A fellow blacksmith friend had his house and smithy destroyed by a mud slide. He is in the hospital but they cannot find his fiance. It is just awful.

John Norwood of Old Hickory Forge

My other friends in Wilkesboro seem to be ok. No power or phones, and some roads are not passible.

A podcast I follow about Group of 5 NCAA programs "The group of 5 guys" lives in Boone. He is also giving a report and raising money for Boone.

Group of 5 Guys for Boone

"Modern Economy Rests On Single Road" In North Carolina Where Hurricane Collapsed Bridges

https://www.zerohedge.com/comm...ne-collapsed-bridges

In March, a Wharton professor who studies artificial intelligence and start-ups claimed on X, "The modern economy rests on a single road in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. The road runs to the two mines that are the sole supplier of the quartz required to make the crucibles needed to refine silicon wafers."

Ethan Mollick noted at the time, "There are no alternative sources known" if supply disruptions were seen in Spruce Pines.







More at link

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
How many times do we have to go through a hurricane of this level for the FEMA to understand what is needed and set up plans to get it there immediately, whether they ask for it or not.

Hint... if you don't need it, you can always put it back in storage. Another one will be along fairly soon.

One, the damage from this hurricane is on another level from hurricanes prior.

Two, FEMA does pre-stage and store assets. Everyday, I drive past two areas where FEMA has stored around 500 travel trailers since Ian.

I appreciate people posting their experiences with this storm and pray for everyone affected.

I welcome any other posters to come on down to my community or any other community affected and let us know what we did wrong, how we could do it better, etc.

quote:

"Modern Economy Rests On Single Road" In North Carolina Where Hurricane Collapsed Bridges

https://www.zerohedge.com/comm...ne-collapsed-bridges

In March, a Wharton professor who studies artificial intelligence and start-ups claimed on X, "The modern economy rests on a single road in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. The road runs to the two mines that are the sole supplier of the quartz required to make the crucibles needed to refine silicon wafers."

Ethan Mollick noted at the time, "There are no alternative sources known" if supply disruptions were seen in Spruce Pines.

This is astonishing and concerning!

Not to minimize the terrible trials the people of the area have to contend with and the deaths of their loved ones.

I just read this post about Spruce Pine and quartz mining to my wife, who said "Mouth drop!!"

Biden's teleprompter finally gave a speech via a walking corpse at around noon today. 3 days after the fact.

My company has a plant in Ashville so I am talking to people that live there. We don't know the status of all the workers because internet and phone are down and people are isolated by impassable roads. Our eastern NC plant is OK, despite a Tornado that ripped through the town on top of the hurricane effects.

National Guard and Active Duty Military need to start a full scale evacuation by helicopter. FEMA sending food and water to mustering areas on safe land will help, but that's not going to do anything for all the stranded people. There was mention of 10 federal search and rescue teams, but I don't know how they are equipped or what they can really do.

Biden and Harris are really screwing the "optics" on this. They could have been front and center on Saturday showing "leadership" but that's too much to ask.

Lefty Sig, try text messages. Those might get through as they are on a different system. I have successful getting a hold of people this way.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
Biden and Harris are really screwing the "optics" on this. They could have been front and center on Saturday showing "leadership" but that's too much to ask.

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

The Lord works in mysterious ways. This is going to cost them bigly.

We have a Biden, Harris, and Trump threads, no?

There’s a long standing rule of keeping politics out of apolitical threads.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
We have a Biden, Harris, and Trump threads, no?

There’s a long standing rule of keeping politics out of apolitical threads.

What about when the politicians are the direct reason people are suffering? Wouldn't you consider the failure of the government in a time of emergency important to the discussion? For example:

Biden admin's FEMA 'equity' plan faces backlash amid historic hurricane damage: 'What an embarrassment

quote:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) website lists a set of three goals as part of their strategic plan to "address key challenges" in emergency management. The number one goal listed in the agency's priorities is to "instill equity as a foundation of emergency management." 

The second goal is "Lead Whole of Community in Climate Resilience" and the third goal is "Promote & Sustain a Ready FEMA & Prepared Nation."

According to FEMA's plan, "Diversity, equity, and inclusion cannot be optional." 

"This requires that FEMA’s leadership and workforce demonstrate an increased commitment to integrating diversity, equity, and inclusion in delivering the agency’s mission. FEMA must draw upon its staff’s diversity and range of experiences to consistently inform programming, policy, and decision-making," the FEMA plan continued. "Through investment in diversity and inclusion efforts – including Employee Resource Groups and multicultural training – FEMA can increase its employees’ involvement and participation in cultivating a culture of inclusion."

Maybe rescuing people or providing food, shelter, and water should fall in there somewhere?

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
We have a Biden, Harris, and Trump threads, no?

There’s a long standing rule of keeping politics out of apolitical threads.

What about when the politicians are the direct reason people are suffering? Wouldn't you consider the failure of the government in a time of emergency important to the discussion?

The storm is the direct reason for people's suffering. We have other threads to piss and moan about politics in.

quote:

Maybe rescuing people or providing food, shelter, and water should fall in there somewhere?

How is pissing and moaning going to change that and help anyone that needs it right now? <---That's a rhetorical question.

I'm just taking a break right now from planning how to possibly clean and save about $150,000 worth of stuff that was stored at a property we own. The house and garage there had 2-3 feet of water in them. It's just stuff, my family is safe, the water got within 4" of flooding our home and I'm incredibly thankful that's something we don't have to deal with.

There's dozens of people on my street alone whose homes were flooded and they have it much better than thousands of other people whose homes were utterly destroyed or those that perished.

But no, FEMA, DEI, Biden, Harris! That's what's important! We must get those digs in, right? Non-stop, beat that drum every chance you get! That's what people need, that's what they want. The guy whose house was washed away with him and his wife inside, whose wife is now missing? He'd be A OK, if it weren't for FEMA, DEI, Biden, Harris!

Now, discussing what FEMA is actually doing is appropriate. Here’s what I found ( Link):

In North Carolina:
200 ambulances
40 Starlink systems
25 trailers of food
60 trailers of water
1 AC-17 full of food, water, supplies
18 helicopters to deliver the food, water, and supplies
10 search and rescue teams with 9 more on the way

FEMA also reports there are 29 shelters open housing over 1,000 people.

3500 people deployed, (1000 from FEMA)
1.9 million MRE's
over 1 million liters of water
30 large generators
95,000 tarps

while I'm no fan of FEMA, having lived isolated because of hurricanes for weeks. I do understand the logistical challenges involved and nothing will happen immediately. It's impossible to know total area impacts and the where and how to stage resources. Situation assessment is imperative first

82nd Airborne is right nearby at Fort Bragg! They were mobilized for Katrina. Why aren't they mobilized now?

The situation calls for highly skilled helicopter exfiltration, as quickly as possible. It's been more than 4 days. The ten rescue teams aren't enough and by the time the other nine show up, many of the missing people will be dead.

Get the people out of there to safe land where FEMA can give them water, food, and temporary shelter.

This is different than previous hurricanes, I can't think of a time we had to do mountain rescues due to impassible or destroyed roads. Getting people from tops of houses in NOLA by boat, yes, but not this.

We have friends in Banner Elk that were airlifted out by the national guard yesterday, to Hickory airport. Banner Elk is only accessible by air.

I went white water rafting on the Gauley (WVA) back in the 90's, did the long run, upper and lower,

the lower gualey is slow moving, mostly, and towards the takeout, populated along the banks,

still in a valley, and a narrow one, and I recall seeing the remnants of land/mud slides between some houses, and that was on plots that looked like thre was a house there

the guide told us it was hurricane damage, from a bad hurricane years prior ,

I don't recall the name he mentioned, been too long ago, but it was no way near the scale of what I have seen on the net from Helene

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:
I can't think of a time we had to do mountain rescues due to impassible or destroyed roads. Getting people from tops of houses in NOLA by boat, yes, but not this.

Not due to hurricanes, but look up flash floods in Colorado. Numerous floods in mountains where all roads were destroyed. The most recent one:

"2013 - Heavy rain fell between September 9-16 along Colorado's Front Range with widespread rain totals between 10-18 inches. Severe flooding was reported along many waterways, including the Big Thompson River, St. Vrain Creek, Little Thompson River, Lefthand Creek and Coal Creek. Over 20,000 homes were damaged or destroyed with incredible damage to roads, bridges, water treatment plants and other infrastructure along the Front Range."

link

Lowe’s home office is close to ground zero on the NC side of things. They’ve been coordinating quite a relief effort so far. Several million dollars of supplies already arriving.

So I just got a call from my parents in Franklin (Macon County), they have cell coverage again in most spots (possibly due to the star-links provided by Musk-but they don’t know tech nor care how it works)

They had some flooding in town where the Cullasaja River and Little Tn River are. Stores that are open are only dealing with cash, neighbors are helping neighbors, they can go south to Georgia as there wasn’t much wind damage in Macon Co.

Mom said all the people her age were prepared as they all keep full pantrys. Once power was restored most people in the county have wells and have water again (if they didn’t have a generator)

Dad said the store has beer so everything is gonna be all right.

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Yarchin:
We have friends in Banner Elk that were airlifted out by the national guard yesterday, to Hickory airport. Banner Elk is only accessible by air.

Man, I was swimming at Elk River Falls last Tuesday. I am assuming that many of the houses I drove by to get there are likely severely damaged or gone altogether.