re: Helene - Recovery Begins...Devastating Flash Flooding in Western NC and Eastern TN

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This is certainly true on our end of Lake Lure, not a lot of year round residents. The easy way to verify people would be by requiring some proof of ownership like tax or utility bills and their DL. I can show I own property with various bills but my DL shows my primary residence is about 100 miles away. There is probably a time that is reasonable to keep just property owners out but not restrict full-time residents access. Then a later time when property owners are allowed in but people that are neither residents, property owners, or legitimate relief workers are still restricted.

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While it was frustrating post Katrina to have to wait so long to check on rental property in Uptown NOLA, I later understood why control of non-residents is important. After my regular work day, I delivered a load of drywall in a 1 ton I borrowed from work. After unloading into the recently gutted and mold abated ground level (upstairs was fine) I left and was stopped two blocks away by plain clothes city police with 4 jumping out something like an old Honda Accord. They showed badges and frisked me up against the truck as two searched the vehicle. After asking why I was there (wife owned property) I responded truthfully. He then told me that there were a lot of homes being burglarized by crews gutting downstairs then returning at night to take valuables from upstairs.

A few of these crews were volunteers, most were laborers for local contractors. Just a note that some there to help is to help themselves. While few and far between they still exist.

As a side note, one of the guys with my contractor asked if he could have fruit from a grapefruit tree. At lunch he pounded a few boxes of Jobs plant spikes around the roots A year later some volunteer from Florida had picked 6 garbage bags of grapefruit when I caught him at it. Ran him off.
Most went to the worker (great guy older guy) and two came back home with me to give to neighbors. That tree had never produced that much ever before, not even half

I wonder at what point do the power outage maps and charts give up"

Number customers before the storm
Number customers with power
Number customers awaiting power restored
Number accounts in abeyance because customer's building no longer there.

That last number is happening but as far as I can tell , it's not reported.

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Alison from Cary driving up here to hand out water isn’t doing anything but getting in the way.

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Tap the brakes, Larry Logistics. What does Alison look like?

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Tap the brakes, Larry Logistics. What does Alison look like?

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She just might be servicing mancamps of repair crews. If so, definitely making bank

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My best guess as to why people got surprised by this storm was that we’ve had several storm remnants come through the SC upstate and western NC over the years and they were minimal events.

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My sister said they started getting messages on their cell phones Wednesday from the NWS.

“prepare for catastrophic, life-threatening flooding.” Was being broadcasted to expect it to be worse than 1916 flooding in the area and get out now.

Now preventing the flooding one thing but people had the warning with enough time to vacate the area.

Would anyone mind telling me how, or if, Graham County, NC, fared?

I was particularly interested in the Deal's Gap, Robbinsville, and Fontana Dam areas.

Was this area spared? I haven't seen a single update from that region. I'm hoping no news is good news.

I'm not sure what rainfall they got (we lost power for two days and missed some things), but the Dragon was closed and then has been reopened as an alternative not-big-truck route.

What saved them is the size of the watershed. On the Little Tee River the drainage is nowhere as huge as on the French Broad. Also the up river dams (Fontana and Chilhowee ) are very deep and can hold back a lot of water. As roads go, the Cherohala (?spelling) Skyway hasn't been mentioned as having problems.

The TDOT maps haven't shown road closures or work down there. LINK

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Here is a link to the satellite imagery of the Hurricane damage.

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Great resource, but they haven't done Graham County, which hopefully means it faired pretty well comparatively.

Our family cabin north of Murphy never lost power, and usually the power goes out if a bird flaps their wings too close to the lines.

His recap

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In full:

Home in Florida and had a moment to gather my thoughts about hurricane response that I saw in NC/SC.

I’ve been to quite a few hurricane zones and flood zones in last few years to help out.

Katrina, Rita, Harvey, Colorado Floods, KY Floods, the two hurricanes that hit us here in Florida when we opened shop (I live tweeted them) see video*, and a couple more….

I can honestly say without question in the parts of SC/NC I was in, I was shocked at how little I saw crews working on power lines or removing trees.

I exited and entered the area to get provisions to the south, north, and east of affected zones and it was eerily slow to me.

I saw more activity days before the hurricanes hit us a couple years ago getting ready for the hurricane than I saw anywhere in the areas affected by Helene recovering.

It seemed like the bulk of the work was all being done by the locals.

I didn’t see any resistance to helpers like some claim but also wasn’t participating in SAR efforts.

It definitely was aggravating to see the effort in recovery.

I never saw one FEMA truck, but did see multiple Red Cross ones.

PS that’s a hotel roof in video.

-E