feel sympathy for the Appalachian communities suffering through this shit but it's still apples to oranges.

There's plenty of shit they could have done differently here. The town of Lake Lure could have not been rebuilt on a river prone to flooding after it was washed away 20ish years ago and they were still rebuilding it right where it washed away. I was there literally a week ago. All the places that are flooded, they flooded because they are next to water, should they all just drain the water? Like, what do you want the people to do? It's like blaming Oklahoma for tornados. Shit happens but have a little perspective.

George Bush doesn't care about black people.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

I'm on the west coast in Florida and I'm far enough inland and elevated enough that my place was fine. Some folks at my church had their places flooded bad enough they lost everything. They have their lives and they have shelter as their homes didn't literally collapse, but I feel guilty for being 20 minutes away and having full power/internet and all my property being fine while the list of what they can salvage is much shorter than what they can't. Organizing tomorrow to take one girl to the laundromat and help her wash all the clothing that got saturated in street water, maybe drag some ruined furniture to the dump if time permits. Witnessed her baptism at church today and she seemed in good spirits so I'm glad she's not utterly distraught.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

The village of Chimney Rock was completely wiped off the map.

 

[indomitable snowman]

It's a shame because I've been on I-40 in the western side of North Carolina a couple of times (when going down to florida from the midwest) and going through the mountains was always a nice drive.

It was one my favorite stretches of interstate to drive (if traffic isn't bad).

 

[Nuthatches]

NOLA was a city you could see all parts of and after the flood waters dropped you could clear and move through. And and gtfo by car or bus because when the waters dropped the roads and bridges where all mostly still there. You where able to gut the houses and rebuild them if you wanted since they didnt get washed away.

This is a ton of little towns now all isolated and cut off from each other that likely wont be reachable by car for a long time. A good number I fear are just wiped off the face of the earth by fast moving water. My guess is a lot of these little poorer town wont ever come back.

A lot of those small towns relied heavily on tourism for income purposes. Even Asheville is mostly a tourism city and it’s very hard to get a job there that pays that isn’t tourism related.

October is one the biggest tourist seasons in western NC because of the fall colors. I can’t even imagine the huge loss of income this region will face for years to come. I don’t think it will be possible for some of the more isolated, poor towns to come back entirely for a long while. And of course anything historic is gone.

This year was the year we planned to start taking fall and winter mountain vacations too. Now I’m using that money to donate to groups instead.

 

[Myrtle the Turtle]

A PL but I have family in Western NC. So far most are still without power and cell service is fucked for the foreseeable future. Mobile units are being deployed, but signal gets easily lost as it bounces off all the mountains so if you live outside the town limits, reception will still be nil. This is why you have so many 'missing persons' because roads are unpaved and people can't communicate. I expect deaths to rise however.

The population of that area is also older and struggles with income, especially now since Biden has fucked the economy. I predict you will see a diaspora like that of Katrina from the Western NC area as people will lose everything and are forced away. The western NC mountains function like a rainforest with the amount of rain and humidity it gets so everything built up there rusts and gets reclaimed by nature pretty quickly. Its a constant battle but people rough it because they like it up there.

West of Waynesville near Cataloochee Valley, theres tons of backwood trails that are super tight and narrow, really high up and make your palms sweat. You can get into TN that way from NC, but you are hugging mountains the whole way. Roads are unpaved, those will take forever to fix since its so hard to get up there even with a vehicle.

Im supposed to go to Asheville next weekend so I will get to survey the damage myself assuming the venue is still standing.

 

[anliteralidiot]

I sat through Rita and I saw the devastation there. I saw the bodies. Rita wasn't just a couple days after Katrina and shit was fuuuucked already. This shit is bad here in western NC but it's not Katrina bad.

I also saw Rita, and I think you're still missing the whole problem with the mudslides, and other infrastructure getting fucked. Just because they're apples and oranges doesn't mean they aren't both fruits at the end of the day.

I am definitely going out and getting a grill after this.

For anyone reading that might be in a storm path, or who is worried about being one: grills rule. Buy a grill.

 

[Kendall Motor Oil]

God damn I want my fucking power, so I went looking to see what the motherfuckers were doing only to see pajeets literally joyriding down the fucking street in circles in the duke power truck thing. Right past the trees and fallen power lines over and over, what are you even here for? Please fall off that bridge into the lake.

Others were just sitting there. At the same place literally morning and night, and nothing had been done. They were just stating at the pole for 12 hours I guess

Worst of all, we called to see what was happening. Of course an Indian picks up and they tried to blame it on "sar we have been looking for technician"

FOR 3 DAYS? THERE'S NOT A SINGLE TECHNICIAN IN THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA?

Kiss my ass

None of the power companies expected this. They also do repairs in a particular order or have to request resources they don't have so the lineman sit around a lot. The damage in my family's area is so severe the power company needs to rerun lines and replace almost half the poles. They don't have the supplies for any of that The only thing they have going for them is there are enough locals clearing roads so they don't have to.

 

[Myrtle the Turtle]

A lot of those small towns relied heavily on tourism for income purposes. Even Asheville is mostly a tourism city and it’s very hard to get a job there that pays that isn’t tourism related.

Mea culpa for the double post but yes.

Maggie Valley is big for seasonal tourism and theres videos of it looking wiped out. Gatlinburg and Pigeons Forge TN are big destinations for college students and young adults who plan their fall trips out there. Couples do weekend getaways to enjoy the mountains and cold in the fall/winter months. You'll see modern day ghosts towns as people throw in the towel and move elsewhere. Its really sad. The region gets a lot of rain to begin with but its not used to a huge surge of water and wind from a hurricane.

 

[Quijibo69]

Where I lived the parking lot flooded but that does that with heavy/bad rain.

 

[indomitable snowman]

Asheville video

 

[The Foxtrot]

This is Katrina level horrifying. Even knowing all the rain and the terrain in the area this is fucking insane. The only other thing I can think of is how bad are the feds going to fuck up the response and how deliberate will that fuck up be.

Just today, my area got power again (yes yes powerlevel, STFU). We never lost running water, thankfully. It wasn't as bad here, but we had a LOT of rain and downed power lines, and not too much flooding.

Appalachia is mainly poorer and white isnt it? I imagine the federal response will be crap and the local guys will be doing above and beyond trying to save people.

My dad was a Guardsman that helped out during Katrina, and that gave him PTSD, but multiple deployments in the Gulf Wars and Somalia didn't. He always feared something like this happening in NC and went all in on being a prepper. Dad actually had a panic attack when this one came and it took mom ordering him to drink some whiskey and have a ciggy to calm him down (after mom spent years trying to get him to quit smoking).

Ironically, despite his panic attack, his prepper obsession wound up saving him, my mom, me, and a bunch of their neighbors since dad had the whole damn house roof wired up with solar panels, an Army surplus diesel generator, a well + septic, and loads of non-perishable food. Neighbors slept in the living room and dad's gaming room, and I just took a cot in the garage.

We've wound up having to pool together big time, because we're just a small ass town in the middle of nowhere, and we thought the government wasn't coming to help us anytime soon. We lost power for almost 2 whole days, but we didn't lose the city water, a lot of our roads were blocked by trees (which we cleared ourselves), a few people's houses got destroyed, and we did a hell of a lot better than most. Still, we're not out of the woods, cell service is spotty (but landline internet's okay for now) and I'm grateful I have a few weeks of canned food and OTC meds. Guess I'll be waiting a while longer to start my new job.

 

[Brenda Holiday]

The fact I'm going back to my daily routine somewhat while people are still suffering like this gives me an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.

 

[The Foxtrot]

View attachment 6471165
The fact I'm going back to my daily routine somewhat while people are still suffering like this gives me an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Life has to go on, mate. We've got our struggle, and you've got yours. As shitty as this current situation is, we'll recover, rebuild, and hopefully learn from it. At least you give enough of a shit about us to pay attention to what's going on here, and that gives me hope.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

If you outsiders to the region want to vicariously live the life of a North Carolinian right now go play The Flame in the Flood

https://store.steampowered.com/app/318600/The_Flame_in_the_Flood/