Hurricane Helene

Definitely not a necessity nor the best thing, but after being up there and seeing everyone miserable. I wanted to also take a couple coolers of cold drinks to pass out other than warm water bottles. Got a bunch of sodas, tons of Powerade’s, monsters, propels. Even got some candy and goodies to give out to the kiddos. Maybe put a smile on the faces for 5 mins. Coolers are full as well already
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Me and my wife took a load from them up the Mountain towards Burnsville and had to make 3 stops before we ended up back in Spruce Pine. A major drop off point up (Altec) there wouldn't take it because it wasn't sorted...told me they weren't taking clothes ( it looked like they had a pile just piled up at the far end of their property hopefully not to be thrown away)

Some folks from we followed up were headed for Pensacola/Celo with sxs and supplies but they turned them around.
 
frankenyoter said:
Several big pipes were erased. It’s probably more than 100’. River completely rerouted itself. I’ll try and get a couple photos to share.

What business was it? Bud Halls?
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That name sounds familiar, I'm not sure though.

100' is probably what he said. He was throwing information at me so fast this morning it was all my brain could do to keep up.
 
I was back in Knoxville today to get another load of stuff that Uni-first donated and traffic was terrible.Took 45 minutes to get thru town.
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Copied this from FB.... Grain of salt of course

Copied from a friend.;
This is info gathered from Ham radio operators up and down the line in the mountains. There is another person in the chat who has been in it every day and they say it is legit
***Parental Warning This Post Probably isn't going to be kid friendly I'll try to keep it PG13***
The following is a blurb posted this past hour by a PrepperNet City Leader out of TN who has sifted/facilitated a ton of comms traffic these days:
"Don't believe the BS you see all these dumb asses are stirring up on social media. I spent all weekend trying to track people in the impact zone down, collect real info from what was going on, and relay information in and out of the impact zone. Here is some real facts for you.
Are supply deliveries being blocked? Yes and no. Some counties are more difficult to deal with than others. Many people are just randomly showing up with a truck load of unorganized stuff with no affiliation with a NGO and no destination. If you do that you will most likely be turned away. This isn't a normal disaster zone it looks more like a war zone and you can't get to the places that currently need it most. In TN they are diverting lots of trucks to Bristol Motor Speedway. Plenty of trucks are arriving with 100,000Lbs or more if supplies in the back... the area that it needs to go to is only accessible via backroads as the interstate is gone. The problem is most of the bridges have a weight limit of 20 or 40 tons... Many areas in NC are physically inaccessible or only accessible by ATV, UTV or Mule train (yes they are taking supplies to some areas with pack mules) some accessible areas have so many supplies that they are having trouble storing them.
Currently there are supplies sitting in trailers in various locations because they need sorted and it is easier to distribute the large truck loads of one single supply. One group was giving away roughly 10 tractor trailers of water per day. Many things being donated aren't useable for the situation and that is having to be pulled out.
Is FEMA confiscating stuff. Not that I have heard of, from what I'm hearing it takes 8 of them to make one welfare check so they are getting no where fast... F'N waste of time. Maybe they will come up with something useful to do. Same goes for NC State. TN is doing ok but NC is worthless.
In other news you aren't going to see online and you didn't hear from me.
Are supplies getting targeted by looters? Yep and it is getting worse.
Are there river banks with dead bodies scattered up and down them? yep
Are there dead bodies hanging 50 feet up in trees? Yep
Are counties moving from SAR to Recovery? Yep you do the math with missing persons...
Are there roads to communities that are completely gone for miles? Yep
Are there communities that may never be inhabited again? Yep
Are the death totals you are seeing released at this time absolutely BS? Yes
Will cell service and access to some areas be repaired soon? Nope not a chance.
Are there sections of road with so many trees down you can't even see the road for miles? Yep
Are there ham radio operators communicating all over the area helping and coordinating everything they can and sharing more information than almost any other source? Yep
Are people discovering that a Baofeng isn't going to cut it and trying to find real radio gear in the middle of a disaster? Yep
Are people outside the area completely clueless to what is going on? For the most part unless they are looking hard. The MSM is useless as usual.
Are most of the Stihl distributers out of all chainsaws and waiting on new shipments? Yep my local dealer tried to reorder MS462's today and there are none available.

Is there some pencil D*&K fire chief that is on a power trip in lake Lure? Yep He called the local LE on a guy doing rescues. They told him to go to the airport and wait of the FAA which never showed up. The FAA probably has no desire to get involved in a peon's power trip or the deputies never called them... Remember during a disaster the local people around you have a much greater impact on your situation that any national politician. So if your fire chief is an power tripping *Y*! head then make sure he need to seek other employment.

Are there plenty of idiots causing problems with disaster relief because they want to do feel good stuff that makes them think that they are helping, but not filling the real needs? Absolutely
Are there people trying to take advantage of the situation? Unfortunately yes

All that said, There are a lot of people out there busting their ass and doing extremely dangerous work trying to help their fellow man. They are working in terrible conditions witnessing things that will haunt them for the rest of their life and still pushing forward to help those in need. Support those people listen to what they need. It may not always be the "usual" stuff and for heavens sake develop some skills to help. Having a spirt to want to help is great, but if you can't run a saw, use a radio, use heavy equipment, drive a truck, do swift water rescue, manage logistics, cook for huge number of people, unload trucks, and do so while not being a burden to the group you are helping then please work on that if you feel lead to help

I could go on, but need to deal with some other stuff. Sorry for the rant, it has been a long and stressful week and the morons on Facebook are just making it worse... if you have internet and are able to post that you need a flight out of the air BnB you are in then you are fine, really, there are literally thousands if not tens of thousands of people with no home to go back to and no job to go back to or stranded with no shelter. You can sit tight for a few days".
 
www.facebook.com

Radio Greeneville

GPS is rerouting interstate traffic through Greene County, but NC officials have closed their side of the highway to all but local traffic. This semi's GPS took it to Paint Creek. NC highway...
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com

At least three times in the last two days.
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Heard that the Red Cross tried to come in to the emergency shelter/drop off point here at Glenwood Baptist and the boss ladies running the show shut them down lol. Don’t need any red tape grinding that operation to a halt.

Went to Asheville with a buddy yesterday to find a friend from church that lives in VA housing in Swannanoa. Nobody had heard from him since everything started. Spent most of the afternoon checking shelters until we finally got a call that he was in the VA hospital. He’s diabetic and requires dialysis so he said his first move was to get to the ER when he saw it getting bad Friday morning. Lost everything but the clothes on his back, but was still asking if everybody else was doing ok.
 
1-tonmudder said:
www.facebook.com

Radio Greeneville

GPS is rerouting interstate traffic through Greene County, but NC officials have closed their side of the highway to all but local traffic. This semi's GPS took it to Paint Creek. NC highway...
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com

At least three times in the last two days.
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People have forgotten how to use a paper map.
 
Some good news:

babylonbee.com

North Carolina Asks Zelensky For $100 Billion In U.S. Funding

RALEIGH, NC — With civilians working hard to rescue their neighbors along the path of devastation left behind by Hurricane Helene and FEMA revealing a lack of available money, the state of North Carolina asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for $100 Billion in U.S. funding.
babylonbee.com babylonbee.com
 
orange150 said:
My niece is a freshman at UNC-A. They’re going to head back up on the 9th to try to get her roommates car and their personal belongings.
Apparently the school is targeting Oct 28 to reopen; wonder how they landed on that date?
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There's no way the area will be ready to support the school by then.
At this point might as well be honest and call it for the semester. Let everyone stay away and go get jobs elsewhere
 
RatLabGuy said:
There's no way the area will be ready to support the school by then.
At this point might as well be honest and call it for the semester. Let everyone stay away and go get jobs elsewhere
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This.
The town's infrastructure is heavily damaged. Getting the water system repaired and functional is going to be a long while.
While our business is fine and will likely be quite busy for a while, one of the neighbors in my business park are already screwed. They run a commercial kitchen hood cleaning business. As of Wednesday, they'd already lost many, many customers whom lost their own restaurants. That's the part of the aftermath we all don't think about.
There will be long lasting fallout from this.
 
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