Realcent.org

(As an aside, I hadn't gotten into this thread table of contents in quite awhile, and I found it "junked up" (sorry if that offends any of the thread creators) with things that I don't believe were ever intended to go into this section. This was fundamentally a non-PM non-investing section; now I see a bunch of unrelated topics.)

We are seeing little coverage except on Fox Weather of the devastating effects of Helene on the NC / TN mountains. Entire towns have been literally swept away and the death toll is truly unknown because people are isolated with no phone or internet, and literally no way except by helicopter for many of them to be gotten to.

We were just at Black Mountain, Chimney Rock, and Ashville 7 weeks ago. Chimney Rock is wiped away, now a large debris pile at the top of Lake Lure.

My wife, the artist, had a show in Columbia, SC, at the gallery on the campus of USC. The show ended Friday as scheduled but rather unceremoniously due to the approach of Helene and we spent Saturday and today (29Sep2024) driving home to south Texas with all the artwork. Along the Interstate Highways in SC and GA, we saw hundreds of tress, mostly pine, that had either been uprooted or snapped off 6-10 feet off the ground. By the time we got to AL we no longer saw any issues. Columbus saw very little rain. NC seems to have been hit the worst.

4 million people still without power, from Florida to Virginia. Most of those are NOT in Florida where you would have expected.

Western North Carolina mountains got more than 23 inches of rain. Parts of I-40 are under water. Lots of smaller roads are washed away, not to mention buildings, houses. Around 60 confirmed deaths already, lots of people missing. The cell towers apparently don't have back up power so folks are without electricity or comms.

I'm an emergency manager for TN. It's terrible. Many places in NE TN have no water or sewage. Communications to some of the most remote places is difficult at best. The number of bridges and roads that have been wiped away is.....quite frankly.....stunning. I've been through other flooding events and tornadoes (2010 and 2011 come to mind if you want to google) this far exceeds those, possibly combined. So many people are displaced.......so many are missing.

My brother is in SW Georgia. They have been w/o power since the storm and are being told it will be at least 2 weeks more. Fortunately, he has a generator and has some power. However, he never tested it on the well and it isn't big enough for pumping water. Most of the trees in his area are gone. I haven't been able to reach my stepmom since the storm.

Wish I could go down there and help but sounds like I would be in the way and using scarce resources at this point.

I'm used to hurricanes in the Gulf spinning northeast after landfall so I was surprised to see St. Louis get hit by the remnants of Helene.

I'm used to hurricanes in the Gulf spinning northeast after landfall so I was surprised to see St. Louis get hit by the remnants of Helene.

shinnosuke wrote:I'm used to hurricanes in the Gulf spinning northeast after landfall so I was surprised to see St. Louis get hit by the remnants of Helene.

There was another more powerful low to the west of it and it dominated, sucking up the remnants of Helene, pulling it west.

Starlink looking better every day

The niece of a friend of ours was trapped with her husband and dog. Her brother flew in from CO, met the dad (brother to our friend), and the two of them 4 wheeled it in with a canoe and supplies, and used a Garmin satellite text service to communicate, which worked well, for relatively cheap. They got them out.

But their house was destroyed in a mudslide.

We still have people here in the Indianapolis area that are without power, as a result of Helene.

68Camaro wrote:The niece of a friend of ours was trapped with her husband and dog. Her brother flew in from CO, met the dad (brother to our friend), and the two of them 4 wheeled it in with a canoe and supplies, and used a Garmin satellite text service to communicate, which worked well, for relatively cheap. They got them out.

But their house was destroyed in a mudslide.

Wow, make a movie. Glad the story has a happy ending (except for the house).

We were on the top edge of it here in Roanoke, VA. Yes it was messy, tons of rains and 2 days of no power but man-o-man just south of us in NC and TN it's absolutely terrible! I have 2 sisters just outside of Asheville NC. Both no power. One just got water back (lives in a town with municipal water) the other is still without power and water (lives in the middle of nowhere, well water - no power to pump it).

National Guard just went in yesterday I think? What took so long?

Anyway, pray for these folks. I am trying to figure out if theres a way I can reach out and help.