Sept 30th by Sean Dietrich

It’s all gone.” That’s what the lady on the news said.

She was an older woman, being interviewed by a reporter. Giant news camera shoved in her face.

The lady sounded like she was in a uniquely frantic state, poised somewhere between panic and absolute exhaustion. It is a frame of mind where you experience millions of emotions at once, and yet feel none of them.

I know this because that’s how she described it.

“It’s all gone. All of it.”

This was followed by images on my screen that were apocalyptic. One of America’s most historical storms. Hurricane Helene. Destruction from Florida to Virginia.

And here I am, sitting in my comfortable living room, watching the tube, thinking about how scary all this is.

These people’s lives are ruined. These people have nothing left. These are Americans. These are my brothers and sisters.

Whole towns are gone. Highways have been upended. Floodwaters rage. Mudslides. Missing persons. Missing pets. People going hungry. People trapped. People injured.

All I can think about are the emails and texts going back and forth between those who experienced the nightmare.

“We still haven’t heard from my mom…”

“My son hasn’t called yet…”

“It’s been days and I don’t know where my husband is…”

As I write this, the death toll tops 120. And I just read somewhere that 600 are still missing. And that’s just the ones we know about.

And as I’m watching this unfold on the television, I’m about to cry. I’m about to give up, deep inside. For there is little hope left in this world, I’m thinking.

But then I see something.

On the television, I see a kid picking up debris. He’s slight and small, maybe 6 years old. Blond hair. And he’s out there helping. Busting his tail.

I see food trucks galore, on their way to affected areas. Saint Pete. Western North Carolina. Waycross. One Salvation Army food truck, teeming with volunteers, is capable of cranking out 12,000 meals at a time.

Small churches with food lines. Churches with buildings that don’t even exist anymore are feeding the hungry. Feeding each other.

Members of the Cajun Navy, speeding toward flood zones in bass boats, with utility trailers full of supplies.

I see young guys with chainsaws, slicing through fallen oaks. I see men and women from other states, who took a field trip into hell, just to help. They have no relatives here. They just want to pitch in.

I see the Baton Rouge Fire Department flying to Charlotte, North Carolina, just to be airlifted into a rural area of the state.

Volunteer hikers, on their way to the Tennessee state line, a badly damaged area that hasn’t been assisted yet.

There are mule packers, headquartered in the North Carolina hills. Men leading mule trains, trained to haul military ammunition, now delivering meals and water to neighbors stranded.

The stories are too many to count. As I write this, a new story of heroism is occurring every minute in this nation.

Lives are being saved. Heroes. Each one of them. They are carrying the wounded of our kinship toward safety, on their own backs.

And I am reminded of something I once heard one of my own heroes say about horrific events occurring in our world.

“Look for the helpers,” he said. “You will always see people who are helping.”

He’s absolutely right. And in this case, they’re called Americans.

He's right. Americans count on Americans, not our so called global friends who are absent as usual.

RMD

quote:

Originally posted by rduckwor:
He's right. Americans count on Americans, not our so called global friends who are absent as usual.

It’s come to this. The Associated Press ran a hurricane story yesterday headlined, “Supplies arrive by plane and mule to North Carolina as Helene death toll tops 100.” Mules! The stubborn methane makers are helping deliver emergency supplies to Asheville.

In the story’s lead paragraph, the AP called Turbo Hurricane Helene “one of the worst storms in U.S. history.” By all appearances, before this is over, Helene will claim her inglorious crown as the most worst storm in American history. Mark those words.

Careful readers will recall the discussion earlier this year of the New Madrid earthquake zone, not that far from the parts of the country hardest-hit by Helene. We marveled at how, in the early 1800’s, the New Madrid earthquake set the catastrophic bar of destruction, and we soberly considered the effects of a similar disaster in the modern, much more populous present. Fortunately, the criss-crossing eclipses did not produce that lamentable outcome.

But this Helenic Disaster is comparable to a new, New Madrid earthquake.

Secondhand reports online suggest the damage and death tolls are much worse than are being reported, with extreme reports of thousands of bodies in submerged cars and so forth, but I advise the usual caution regarding these claims. They could be true, but we are still in the hot takes phase, when the kindergarten telephone game rules the day.

Between visiting —and re-visiting— affected Florida counties and towns, Governor DeSantis continues surging Florida resources to North Carolina. DeSantis asked FEMA to re-direct all resources slated for Florida to North Carolina.

President Trump, on the ground in Georgia, is now working with Elon Musk to coordinate surging StarLink kits to North Carolina as fast as possible.

If there weren’t a vacuum of leadership on the storm recovery, DeSantis and Trump (and others) wouldn’t have to step into the gap.

As you’re considering that, ask yourself how much taxpayer money should go to Americans devasted by 1,000-year turbo hurricanes? Before you answer, consider these three headlines within the last four days—all since the hurricane hit.

Help is on the way! Four days ago, Reuters ran a story headlined, “Israel says it has secured $8.7 billion U.S. aid package.” Three days ago, Responsible Statecraft ran a story headlined, “Biden 'surges' $8 billion in aid to Ukraine, this senator wants guardrails on it.” Yesterday, Reuters ran a story headlined, “Biden approves $567 mln in defense support for Taiwan, White House says.”

Just hold on. I know what you’re thinking, dummies. But you don’t understand geopolitics. The wheel of money and war must keep spinning, or what’s the point? True, people in North Carolina might not have food, water, or houses, but what would they do if China invaded Taiwan? Huh? What would they do if Russia defeats Ukraine before all that sweet, sweet tax money greases all the necessary palms?

How will we keep all those wars going?

It’s fine and dandy to help all those poor citizens of other countries deal with their disasters. But here’s a radical idea. Maybe we should suspend aid to fix other countries’ problems until we have a firmer grasp on our own?

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com...rue&utm_medium=email

Theres an instagrammer racer, crazy car guy Cleetus McFarland, been on a few TV shows with Roadkill, he's got a small helicopter that he and his wife took to the sky over NC and is delivering supplies to people where they can't get to them by road.

Link

Link Video

quote:

I advise the usual caution regarding these claims. They could be true, but we are still in the hot takes phase, when the kindergarten telephone game rules the day.

This.

1000x this.

Just watched the Cletus video. Pretty amazing 35 private helicopter pilots showed up with their birds to fly in and drop off supplies to trapped people and pick up people including a mom and 4 month old that needed oxygen. All coordinated out of the nearest airport. Curious there is no national guard helo crews doing this. If there are, I have not heard of it.

There was a gofundme for fuel costs but otherwise all on on their own dime and time.

Unless your looking for these stories, I’m gonna posit they will not be on the news.

Turbo Hurricane?

Oh, even worse, a 1,000 year turbo hurricane!

Jeff Childers' CoffeeandCovid is always insightful and uplifting:

This morning, the Trump Authorized GoFundMe for Helene victims surged past $3,700,000 — more than double where it began yesterday morning. Great work, team C&C!
Wed morning, the Trump Authorized GoFundMe for Helene victims surged past $3,700,000 — more than double where it began yesterday morning. Great work, team C&C!

Well I can't post what I wanted to so I just got duplicated. Will try to get a link. Sorry.

https://x.com/ryantyre/status/1841583311782568064

If you are wondering why citizens are being turned away that are coming to help NC and TN - you'll want to hear my experience as someone who has been doing this as a private citizen for almost a decade.

I was able to get into, and out of Asheville. We brought food, water, fuel and other supplies as well as helped people affected by the floods, but there are reasons why they are not allowing outside help.

I cannot confirm the reasons why in NC, but i can tell you the reasons in other storms i have worked - i'll explain below.

Let me share with you the first disaster area that i finally realized that this was all about money.

In the FL Keys with Hurricane Irma, after Texas got hit with Harvey, we finished our efforts in Texas and were the first citizen team to make it to Key Largo.

The federal agencies had US1 shut down just South of Key Largo and wouldn't let anyone in or out, even though the road was okay to pass.

We explained to them that we had boats, Jet skis, food, water, chainsaws and fuel to bring these people.

They didn't care and wouldn't let us in.

It was night by that point and you rarely saw the lights of vehicles in the distance on the individual keys, meaning the emergency response teams from FEMA weren't even working, it was all quiet.

We decided that we would go in anyways.

We filled up the boats and jet skis with all that we could reasonably carry and went by water, around all their BS blockades and around their law enforcement presence on the water.

It was 87 miles by water to get to our first stop, Cudjoe Key and Sugarloaf Key.

When we arrived there we were greeted by a homeowner (for privacy, I won't name him, though we have video) who was elated to see us and all the supplies we brought, his house was in shambles.

We started offloading supplies on the shoreline and helping to get them into what was left of his house.
During that process, he explained to us that FEMA had set up a command center at a local high school on the island, but that they weren't doing anything to help the residents, not even bringing them WATER!

Instead, he explained that they were driving around using a loudspeaker, telling people to stay in their homes. They weren't even helping the home owners with supplies.

I was skeptical at first while he was telling me all of this, but then he said something that broke my heart....

He told us that the people of the keys were all in despair, because they had just seen, weeks before, the overwhelming support for Texas with Hurricane Harvey, by the citizens of this country. He, and his neighbors on all of the keys, felt like Americans had forgotten about them completely, because at this point, FIVE DAYS after landfall, all they had seen was FEMA, and they were of NO HELP.

The residents were cut off from the outside world, no cellular, no internet, no way to contact anyone or hear of any efforts to try to help them.

The ONLY communication they had was from a local radio station on Sugarloaf Key, that was broadcasting on AM to the surrounding keys.

The man, after hearing that there were citizens trying to bring them help, but being refused entry by federal law enforcement was visibly upset. He, and his neighbors, really thought the country had abandoned them.

He insisted that we get into his waterlogged truck and that he would take us to that radio station so that we could go live on air, to tell the citizens trapped in the Keys that we, the American people, were there to help and that the government was trying to stop our efforts.

And that is exactly what we did.

After that, we were determined to help as many people as we could, but we were met with red tape throughout the whole process and time we were in the keys.

We finally we able to talk some authorities to let us down to the Faro Blanco Resort in Marathon towards the end of Boot Key. This was the same hotel where state and local authorities were staging their personnel and they were happy to see us.

I was able to coordinate several trucks full of supplies to be brought down to the EOC in Marathon. I was privy to the EOC meeting, BUT was informed in that meeting, that all of the semi trucks full of food, water and hygiene supplies were to be turned around and not allowed to be offloaded for distribution by the EOC.

THE REASON they gave us, was that these donations were not from companies on their "preferred vendors list" and that they would not accept them or give them to the residents of the keys impacted by the storm.

It was at that point that I realized, this is ALL ABOUT MONEY.

These 'preferred vendors" are getting part of the money being released by the state and federal govt for each disaster. In turn, some of the "vendors" make it on the list because a friend gets them on the list, and in return for getting ridiculously outlandish amounts of compensation for the services they render, they give kickbacks.

So accepting outside donations, even though they are on location and can help people NOW, they would rather let people suffer so they can get their kickbacks.

This meeting solidified my resolve to help these people, regardless of what the greedy officials wanted, we were going to feed the lower keys that were being neglected.

I diverted ALL SEMI TRUCKS to the Faro Blanco Resort in Marathon and filled the entire first floor with pallets upon pallets of food, water and essential supplies and created a food pantry for residents to come and get anything, and however much they needed.

From local state troopers to the homeless, all were given wheel barrels and free reign to get anything they needed.

We also delivered supplies down to Big Pine Key. We helped establish the tent city on Big Pine Key. Big companies like Titos Vodka and Whelen just kept bringing trucks full of everything that was needed. When FEMA FINALLY started handing out boxes of canned goods (limited to one per household), we were filing cars full of food and supplies for people and pets.

There is so much more to the story in the Keys and further from there in other storms we worked- the common theme though, is that the federal government always tries to keep citizens from helping and the local authorities, the ones that live and work in the area are always happy to have outside help.

I call out to Elon Musk and anyone else who can monetarily help people like myself and those that work with me, who have the knowledge and the will to help those devastated by these disasters.

Help us side step the red tape and get the people the relief they need.

We are willing, and we are many, and we are ready.

Personal experience seen with my own eyes several times during different disasters....... Red Cross response at rescue shelters refuseing food meant for the housed guest...Eventhough the large amounts of food were prepaired by recognized food trucks it was refused because it had not been prepaired in a Red Cross recognized and approved kitchen... But would send people to fast food shops such as McDonalds and bring back several hundred biscuits of different make ups........................ Another storm shelter set up but no Red cross supplies. Contact communication was being handled by cell phones so as to keep the communications out of reach of people with scanners listening to the emergency traffic..... But when several Ham Radio operators showed up and started to use their radios to call for help getting shelter supplies the plan to Keep the scanners from hearing what was actually happening fell apart Then the Red Cross had to start scrambling to get food and shelter supplies out to where they were needed. ..... Several other reasons I do not like to support the Red Cross.. To much hiearchy ......... drill sgt.

The Cajun Navy and others did more than FEMA ever did or could. Which makes me wonder why FEMA even exists.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
The Cajun Navy and others did more than FEMA ever did or could. Which makes me wonder why FEMA even exists.

Cajun Navy and BRFD and a good many others have been on local TV here in Baton Rouge headed to help.

Most food kitchens are scams. We found that out trying to make donations. (We are an FDA licensed dairy plant.)

While I don’t doubt any of the claims, it sucks to admit that’s how fucked up this is. It’s sad for sure.

FEMA sucks! Samaritans Purse and the Cajun Navy for the win.

RMD

Thank you Para.

Remarkable and deeply, shockingly disgraceful if true.

Mencken's black flag, gentlemen and ladies


- “Chimney Rock has been told that their entire town is federal property now
- There are dead bodies that are lying in the water
- There are dead bodies that are laying under trees and in the debris, and they can't get to their family members
- They can't even go back to their home”

— “The federal government has said that that land and all of those bodies are now federal property. The federal government is not wanting to identify any of the bodies.

They're just wanting to bulldoze over it and not even count how many people this natural disaster, if you wanna call it that, has caused.

— Furthermore, people who are trapped and who are getting shipments of supplies there was a pastor that was going door to door handing out water, and the request changed from water to body bags. They need body bags, and the feds aren't picking up the bodies. They're literally leaving them to rot.”

https://x.com/WallStreetApes/s.../1842667906682827030

"Federal property" based on what? The only legal way is through eminent domain, but this takes time and involves many steps. Surely doesn't happen overnight.