One of the Chinooks providing relief up around Boone, N.C.
A followup on the hurricane post…
Things are still far from normal here in the (relatively) flatlands. Trees that were removed from atop houses (like my mother’s) are mostly still lying on the ground while the tree folks tend to other emergencies. I saw Joel Lourie’s business had to stay closed today for lack of power — as did many others, I’m sure; I just happened to read about that one. And statewide, I heard yesterday, more than 800,000 people lacked electricity.
But the real trouble has apparently been up in the Upstate, and especially in the mountains. The plant where my brother in Greenville works just got power (so did his house). But as I say, the real trouble is uphill from there.
Dave Crockett told us of widespread outages in Oconee. And when you start getting up toward and into North Carolina…
- My eldest granddaughter and her dog (y’all know Dembe) are going to try to drive home in the morning. She’s been pretty much trapped in her neighborhood in Asheville since the storm (you may have heard about Asheville). She’s the one who, as I mentioned before, saw a house float by on the rapidly rising French Broad River just below her house. She never lost power, though. So her phone is charged, she has food and water, and a full tank of gas, and now some roads have opened. But we won’t breathe easy until she’s safely down here with us. Because things are a mess up there.
- I had a series of texts and phone calls yesterday with Samuel Tenenbaum — off and on when he was able to get to a point where there was reception. He and Inez live in the mountainous part of Greenville County now, on Caesar’s Head. Their power is out. They have a generator, but were almost out of the propane that keeps it running. They had managed to get out of their driveway, but they couldn’t come south because Highway 276 was out. He said if there was a medical emergency, no ambulance could get into his community of 90 homes, or the larger neighborhoods of Caesar’s Head. He wanted the governor to send the Guard. I checked with the Guard and found they were already in Greenville County clearing road, but only clearing roads DOT asked them to clear. It was going to take maybe a week or two to get to all the roads up there. Meanwhile, National Guard helicopters flew 28 rescue missions across the state on Sunday.
- I went to the home of my neighbor Mary Burkett, because she’s running for Lexington Two school board, and I wanted one of her signs in my yard. I was greeted by her son Michael, who took my daughter to the prom when they were seniors at Brookland-Cayce years ago, and joined my elder son in forming their first band earlier than that. He said he and his dog — who was still in a nervous state at having a stranger at the door — had been in the mountains for five days, but I didn’t realize until I got home and read his mother’s Facebook page what a harrowing experience they had had. This was up around Boone. Their area was supplied and resupplied with water and MREs by a steady stream of military Chinook helicopters (you know, the big eggbeaters with two rotors) during that time. This morning, a road finally opened (basically, it was rebuilt after parts of it had essentially evaporated) this morning, and he got back home.
Oh, and my wife went to the dentist this morning and the hygienist told her two more storms are on our way. Looks like she might be right, although who knows there those disturbances will end up.
Anyway, what are y’all hearing from friends and loved ones up in the hills?
And I did get that yard sign, to go with my Russell Ott one.
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No relatives in NC. But was saddened to hear that this cozy old mountain roadside motel in Little Switzerland was wiped out by the effects of the storm:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/rebuild-alpine-inn-steve-and-carter-need-your-help?attribution_id=sl:50bd4b26-00a3-4eef-8d74-c934ce46bb5f&utm_campaign=man_sharesheet_dash&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=sms
If you can contribute a little to their go fund me campaign, please do. The two guys who ran it made such a nice place out of the Alpine Inn. It was a touch of the past clinging tenuously to the side of the mountain.