I lived in Western North Carolina years ago. [View all]

[paleotn]

I know the area well. Small mountain towns between Asheville and Boone, east towards Morganton and Hickory. West into Tennessee. My better half has reached out to some of our old friends still in the area but contact is spotty at best. Power is out, cell service is out. They were flooding before Helene even moved north simply due to the size of the storm and the stalled front across the southeast. And then it got worse. Biblically worse. Doppler radar estimates up to 4 FEET of rain fell on the peaks of the mountains in places around Western NC. 4 FEET!

Towns like Spruce Pine are cut off and will remain so for...who the hell knows how long? Bakersville, the Mitchell county seat, was completely flooded. Mitchel and Avery counties are nearly inaccessible. Mountain roads are gone. Just...gone. Let that sink in. Whole roads gone. Whole modern, concrete bridges, some of them quite large, are gone. Montreat and Swannanoa are gone. Floods and landslides. Whole neighborhoods gone. No one knows what the death toll may be.

Parts of Unicoi County across the border in TN were evacuated. Limestone Cove for one. I know it well. Erwin, the county seat is flooded out. Patients and staff were evaced by Nat Guard helo from the roof of the local hospital, the water rose so quickly. A small hotel and restaurant I use to frequent right on the crest of the Blue Ridge outside of Spruce Pine, NC, is gone. Just gone. Slid down the mountain. Hwy 226 up the Blue Ridge is gone in places. East bound lanes of I40 through the Pigeon River gorge, TN to NC, are just gone. Bridges across the Nolichucky River in TN are gone. Massive, modern, concrete bridges, 50 ft. over the river and 30 yards long...are gone. Hot Springs, NC completely flooded. Nolichucky Dam towards Greeneville, TN is holding but was feared it would fail. Lake Lure dam in NC was overtopped and failure was predicted, but it held. Thank your personal deity for small miracles.

I haven't lived there in years and years and can't wrap my head around the scale of the destruction. It just doesn't register that this can actually be real. Particularly a place I know so intimately. It's biblical. That's the only words I have to describe it. This isn't a 100 year storm or even a 500 year storm. This is so off the fucking charts. Places that have never flooded in human memory are destroyed and washed away. Sad, sad day in the paleotn household. I'm just in shock.