LinvilleGorge

Yep, pretty much.

Some people are just powerfully stupid.

That's awesome. Honestly, it's probably just a few hot heads. Probably the same ones the other cops don't even like. LOL

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty getting done but for the most part it's in spite of the authorities and not because of them.

I've been to Old Fort, Spruce Pine, and Linville helping out. Same story. Too many chiefs not enough Indians. Cops and firefighters just standing around barking at people wanting to be in control but doing nothing but yucking it up with each other and smoking cigs. People are basically just telling them to STFU and they keep working. I mean, government in general is just pretty incompetent and inefficient.

From what I've seen the "organized" efforts are at least if not more so of a cluster fug than the local grassroots efforts.

Facts. Our local dipshit Warren Daniel had to get out there to "escort" aid convoys. Nevermind the state troopers in front of his truck doing the actual escorting. You're just taking advantage of photo ops.

The politicians flocking to grip and grin just fugs poo up. Just keep your asses away and sign the paperwork. How about some damn helicopters? It's pathetic that the private helicopters are still grossly outnumbering the government helicopters. Just started noticing Blackhawks yesterday. Before that it was almost all private birds with the occasional Chinook.

I'm very glad to have Starlink. I would've been without connectivity from home other than text for a few days without it. We talked about getting a whole house generator when we bought this place because we're half a mile off the road and there's only two houses on this line. I knew in the event of a major outage (I was thinking ice storm would be the most likely culprit) we'd be super low priority. But since we bought the place we've never lost power but for a few minutes. Now this and sure enough, nope we still don't have power. I don't really care. I'm fine with being the last house in Burke County with power as far as I'm concerned. I have a 3500w generator that can run everything except the HVAC, kitchen range, and dryer and I have plenty of other cooking options.

I was fortunate I never lost water. We were on a boil advisory until just a couple hours ago we got the alert it was lifted. My folks lost water for three days but they're under a different municipality. As soon as they lost water I bleached all the bathtubs and filled those bitches up. We've just been dipping water out of the bathtubs. If we'd ran out of that I was gonna start boiling creek water instead of boiling whatever sketchiness was causing the boil advisory. I assume sewage contamination. Nah, I'm good. I'll drink creek water.

And I'll play for league minimum and no one on that sideline will ever want for a cold Gatorade or a fresh towel

Because they're basically shut off. You can get to Spruce Pine but beyond that you pretty much need a helicopter.

We need helicopters. There's a ton in the air but not enough and I'm not sure how many are doing S&R. There's so many roads washed out and/or hopelessly blocked by down trees that about of isolated mountain communities literally aren't accessible any other way. Cutting your way in with chainsaws really just isn't feasible. It's absolutely pathetic that five days after private helicopters are still outnumbering government by probably 10:1.

Being poor means a LOT when it comes to being able to potentially evacuate.

It's relatively sparsely populated but the way the river flows through there I think it's gonna be BAD. Most of the people through there are dirt ass poor too.

The area I'm most concerned about is basically following the forks of the North Toe. Spruce Pine heading north up 19 and Burnsville/Bakersville along 80. I honestly think that's going to be the worst hit area.

Just got off the phone with my sister. She works for a company specializing in social services in WNC. They have 67 employees unaccounted for.

That's all well and good but a lot of deaths are gonna be from houses getting crushed by falling trees not flooding. And honestly, it's hard to blame people for getting caught in a flood in areas they've never seen flood before. The media over hypes so much stuff these days it's hard to take a lot of the warnings seriously. Boy who cried wolf syndrome.

It probably was on some areas.

Honestly, mountain floods are the worst. Water runs down hill and all those mountains funnel the water into the valley's and due to the slope the water runs off fast and hard instead of soaking in. You're not just dealing with flood water you're dealing with flood water running hard and fast. I lived in the mountains of CO when they got hammered like a decade ago and that was bad but nothing like this.

The people I know in WNC are largely outside of Boone and Asheville and .gov is nowhere to be seen, per usual.

Sadly I'm not surprised. I was up around Linville and Spruce Pine yesterday and it's a wreck.

I just got a text from a buddy that they need help in Old Fort. I have a load of car seats to bring back to the Hickory airport and then I'm headed to Old Fort.

There's only so much I can load into a 4runner so I drove down to Hickory to load helicopters. I figure that's just a more efficient use of what I can do.

One thing that needs to be said here is that virtually all of this aid I'm seeing pour in isn't coming from the government. It's just coming from people. Roads are getting cleared by people like me with a chainsaw and a pickup. All this heavy equipment coming in is private industry stepping up. The vast majority of the helicopters constantly flying overhead delivering aid are private. I don't ever want to see another politician gripping and grinning anywhere around here.