I am safe. Below is a more extensive update, including some difficult information that you should not feel obligated to read if you are dealing with your own needs or have trauma from similar crises (trigger warning).
I am safe and so is my family and circle of friends, but we are surrounded by the devastation of Hurricane Helene. In the early morning Friday a tree came through our bedroom roof and smashed my car, and I am thankful it wasn’t worse. We have been without power, water, or consistent cell service. There is no timetable for when water will be restored – it could be months – and an even longer path to restoration of roads and other infrastructure.
National media has not caught up to the severity and scale of the situation in Western NC. Entire towns are washed away. Houses floated down swollen rivers and broke up against trees. Entire warehouses became piles of sticks and metal somewhere downstream. Landslides took out major interstates, countless bridges wiped out, roads disappearing into sinkholes, asphalt askew like an earthquake had hit. So many smaller towns and isolated communities are still inaccessible, cut off from emergency responders and communications. Buncombe County alone has likely lost over 100 people, and anecdotal accounts suggest the death toll is much higher than the public numbers, as countless houses disappeared in mud slides or rapidly rising creeks and rivers.
The road I took to school as a kid is gone, washed into the river along with hundreds of buildings along the Hickory Nut Gorge – Bat Cave, Chimney Rock, Lake lure. My hometown of Gerton is inaccessible, completely cut off still 7 days after the storm. Fortunately my mom evacuated in advance, thanks to the local volunteer fire department going door to door telling people that this was going to be worse than anything they’d ever seen.
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EDIT: Update here: https://lnkd.in/egYHJh7B
