H’s cousin lives in Hendersonville. He’s fine, although no electricity - but one of the houses in his neighborhood was damaged in a mudslide. So much damage in western NC!
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We have friends in Boone. They have cell service…but no electricity or water…
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Thank you! I have friends in Boone too (including an infant grandson) and I haven’t heard from them yet.
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I have friends in Hendersonville and Asheville. Have heard from one that is in Hendersonville……
Still nothing here. Saw a report from the Transylvania county sheriff who made it sound like it could be weeks before power is restored. And I noticed that the road that leads to the closed highway parallels a creek. It wouldn’t surprise me if that road is washed out too.
But the post also requested to not request welfare checks or emergency services unless you knew it was a life or death situation. So I will try to sleep and wait. She’s pretty hardy right?
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Just a short update. My kid and roommate left UNCA with no GPS. My kid ran out of gas an hour from home. We took two gas cans to get him home. So many gas stations on 26 south were out of power or gasoline. Took 6 hours to go a normal two hour ride.
Kid’s roommate got turned around on 40 west and backtracked to 26 South to Charlotte and stayed with us a night. He made it home safely yesterday. 8 hours to get to our house.
Their cars are caked in mud.
While they were driving we were driving to Asheville to gather our kid which was not a smart move at all.
When our kid finally got signal and we knew they left Asheville we turned around and came home.
Awful situation there.
Edit: shout out to the state troopers that gave the kids directions back to 26
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Heard from my Ft Myers person. They didn’t lose power this time.only damage was a lot of debris that needs to be cleaned up. Last hurricane…it flooded her house and she was without power. She is very grateful, but sad for those who have more significant issues.
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My friend lives there too. As of last night, no power. No generator in his building. Only drive for emergencies, so can’t get to a store. Asheville airport closed. Roads destroyed so supplies can’t get in.
Awful
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Family in Swannanoa, NC – a brief text yesterday they are alive, trapped on 2nd floor of house with supplies being delivered by helicopter to the roof. Presumably no flood insurance because, why would you, in western NC . . . .
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Just heard from another friend in Asheville. They have trees down but fortunately not on the house. Cell and internet down but she found a hotspot. And no water. She said every other house around her has trees on it.
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Our friends in Augusta, Georgia are reporting lots of damage from trees and lots of flooding. One friend posted a picture of the National Guard removing downed trees in her yard. Thank goodness for helpers.
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We’ve just been instructed to boil our water here. A mild inconvenience compared to others. But it amazes me how far inland the effects are being felt. When we moved here, I thought we’d never have to worry about hurricanes!
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I have a couple friends in the NC Mountains that have no power or water. The no water is really concerning.
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We purchased a standby generator for our house because we lose power a lot. We can live without electricity for the most part, but we are on a well … being without water is awful.
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This storm was really unprecedented. Asheville got hit by a really bad hurricane in 1916 that was pretty bad, but that region was one that most people assumed was relatively safe which it isn’t. The problem with Helene wasn’t the wind, it was the rain, it was so supercharged with water that it dumped 15-20" of rain into the mountain regions. The problem is in the mountains people live in the valleys, and what happens is all that water comes down from the mountains, and floods the river valleys.
What makes the aftermath of this storm so bad is it devastated 6 states, so it is an effort on a scale don’t think has been seen before. There is a You Tube Channel we follow called Ryan Hall Y’All, he does this serious weather channel, has storm chasers that work with him, and he had it nailed, he said the problem wasn’t just going to be florida, but the models showed it would go right up into the appalachians and was going to dump a lot of water, this was days before the storm. The storm was like 300 miles wide, which increased the impact of it, what once might have been Florida got hit with a hurricane, storm surge, wind damage, is a whole region.
The thing is there is no safe place. I love in NJ about 40 miles west of NYC, in a once in a hundred year flood plain. We don’t get hurricanes much, and even Sandy in my area was mostly about losing power from trees blowing over, we didn’t even get much rain if any. The problem is the storms likely to come are going to be very different than anything we have seen before. Helene was supercharged because the Gulf is warmer than it ever has been (the Atlantic likewise is), given the dynamics it means weird things can happen anywhere.
my heart goes out to those affected by this. What is hard right now is the roads and bridges are wiped out so it is hard to get access to even assess the damage and I am hearing there may be hundreds and hundreds of people missing, and then how do you get supplies there?
One thing I seriously am thinking is to get my ham license and have a rig I can run in case there is a disaster like this around here. When cell is out, cable phone is out, they can get through and if I do CW (morse code), you can get through in even really horrible atmospherics on a 2 meter portable rig. (Friend of mine once got someone in Asia on like a 20 watt signal on CW).
Last I heard there may be another storm forming. I suspect that November won’t be the end to this storm season.
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That’s exactly the situation for these people, their well!
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Some news here! I was getting more fretted since the NCDOT updated the page to say the nearest highway’s tentative open date is not Oct. 10th. Her area is very remote, all I could find about her area was 1 sentence in a long article in the local county online newspaper that stated “washed out roads are exacerbating rescue efforts.”
So I called my sister and told her I was finding a few FB pages, but I never use FB and also my aunt is very peculiar about posting personal info. Anyhow, she posted to the local fire & rescue group the general street area, and they responded that everyone has been checked on and ok. So we are taking that as good news for now!
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That rocks, I am glad she is okay.
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My mom lives in a multi-level living senior community in Western NC. She’s in independent living. Power was out in until yesterday, and water was out until today. I don’t think they ever lost cellular service.
Just when I think this place couldn’t get better, they went above and beyond to take care of residents. All meals delivered, plenty of drinking water, and someone to refill toilet tanks as needed. Today they offered to clean out refrigerator/freezers and discard spoiled food.
She has a portable charger that they kept full by charging it in the health care area (on a generator) so she had use of her phone and tablet.
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I’m very sad for NC and all those lives lost everywhere. In most of ATL, it feels like we just got a minor storm going through. (In terms of long term damage). It’s just surreal that my daughter has friends up at App State who will probably get sent home for a bit. And the thought of all those helicopters trying to find people still.
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