I think @Innocentbystander is in the hills, but what about you low landers? Looks like a mess down there, with a long cleanup/fix up time.
Thoughts and prayers.
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Another 50 miles or so, and I’d still be treading water! (E Tn)
I think most or all are further east, so hopefully it missed them also. Western NC had 418 roads shut down yesterday. It’s shut down completely. Definitely a long road to recovery.
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It’s a mess down here in western SC and NC. There was so much rain before the winds came, that huge 100+ year old oak trees uprooted everywhere and took out houses, cars and especially power lines. Transformers just ripped off poles and lines laying everywhere. Just got my power back today and 70% of the county is still without. Heard utility rep on news tonight, they’ve got to replace 1400 power poles in just our county. Takes 4 guys and the equipment about 5-6 hours each to do. They’re saying most should have back by Friday here. There were so many trees down took them 2 days just to be able to reach their substations.
Of course, for the most part here it’s been mainly property damage and inconvenience. 30-40 miles north of us in NC, they had gotten serious rain completely unrelated to storm for a couple of days prior, been some little front stalled about 30 miles west of us sitting over mountains, whereas I was running my sprinklers it was so dry here. So when storm came, Thursday, it dumped a ton more water and then we had about 70mph winds. It was truly a once in a 100 years type of event. It truly obliterated a lot of small beautiful mountain towns. It will take years and years for some to recover, if ever. It’ll take them a couple of years to fix just the 2 primary interstates that run thru the area. I’m sure they’ll rig up up some temp fix but to do them right will be awhile.
I had to be in Bristol TN for a school that started Friday, so drove up, about 3 hours thru the area late Thursday and it was bad then. I was lucky because by Friday am, it was impassable. But we weren’t even suppose to get that much from storm, few wind gusts and some rain. But I was up Thursday night about 1:30 am watching the weather channel and when storm hit Fl/GA border it jigged right about 50 miles from it’s path, so the right edge of the storm, about 20 miles out from it’s eye came right over us and Asheville and before it started turning back left towards Knoxville. But any low lying areas were just annihilated by all the runoff and then the winds. You have to realize that the low lying areas are the only place you can build in a lot of the areas because it’s just constant mountain ranges and that’s also where the major rivers flow. Friday morning in Bristol it was raining sideways and you could barely stand in the wind. But by 1pm sun was coming out, though still windy. I had to drive east over to VA and come down 77 to get home today. Western NC is locked down
Very few gas stations have fuel and most the grocery stores aren’t open yet here. Up there I’m sure it’s even worse.
The good news is that I had to stay in Charlotte last night, and half of all the hotels around there were filled with big utility and disaster relief trucks moving into the area. The ones where I was staying were from upstate NY and some from ME. So there’s help, for at least the electrical grid, coming in from other utilities and large utility disaster relief companies from all over the country. Getting the power back on up there is critical. Without, no phone, internet, fuel, water treatment or anything. And with so many roads blocked or bridges gone, access isn’t easy. so going to be a long process.
Just one of 30 trees lady across from my mom had blown over. 100 yr old oak. Notice relatively small root ball. Insurance doesn’t cover anything except she had a small shed in back with mowers in. Quote for tree cleanup is 60k. Older lady on fixed income. Like that in a lot of places
Friend of mine who is a washer, tree fell on corner of house, smashed it in, rolled off onto top of wife’s car, crushed it, with main part of tree and top part got his trailer.
I’m worried about @Gunny who lives up there. Tried to call him today but he’s ex fire fighter so probably out trying to help.
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Glad to hear you are okay. I knew it was bad when all the lineman in my area were headed south. They only get mass call ups like that after disasters. My buddy complains about those jobs, says he likes to help people out, but when he is sleeping in the truck after a long shift he hates it when they come beating on the truck door.
I feel for the old people, there just isn’t a budget for these situations unless your are wealthy.
They always say things can be replaced, but no one ever talks about the suffering people endure while trying to replace things - if they can be replaced.
Thank you for the update and the sitrep.
What a mess……been there done that. No fun, big inconvenience for sure. Mother Nature can throw you curve balls sometimes……glad you’re safe though. Hope for the best….
