Hurricane Helene / Invest 97L

[Otterly]

Biden is flying into RDU Wednesday with an aerial tour of WNC. Not sure if he’s taking one of the new Ospreys as Marine One, or just visiting Raleigh quickly and flying over in the VC-25, but he’ll be there. He’s supposed to be distanced enough to not interfere with operations.

To quote the late great Spike Milligan, “I hope you bloody well crash.”

These people don't fucking care about us. The rural poor are completely disposable to them.

They don’t. The working class, rural people, the poor, they do not care. We are disposable to them. The left used to at least pretend they were for workers, I hope the last few years have made people open their eyes to just how much the people in charge are not simply indifferent but actively hostile

I think it only takes about a foot of water to knock someone off their feet too.

Cubic metre of water weighs a ton. add in debris being pushed by that weight and it is not survivable. The reports of children alone are heartbreaking. Bodies in trees is heartbreaking. My heart goes out to you all

 

[Brenda Holiday]

Photos of Taylors Valley VA. From what I've read these people have been stuck for days.

Spoiler: Photos

Wonder if anything will come of this?

 

[Velanna]

⁹

Photos of Taylors Valley VA. From what I've read these people have been stuck for days.

Spoiler: Photos

View attachment 6480076View attachment 6480077View attachment 6480078View attachment 6480080

Wonder if anything will come of this?
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The story going round here is that the supervisors told everyone not to leave until the water reached their waist or else they'd be fired nd then the supervisors left.

 

[Autistic Gunspergings]

Even standing water is suspicious as fuck and you should GTFO first and ask questions later.

this is seriously underrated advice. I cant find the video but there was this short where a trail guide stuck his walking stick + his entire arm into what looked like a small puddle, and he didn't even touch the bottom. dont trust water you cant see through.

 

[Bonesjones]

Water is incredibly powerful, and once it's more than a few inches deep, you're completely fucked if you don't have appropriate gear and boats and shit.

I've been in riptides ankle deep you couldn't stand in.

I think it only takes about a foot of water to knock someone off their feet too.

It takes less than an inch of water to push a car off the road, think hydroplaning but it's the water pushing not the car.

 

[Rumpled Foreskin]

Oh, someone mentioned Duke Energy way earlier. Yeah. They can get fucked and gargle my salty balls.

 

[AncientPhosphur]

Scariest words ever said “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”

 

[A Cardboard Box]

View attachment 6480524

Scariest words ever said “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”

This is a lie, point blank. This circulates every natural disaster and it is always a lie. Sandy, Harvey, the fires in Hawaii, the tornadoes in Oklahoma, they say it every time and it is always bullshit. File this in the same box as "900 bodies found hanging in trees."

ETA: She's updated her post imploring people to donate to her personal GoFundMe instead of local charities. She's a grifting faggot trying to profit off of tragedy.

 

[frozen_runner]

Had to travel to do laundry yesterday. Today, the power finally came back on. I had a week's worth of rotten food leaking in my freezer! Nobody is picking up the garbage yet, BTW

Restaurants and gas stations are not as packed today. That might be because it's a weekday, but I think people are panicking less now that power and gas are more available. Stores are still ransacked of goods, though. Had a nice lunch charging my phone in a restaurant near a meth addict doing the same while babbling on his phone to his kid.

A friend in Asheville says there's no power, no water, and only spotty cellphone coverage, but he's alive in an undamaged house. He must not be in one of the worst hit areas.

 

[Lurking no more]

I've gotten word that I'm getting sent up to the mountains sometime soon to help clear roads. I have no idea when specifically, or where I'm going, just that we need people to go and what supplies we should bring. I have no idea what Raleigh's plan is, and you didn't hear it from me, but I don't think Raleigh knows what Raleigh's plan is either. Every thing I've heard from the people above me is some variation of "I don't know." Admittedly, we're not emergency personnel, hopefully they have a better grasp on things than we do.

 

[A Cardboard Box]

I've gotten word that I'm getting sent up to the mountains sometime soon to help clear roads. I have no idea when specifically, or where I'm going, just that we need people to go and what supplies we should bring. I have no idea what Raleigh's plan is, and you didn't hear it from me, but I don't think Raleigh knows what Raleigh's plan is either. Every thing I've heard from the people above me is some variation of "I don't know." Admittedly, we're not emergency personnel, hopefully they have a better grasp on things than we do.

This tracks. From what I've heard, the relief effort is shifting into the next phase, which is opening up LOCs through the mountains. They're currently organizing a task force of military and civil engineers to get I-40 and state highways open, even if it's down to one lane in either direction. They're trying to enlist groups like you guys to do debris clearance so they can dedicate all of their efforts to getting the roads structurally sound.

I hope this helps. As always I will provide updates as I get them.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Guy walking/biking down NC Highway 9 to Chimney Rock. Just in the first few minutes its clear Highway 9 is completely washed away and the devastation along it is immense.

 

[Velanna]

Impact Plastic Statement

Spoiler: Article

Impact Plastics addresses ‘missing and deceased employees’ after floods​

by: Murry Lee
Posted: Sep 30, 2024 / 01:51 PM EDT
Updated: Sep 30, 2024 / 11:47 PM EDT
SHARE
ERWIN, Tenn. (WJHL) — A plastics manufacturer in Unicoi County expressed sympathy after several employees went missing or died amid catastrophic flooding.
Impact Plastics issued a press release on Monday stating that the company “expresses sympathy for the missing and deceased employees and one contractor during the historic and devastating floods at its facility on Friday, September 27.”
Impact Plastics is located in the Riverview Industrial Park in Erwin.

“We are devastated by the tragic loss of great employees,” Impact Plastics founder Gerald O’Connor said in the release. “Those who are missing or deceased, and their families are in our thoughts and prayers.”
According to Impact Plastics, the company was monitoring weather conditions on Friday morning after intense rainfall the night before.

Employees were dismissed by management to their homes when the plant lost power and water started covering the parking lot and nearby service road, according to the release.

“At no time were employees told that they would be fired if they left the facility,” the release states. “For employees who were non-English speaking, bi-lingual employees were among the group of managers who delivered the message.”
Impact Plastics stated that most employees left immediately, but some remained at the facility or nearby for unknown reasons.
Senior management and some assistants reportedly stayed at the plant to make preserve company records, assess damage to the building and oversee the departure of employees. Those employees were the last the leave the building, Impact Plastics reports.

The company stated that some employees left the industrial park in a truck owned by a neighboring company and driven by a driver employed by the other company.
Other Impact Plastics employees reportedly left by taking the CSX railroad track behind the plant because of high waters that had entered the front of the facility.

“Due to the quickly rising water, the truck tipped over and five employees and a contractor aboard the truck went missing,” the release states. “Five others who were also on the truck when it tipped over made it to safety and were later evacuated. Those who departed by the railroad tracks were offered assistance from employees of an adjacent company, making it to safety.”
According to the company, a National Guard helicopter was sent at the request of senior management to search for other employees. The helicopter airlifted five other employees to safety, the release states.
Impact Plastics is working to organize a recovery center to help employees and provide more information on their benefits and job opportunities.
Impact Plastics plans to reopen operations in the future but did not provide an estimated date.
“Impact Plastics remains committed to assisting its employees and help them connect to available resources after the devasting effects of the horrific floods that occurred on September 27, 2024,” the company stated.

Edited to fix format

 

[mindlessobserver]

Hobbyist bought an abandoned helicopter from Venezuela. His youtube channel was basically dedicated to various redneck fantasy projects. This was one of them. Can they restore a junkyard helicopter to working condition?! The thing got its maiden flight mission as part of the rescue effort by privately owned helicopters in North Carolina.

Big thing I am noticing from this one is you often see communities bookended by completely destroyed roads along the various rivers. These people are quite literally trapped.

 

[Bowl of Ramen]

I have no idea what Raleigh's plan is, and you didn't hear it from me, but I don't think Raleigh knows what Raleigh's plan is either.

This is a very accurate assessment of Raleigh in toto

 

[MSG Addict]

Without too much PL, I live in Northeast TN within about 15 miles from Erwin. One thing this disaster reinforced for me is the importance of investing in a quality weather radio. Cellular service was one of the first things to go out in some areas, including mine. If you can't get any signal at all from any network, you can't receive wireless emergency alerts. My weather radio stayed operating the entire time and it switched to its backup battery when I lost power.

I really can't overstate what an awful one-two punch this weather was for the region. The first flash flood warning for me came through on Wednesday 9/25 - 2 days before the hurricane rains even arrived. It had been raining so much and so heavily, that by the time the hurricane rains came in the morning of 9/27 the ground was already utterly saturated. My weather radio was going off almost nonstop with flash flood emergency after flash flood emergency. I think it went off more that day than it had in the past few years combined. The scale of the flooding is not something that anyone living here would have ever imagined.

Infrastructure-wise, my specific area got really lucky. My power was only out for a couple hours, and my cable internet service was out for less than a day. T-Mobile was down for the majority of Northeast TN and part of Southwest VA from mid Friday 9/27 through Monday 9/30 morning due to multiple fiber cuts in the Johnson City area. For my specific area, T-Mobile didn't activate their 'disaster roaming' access to other networks until Sunday so I had two days without cellular service.

Thankfully, as long as there is any service on any carrier at all, wireless emergency alerts will still come through and you can still call 911. Verizon and AT&T had only minimal downtime near me. If Verizon and AT&T had also gone down for an extended period as they did in the more devastated parts of Western NC, the weather radio would have been the only good way for me to receive updated flood warnings. If you don't have a weather radio, get one. It could save your family's lives one day.

 

[gorororo]

Plentiful resources create more people, and the more people there are, the less valuable we are.

(Not so) fun fact: the Black Death resulted in increased wages and standard of living for peasants.

I've already sent some money to Operation Airdrop, but is there a list of local churches accepting donations?

Spoiler: PLing

I've been wanting to move to North Carolinia and find an engineering job there for a while. It feels pretty morbid to think there's certainly going to be a need for civil engineers there for the forseeable future. I already took the FE, too ...

 

[booklover]

Ham radios are also useful when cell service has gone down.

Here's information for North Carolinians, regarding the upcoming election. Pass it on if you know anyone who may be interested.

https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/10/01/how-to-vote-if-youve-been-affected-by-hurricane-helene/75468666007/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFq1ptleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHU7geTLM8KsyP0QGfVAN89dUusJjusATIo5Q4Q_nom_E8T_TxRyHzelerQ_aem_SJwuWjBUkHp3DN4zqCPqoA

 

[Bonesjones]

Hobbyist bought an abandoned helicopter from Venezuela. His youtube channel was basically dedicated to various redneck fantasy projects. This was one of them. Can they restore a junkyard helicopter to working condition?! The thing got its maiden flight mission as part of the rescue effort by privately owned helicopters in North Carolina.

Big thing I am noticing from this one is you often see communities bookended by completely destroyed roads along the various rivers. These people are quite literally trapped.

Cleetus McFarlane is way more than that, he bought an old race track and re-opened it, does a lot of drag racing and other stuff, which is besides the point.

He's been out on the Frontline using all his ability, to do the right thing. Where's the rest of the youtube crowd or MrBeast. Fuck them posers. He's got my respect.

 

[1Tonka_Truck]

Hobbyist bought an abandoned helicopter from Venezuela. His youtube channel was basically dedicated to various redneck fantasy projects.

Garrett being an IFR rated helo pilot, he's a very serious hobbyist. He picked his little bird up from Thoroughbred Helicopters in Lexington, KY last week. It's wild he flew into the mountains of NC with his entire stick time on a freshly rebuilt helicopter being function checks and the ferry flight back to Florida.

Big thing I am noticing from this one is you often see communities bookended by completely destroyed roads along the various rivers. These people are quite literally trapped.

The general level of damage in the flying shots fucked me up for a bit. I didn't feel good about posting the video in here with the jump cut to the original video about flying the helo home halfway through. I have no idea why he didn't make separate videos.