I saw a tweet from the TN National Guard deploying Black Hawks to the affected areas.
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Tropical Major Hurricane Helene
- Thread starter SD
- Start date
Showmeyourtds
Member
Interesting weekend to say the least. Decided to move forward with my plans to take my wife & toddler up to meet my parents, brother, sister in law & sister to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday in the mountains. Your old man only turns 70 once, so I said what the hell, the storm was supposed to pass along or just west of where my home is- It'll be wet up there, but the weekend should be alright. Folks came from Birmingham, brother & sis drove down from Nashville via I-40
We stayed at a mountain home in Sapphire, NC.
The drive up on Thursday evening from Holly Springs was wet, which was to be expected. Woke up on Friday morning to trees swirling around and crashing all over the place. Oh yeah, the power was out too. Thankfully the home we were renting was unharmed. Can't say the same for others in the development.
To make matters worse, all forms of communication were cut off. There wasn't anywhere to get information or anyway to get information other than searching for a radio station or speaking with someone face to face.
Thankfully, it was safe enough for us to get down the mountain a bit to hwy 64. We located a police station just a few miles down the road toward Cashiers and stopped by to see what they could share with us.
Apparently, we weren't supposed to be there, as there was a mandatory evacuation order for Jackson county. Had we received that notice, we certainly would've left- But that's kind of hard when communication is completely gone.
We learned a short time later that hwy 64 was washed out 2 miles to our east and a landslide occurred 3 miles to the west leaving us completely cut off without any way to notify anyone that we were okay.
We then returned to our rental home & tried to see if we can get any information via radio. I was somehow able to pick up WSB loud & clear from my vehicle. My sister-in-law found a station out of Ashville in her car where we started to understand how much of an impact this storm had. We talked to an individual who lived in the same development where our rental home was. He shared the news about what had occurred to the East near Chimney Rock & Lake Lure.
He also said that the town of Highlands, where we had dinner reservations that evening, had been cut off as well.
We went back down to the police station a few hours later & learned that the road had been cleared and also that the Ingles in Cashiers was open on generator power.
We trudged over to grab ice, batteries & more booze. The road was passable, but was littered with debris. Widespread flooding on the golf courses & hundreds of snapped trees dangling precariously over utility wires.
Come to find out that it's cash only because the point of sale system can't operate due to the communications being wiped out, so we put the batteries and ice back.
In talking to folks at the grocery store, some of whom had come from Highlands, they said that the town hall had power but also had managed to get some limited form of Internet up & running so folks could contact people to let them know that they're okay.
Our power finally returned on Friday afternoon.
We worked our way through some of the thickest fog I've ever encountered on Saturday and were able to connect with our family members at the Highlands town hall.
We ventured out this morning & found a small coffee shop in Cashiers that had Internet. We learned that hwy 107 was passible between Cashiers and Walhalla....it was treacherous, but it was passible. We were able to make it out of there today via this route.
Y'all, the amount of infrastructure damage that was visible on hwy 107 between Cashiers and Walhalla is unreal, especially at the ridgelines. It will take weeks to get all of this repaired, if not longer to get communications restored - and from what I've been able to learn, this area wasn't necessarily the worst hit.
If you know any linemen or anyone who works for an electric cooperative in that area, buy 'em a round & give 'em a hug. They've got some long shifts ahead of them.
We stayed at a mountain home in Sapphire, NC.
The drive up on Thursday evening from Holly Springs was wet, which was to be expected. Woke up on Friday morning to trees swirling around and crashing all over the place. Oh yeah, the power was out too. Thankfully the home we were renting was unharmed. Can't say the same for others in the development.
To make matters worse, all forms of communication were cut off. There wasn't anywhere to get information or anyway to get information other than searching for a radio station or speaking with someone face to face.
Thankfully, it was safe enough for us to get down the mountain a bit to hwy 64. We located a police station just a few miles down the road toward Cashiers and stopped by to see what they could share with us.
Apparently, we weren't supposed to be there, as there was a mandatory evacuation order for Jackson county. Had we received that notice, we certainly would've left- But that's kind of hard when communication is completely gone.
We learned a short time later that hwy 64 was washed out 2 miles to our east and a landslide occurred 3 miles to the west leaving us completely cut off without any way to notify anyone that we were okay.
We then returned to our rental home & tried to see if we can get any information via radio. I was somehow able to pick up WSB loud & clear from my vehicle. My sister-in-law found a station out of Ashville in her car where we started to understand how much of an impact this storm had. We talked to an individual who lived in the same development where our rental home was. He shared the news about what had occurred to the East near Chimney Rock & Lake Lure.
He also said that the town of Highlands, where we had dinner reservations that evening, had been cut off as well.
We went back down to the police station a few hours later & learned that the road had been cleared and also that the Ingles in Cashiers was open on generator power.
We trudged over to grab ice, batteries & more booze. The road was passable, but was littered with debris. Widespread flooding on the golf courses & hundreds of snapped trees dangling precariously over utility wires.
Come to find out that it's cash only because the point of sale system can't operate due to the communications being wiped out, so we put the batteries and ice back.
In talking to folks at the grocery store, some of whom had come from Highlands, they said that the town hall had power but also had managed to get some limited form of Internet up & running so folks could contact people to let them know that they're okay.
Our power finally returned on Friday afternoon.
We worked our way through some of the thickest fog I've ever encountered on Saturday and were able to connect with our family members at the Highlands town hall.
We ventured out this morning & found a small coffee shop in Cashiers that had Internet. We learned that hwy 107 was passible between Cashiers and Walhalla....it was treacherous, but it was passible. We were able to make it out of there today via this route.
Y'all, the amount of infrastructure damage that was visible on hwy 107 between Cashiers and Walhalla is unreal, especially at the ridgelines. It will take weeks to get all of this repaired, if not longer to get communications restored - and from what I've been able to learn, this area wasn't necessarily the worst hit.
If you know any linemen or anyone who works for an electric cooperative in that area, buy 'em a round & give 'em a hug. They've got some long shifts ahead of them.
Carolina Sky
Member
Went to help in the Lake Lure/Chimney Rock area today, and it’s hard to describe - never seen anything like this. Post apocalyptic. It’s so overwhelming... | By Tariq | Facebook
Went to help in the Lake Lure/Chimney Rock area today, and it’s hard to describe - never seen anything like this. Post apocalyptic. It’s so overwhelming...
www.facebook.com
Sctvman
Member
GoDuke
Member
The Tin Trout. A restaurant in Crossnore. Posted this on Facebook.
Current outage numbers roughly 72 hours after landfall
Sctvman
Member
Avery County is dear to me from spending much time there through the years. I certainly hope the calls for help are going to be answered.
Henry2326
Member
Switzerland Cafe and General Store in New Switzerland, NC posed of Facebook 9 hours ago:
Update: National Guard arrived late last night. Clearing parkway between LS & Gillespie Gap.
We are staging a central distribution location for LS downtown as soon as skies clear enough to get small planes in. Stay tuned to this page for day & time. We will have food to give away, water and people are welcome to bring food for distribution.
Update: National Guard arrived late last night. Clearing parkway between LS & Gillespie Gap.
We are staging a central distribution location for LS downtown as soon as skies clear enough to get small planes in. Stay tuned to this page for day & time. We will have food to give away, water and people are welcome to bring food for distribution.
Henry2326
Member
WW2
Henry2326
Member
Folks up in the Burnsville, NC (Mt. Mitchell Golf Club area) are blocked in but were able to get this list out via satellite phone of people who are OK but need help....here is the list in case someone reads this.
Kinda wild how accurate this one GFS run from more than 10 days out ended up being. Other than being a day too late 
Henry2326
Member
Brent
Member
Yeah I know there a lot of talk about Atlanta but this was a very good forecast otherwise... Even the intensity forecast was better than usual. It was not a surprise that it blew up like it did(many storms have been before...). Landfall point in Florida was maybe 50 miles off at most
Just sucks so many people died and are missing
And like I said on Thursday I don't know how much better NC would have fared even if it had hit Atlanta. Some of the flooding started before Helene
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Absolutely. The flooding threat was very well forecasted by WPC days in advance. There’s some good discourse going on over on Twitter currently regarding how we can get more specific and impactful information out during flood warnings. Directly to phones, etc… Potential graphics showing likely areas to flood so that folks can understand the gravity of the situation. Not sure it would’ve helped much here specifically…
Just a perfect set up of horrible factors. The PRE event, the storms intensity, the size, the speed it moved inland causing the wind damage. It will be quite awhile before there is a more impactful hurricane IMO.
For me personally, I spent the first 12 hours or so after upset/confused about the Atlanta miss and wondering why that was so poorly forecasted. But once I saw images coming out of those areas that were affected, that quickly shifted to gratitude and being thankful that we were spared. Sobering to see the real images and stories coming out and puts things in perspective quickly.
My heart and prayers are with all who experienced damage and loss during this.