Hurricane Helene / Invest 97L

[Diabeetus69]

There's flatfooted "we never thought this kind of storm could hit" and there's flatfooted "we have no emergency response for anything of this magnitude". The first is excusable, the second is kind of not.

You are conveniently disregarding the geographical/geological implications of this situation. It's not that NC has "no emergency response". It's the fact that the emergency response that does exist has been physically prohibited from actually getting to the people who need them. This isn't like Katrina, where once the water subsided you could go in and help the people. There are no "roads" to get into these areas on. The places where these people lived and needed help NO LONGER FUCKING EXIST. What kind of "emergency response" are you expecting anyone to do when the people and places you need to get to are either inaccessible or non-existent?

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

What kind of "emergency response" are you expecting anyone to do when the people and places you need to get to are either inaccessible or non-existent?

North Carolina has a National Guard I presume? Helicopters, military vehicles and eqpt, etc? This is why they exist.

 

[Diabeetus69]

North Carolina has a National Guard I presume? Helicopters, military vehicles, etc?

They do....but helicopters can only do so much, and there is no place, short of the Asheville Airport, where they can actually land planes. The biggest issue is not getting the supplies to Asheville, it's getting them from Asheville to the people that need them. NC has tons of military vehicles, but they all need roads to travel on, and that's a lot of what's been utterly destroyed. Keep in mind, we are talking about mountainous terrain. It's not like you can just off-road the truck full of supplies up there.

 

[indomitable snowman]

Mules to the rescue!


And yeah this will be bad for years in the area like Katrina. I actually was down in Biloxi Mississippi to help clean up over a year after Katrina and it was still a mess. The roads there were in better shape and it's easier to access the area since it's relatively flat unlike Appalachian mountains.
This will take years to recover from.


Here is another picture from reddit of someone trying to leave Asheville through one of the only "open" roads.

 

[Diabeetus69]

Also, remember, that there are only 2 major highways leading in and out of that area; I40 and I26. I26 is accessible from the south, but I40, the MAJOR route in and out of the mountains is completely impassable to the east and west. In some places, the highway is literally gone.

 

[WelperHelper99]

They do....but helicopters can only do so much, and there is no place, short of the Asheville Airport, where they can actually land planes. The biggest issue is not getting the supplies to Asheville, it's getting them from Asheville to the people that need them. NC has tons of military vehicles, but they all need roads to travel on, and that's a lot of what's been utterly destroyed. Keep in mind, we are talking about mountainous terrain. It's not like you can just off-road the truck full of supplies up there.

If I was planning how to handle this, I'd be using heavy lift assets like Ospreys and Chinnoks. Have them drop trucks and small boats to shuttle supplies around the local area. Also use tracked vehicles for off road use since the roads are busted.

 

[FatalTater]

It might be a good idea to make donations to charities in surrounding counties that weren't hit as hard, since they'll probably be where a lot of now-homeless people went.
Donate to animal shelters too, they'll need it.

 

[Diabeetus69]

If I was planning how to handle this, I'd be using heavy lift assets like Ospreys and Chinnoks. Have them drop trucks and small boats to shuttle supplies around the local area. Also use tracked vehicles for off road use since the roads are busted.

I agree...but the problem is they don't yet know where many of these people are. I mean, there are towns that were completely washed away.
If the National Guard knew where to drop the supplies, they would.

 

[Diabeetus69]

I think what might be skewing peoples' perceptions of the situation might be that the majority of the national coverage is focusing on Asheville, the largest major city in the area.
The following was posted on another site that might lend some clarity for those unfamiliar with the area and scope of devistation:

" I need people to understand something with the news coverage regarding effects of hurricane Helene. There is a lot more to the NC Mountains than Asheville; Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, Vilas, Sugar Grove, Elk Park, West Jefferson, Black Mountain, Swannanoa, Sylva, Cullowhee, Brevard, Bryson City, Hendersonville, Cherokee, Waynesville, Burnsville, Candler, Canton, Spruce Pine, Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, Linville, Marshall, Maggie Valley, Newland, Grandfather, Beech Mountain, Sugar Mountain, Old Fort, Morganton, Marion are just a few of the cities and towns that have been flooded and/or destroyed. The counties of Yancey, Mitchell, Avery, Ashe, Watauga, Transylvania, Burke, Wilkes, Caldwell, Alleghany, Madison, Buncombe, McDowell, Rutherford, Polk, Henderson, Haywood, Jackson, Macon, Clay, Cherokee, and Swain are devastated and in need of the same help, some even more.
Other counties that fall under various definitions of Western North Carolina include: Alexander County, Catawba County, Cleveland County, Surry County and Yadkin County. When these counties are added, they form a total regional area of roughly 11,750 square miles (30,400 km2). This makes the region roughly the size of Massachusetts. Western North Carolina holds 11% of our state's population.
There are millions of people up there with no electricity, no communication, no water, and no way to get out or let rescue teams even know where they are. I am not taking anything away from Asheville and the utter destruction there or any other areas in NC that have damage. The level of destruction is unimaginable. But it's not one or two cities or towns that are in need of help.
This does not include the destroyed areas in the Tennessee mountains, Western Virginia, Georgia, or South Carolina."

 

[#FF0000]

I think what might be skewing peoples' perceptions of the situation might be that the majority of the national coverage is focusing on Asheville, the largest major city in the area.

100% agree. I don't even blame the media that much; we have so little information from everywhere else that they genuinely can't report on it or have no idea what's going on elsewhere.

 

[#FF0000]

Fatality count up to 120 total. 400 people reported missing have been found alive, thankfully.

Source

 

[mindlessobserver]

North Carolina has a National Guard I presume? Helicopters, military vehicles and eqpt, etc? This is why they exist.

The 82nd Airborne is also in North Carolina. They can call up the Joepedo and ask to borrow some helicopters. The roads being washed out are meaningless at that point. I imagine alot of MRE's are also stashed there, along with Engineering units and generators. Of course utilizing those things would have required a comprehensive disaster management plan, that included outside context issues such as catastrophic grid failure. Getting DoD assets flying without some sort of preestablished agreement is next to impossible legally and physically.

Here is another picture from reddit of someone trying to leave Asheville through one of the only "open" roads.

Doing it at night. The average Redittor is physically incapable of not being fucking retarded.

 

[WelperHelper99]

I agree...but the problem is they don't yet know where many of these people are. I mean, there are towns that were completely washed away.
If the National Guard knew where to drop the supplies, they would.

Unironically something like a Predator drone with thermals would help right now. It'd be able to find missing people faster than slogging through the mud.

 

[indomitable snowman]

So Biden and Harris released "statements" about this saying they are deeply saddened. I was trying to see if he was planning on going and I found this.

He's been at his beach house all weekend. But he might be there later this week. By this time Bush had already flown over the Katrina area and addressed the nation in a speech. I doubt he'll be walking around the area talking to people like Bush did in the aftermath.

https://archive.ph/lXvcU

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2024/sep/30/biden-to-visit-hurricane-helene-impacted-areas/

 

[Bowl of Ramen]

I’m not sure if y’all read me up thread. The NCANG/NG & Coast Guard has practically been there since the get-go. Rowan County has been staging a lot of the helos, since it’s a NCNG base. Army Chinooks were landing that morning.

A lot of the military assets are landing wherever they can, or taking over the smaller fields that civilian aircraft are discouraged flying into right now. A temporary TFR was put up yesterday over the airspace.

 

[A Cardboard Box]

Fatality count up to 120 total. 400 people reported missing have been found alive, thankfully.
View attachment 6472371
Source

At the current juncture I expect about 10% of the original 1100 missing to be dead, with the rest being simply out of contact. It's morbid to think about, but statistically there's probably close to another one hundred bodies out there. Unfortunately, many of those bodies could be pulverized, mulched, or buried under tons of rock and soil displaced by mudslides. Cadaver dogs are very good at their jobs, but unfortunately there limits.

The 82nd Airborne is also in North Carolina. They can call up the Joepedo and ask to borrow some helicopters

If I was planning how to handle this, I'd be using heavy lift assets like Ospreys and Chinnoks. Have them drop trucks and small boats to shuttle supplies around the local area. Also use tracked vehicles for off road use since the roads are busted.

Lejeune and Bragg have already committed most of their resources, including helicopters, SAR, LWPS/TWPS, and engineering equipment. The problem is logistics. The airspace is clogged. There are only so many choppers you can put in the sky over an area safely, and everyone wants a slice of that airspace. Additionally, decisions need to be made about whether to relocate these people or to provide assistance in situ. Next, you need to make contact with these people and figure out what they need. If they have food, dumping a thousand MREs on them is extraordinarily wasteful, because that represents misplaced food that could've gone to someone else, flight time lost, a helicopter in active airspace taking up one of those coveted slots, burnt fuel, etc.

I want to assure you that there are emergency management coordinators on the ground that are doing everything they can to make sure all of these things are being done as efficiently as possible. We're talking experienced guys that worked on hurricane Harvey, the 2013 tornado in Oklahoma, and hurricane Sandy. These guys are good.

Additionally, I want to point out that these guys are working, and don't have time for constant press updates. They're working against the clock in areas with very, very poor communication network coverage. Just in the last day there have been several hundred successful rescue flights extracting stranded people, and those flights are still ongoing. From what I understand, they're even using military spy aircraft equipped with FLIR to identify people that may need help.

Be patient, and don't be pessimistic. Lastly, think about the numbers. With all of the towns destroyed and roads out, with all of the cell towers and power out, there are less than 800 people unaccounted for. Just because we don't know every detail doesn't mean they aren't doing everything they can.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Be patient, and don't be pessimistic. Lastly, think about the numbers. With all of the towns destroyed and roads out, with all of the cell towers and power out, there are less than 800 people unaccounted for. Just because we don't know every detail doesn't mean they aren't doing everything they can.

"Missing" is a condition someone has to communicate, if I walk into the woods for 2 weeks and no one reports it to the authorities I'm not missing. In cut off areas there's no way to report it to the authorities. By the colloquial definition of missing there are many, many more people missing then the 800 the authorities know of.

 

[A Cardboard Box]

"Missing" is a condition someone has to communicate, if I walk into the woods for 2 weeks and no one reports it to the authorities I'm not missing. In cut off areas there's no way to report it to the authorities.

Incorrect. The authorities are including out of contact and unaccounted for in this number. Searchers are literally helicoptering in to areas cut off and performing door to door welfare checks.

 

[ovenmath]

Those missing numbers are underrepresented. There are towns that got flattened in counties that have no missing listed. If Burnsville were truly wiped, then spruce pine was as well. Neither Mitchell nor Yancey county have a missing list.

It is likely that nobody in those counties has been reported because there have been no means to report anyone, not because nobody is missing.

I can confirm looting of shops in West Asheville right now.

God bless the coast guard, national guard and the people out there helping. I wish I could do something other than send money to charities and pray.

 

[Bowl of Ramen]

NCANG C-17 out of CLT landing now.

EDIT: Race For Life Beech 1900 landing right after. Gotta take care of the pets, too.