Mountain Flooding
- Thread starter wncdeerhunter
- Start date
dropnbassonu
Six Pointer
If you’ve ever been to the Biltmore Estate, you’ve almost certainly passed under the arches of the guard house at the entrance. Below is a photo that guard house - you can see the high water mark. You could have gone through in a lifted truck and you’d have been many feet underwater.
I heard they tore down the Starbucks in Biltmore also.
I’ve seen the damage with my own eyes as well as the rage of the rivers as it happened, and it is still hard to fathom.
Photo credit: Biltmore
I heard they tore down the Starbucks in Biltmore also.
I’ve seen the damage with my own eyes as well as the rage of the rivers as it happened, and it is still hard to fathom.
Photo credit: Biltmore
appmtnhntr
Old Mossy Horns
Confirm the Starbucks is gone. Nothing but a slab now.
Also, the little Biltmore ticketing building where school buses and tour buses stopped for tix is gone.
I think they saved the little gift shop at the exit but it had to be completely gutted.
valetroutfisherman
Ten Pointer
Heard this from my wife today. About
FEMA encounter yesterday.
Background: Jackson county. My wife Inherited her brothers property ( which her daughter & boyfriend live in), right across Charley's Creek rd from the park and Little Canada Fire dept.
The wife was up there checking on her mom's place/ mail, which is 1 mile above Balsam lake on the same rd.
My wife, MiL and daughter were head up to my MiL's.
As they were about to pass the Little Canada Fire Dept, FFEMA, about 5. folks were there. They had put up a FEMA flag and were taking pictures of each other @ the flag.
-opt....
My wifes daughter got out of the car, (remember she live across the road), and start asking the FEMA folks questions.
Like: Where yall been? And other ?
FEMA stated, "they been up there for a week."
Our daughter said, " I live across the road and just saw you today ( Tuesday).
FEMA stated: "Well'we been in the area."
A Positive, FEMA was set up in the Community building, and assisting residence registering for the Disaster relief. They assisted my MIL and wife's daughter to get enrolled.
FEMA stated that " my wife, her mom, and daughter, were the first people they had registerd on Tuesday, this was about 4pm.
PS. I have not been up there, but the Lil Canada Fire dept folks and local volunteer, were busy up there, cutting trees, house to hous welfare check,staging supplies and delivering them, even providing meals.
They diid all the work not FEMA.
FEMA encounter yesterday.
Background: Jackson county. My wife Inherited her brothers property ( which her daughter & boyfriend live in), right across Charley's Creek rd from the park and Little Canada Fire dept.
The wife was up there checking on her mom's place/ mail, which is 1 mile above Balsam lake on the same rd.
My wife, MiL and daughter were head up to my MiL's.
As they were about to pass the Little Canada Fire Dept, FFEMA, about 5. folks were there. They had put up a FEMA flag and were taking pictures of each other @ the flag.
-opt....My wifes daughter got out of the car, (remember she live across the road), and start asking the FEMA folks questions.
Like: Where yall been? And other ?
FEMA stated, "they been up there for a week."
Our daughter said, " I live across the road and just saw you today ( Tuesday).
FEMA stated: "Well'we been in the area."
A Positive, FEMA was set up in the Community building, and assisting residence registering for the Disaster relief. They assisted my MIL and wife's daughter to get enrolled.
FEMA stated that " my wife, her mom, and daughter, were the first people they had registerd on Tuesday, this was about 4pm.
PS. I have not been up there, but the Lil Canada Fire dept folks and local volunteer, were busy up there, cutting trees, house to hous welfare check,staging supplies and delivering them, even providing meals.
They diid all the work not FEMA.
appmtnhntr
Old Mossy Horns
I rode through the River Arts district in tears this morning. Half the buildings are gone. Of what’s left, 90% will have to be bulldozed. It was terrible.
turkeyfoot
Old Mossy Horns
Thanks for posting this.
It’s so bad
thandy
Ten Pointer
Cooper - anyway to contact you other than here? I have some friends in that area that I am sure will donate if I can get them in touch with you. I could also post it on facebook to help get the word out.
BarSinister
Old Mossy Horns
That little creek is barely deep enough to hold minnows 1/2 of the time.
Hopefully they won't rebuild the starbucks. Maybe a local coffe joint could open there instead.
Ol Copper
Twelve Pointer
sending you a pm
Let you wife know that we delivered 3 pickup loads to Big Crabtree church in Spruce Pine yesterday. Included were lots of warm clothes, 15 space heaters and 18 grill sized propane tanks as well as 6 cans of gas and 2 generators.
Gus
Six Pointer
My experience, FWIW, with Fema over several coastal hurricanes is if you can get in touch with the guy actually on the ground inspecting homes in your area you can eliminate a lot of time and red tape. I know that's easier said than done but he can get you a check quickly and without filling out a ton of forms and applying for an SBA loan. The two times I was able to go that route- once the guy had left his number with a friend after inspecting his house, the other time I happened to see him getting in his car at a home down the road and asked him to stop by my house. Both times they were happy to come, very helpful and got me a check quickly with very little paperwork.
Going thru the website or registration center is a drawn out process-in my case I had fixed the damage and moved on by the time someone from fema finally showed up.
Going thru the website or registration center is a drawn out process-in my case I had fixed the damage and moved on by the time someone from fema finally showed up.
YanceyGreenhorn
Still Not a Moderator
Also posted in the Needs thread
There are people living in F-ing TENTS guys. This breaks my heart into pieces. We're taking more (listed) things up this afternoon (to a known collection point). PLEASE do all you can to help these people who have (in many cases) lost EVERYTHING. I cannot imagine the despair they must be feeling.
Please say prayers for them all and those on the ground helping them. They are the saints. Many of you are among that group of saints, and I will NEVER forget your spirit. As I get older (I'll be 60 in 12 days), I hide my vulnerability less and less. I love each and every one of you who is helping. If you ever need to just talk, shoot me a PM. I'll give you my number or come to you.
Jeff
Please say prayers for them all and those on the ground helping them. They are the saints. Many of you are among that group of saints, and I will NEVER forget your spirit. As I get older (I'll be 60 in 12 days), I hide my vulnerability less and less. I love each and every one of you who is helping. If you ever need to just talk, shoot me a PM. I'll give you my number or come to you.
Jeff
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If anyone has the ability and the want then I suggest you volunteer. There are some folks who have been going wide open this whole time and they are getting tired now. Some of them have yet to even start working on their own damage from the storm. You dont have to have any special skills or even a strong back. Sorting through donated clothes is boring, tedious work but it needs to be done so that folks that need them get the right sizes and types of clothes.
I also want to brag on the National Guard. They have been working with us this last week and really saved our butts. They were willing to do anything and never complained.
I also want to brag on the National Guard. They have been working with us this last week and really saved our butts. They were willing to do anything and never complained.
turkeyfoot
Old Mossy Horns
Well said you don't have be able haul stuff or swing an axe/saw lots jobs to be done to help.
We are carrying up a load of supplies that our church collected on Tuesday to my buddy’s church in Spruce Pine. They aren’t collecting any more clothing at this time. Are there any drop off points near there that are collecting coats, toboggans, gloves etc?
I have a property listed up Little Creek and drove by this foot bridge/house every time I went there - was watching the progress as they were working on it. Where this guy ended up was a trap - back toward Burnsville 19W was washed out and no road visible. If they had tried to go below that, bald mtn creek dumps into the Cane river and is actually a lower spot than where they were.
Knowing that exact area, I’ll say these folks are extremely lucky to be alive. Extremely.
Knowing that exact area, I’ll say these folks are extremely lucky to be alive. Extremely.
Ol Copper
Twelve Pointer
Im just going to be honest here....
Ive been in the Spruce Pine/Bakersville area for a few days this week trying to get my mother in law back into her home up above Cane Creek.
I have never seen that many supplies, in excess, in my life. I walked in to a church yesterday that was so full that there was not room to walk.
My wife wanted to take up donations for a delivery on Nov. 2nd and we were having a hard time yesterday finding anybody that needed any extra.
I have never seen such an outpouring of support in my life, its a loving and kind gesture to give when people are in desperate need, but now it is starting to appear like its too much.
We had people begging us to relieve them of multiple pallets of water and canned goods.
Im afraid that some if this will go to waste if not handled soon.
My MIL lives in probably the most remote section of Mitchell Co., and even her power is back on and the roads are now mostly passable.
The linemen there have done more than a tremendous job.
I dont logistically know how you set that many new poles, run new lines and drop that many services in that short amount of time, but it is staggering to see. They just left the old crap laying and ran everything new. Bravo !!
For anyone wishing to send donations in the next several weeks, I honestly do not know what to tell you. I am sure that there are other areas that could use some supplies, but everyone I have had contact with from Boone to Swannanoa is absolutely swimming in supplies. I would find a way to check first to find someone that I was certain that needed them before I sent them.
While in the area, we did see several families who are still living in tents beside the rubble of their old housing, if I were to just stand back and make a fair assessment of what is needed from here on out, it would probably be just down to space heaters, buddy heaters, propane and drop cords.
but everywhere we looked, clothing, canned goods, dry, staple goods, paper products, and water were being held in great amounts of excess.
I'm not sure what to tell anyone at this point besides make sure you have someone specifically in mind that needs these items before you send them. I guess this is a wonderful problem to have, but to make this work they're gonna have to start flowing these excessive resources back out into other places like homeless shelters, or women's shelters or something. I did hear that they were wanting to start school back up there sometime around mid November and that they were seeing about distributing all the pallets of water into the schools so the kids will have drinkable water there, because I believe the water systems are gonna be the last thing that are gonna come back up online reliably.
This is one of the reasons that a lot of supplies have been turned away. They just don’t have room to store them. Although I will say the power company has estimated some areas of Yancey county to not be restored in room 3 to 6 months. I sure hope they under promise in over deliver on that timeline. There will be people in need of those supplies, but more importantly, fuel or generators, equipment, etc. There is fuel there, but getting it to some of those places has been the challenge. Imagine no power for half a year.
Ol Copper
Twelve Pointer
yes, absolutely, they told us 4 months for power at my MILs house and 4-5 months on getting the roads passable, but they beat those timelines by a long shot.
The biggest need we saw yesterday was generators, drop cords, heating supplies and fuel/propane.
The other request we got more than anything yesterday was...eggs
I cant tell you how many people that said they just wanted an egg and some meat. It was actually quite saddening to hear someone ask for something that simple, yet meant so
much to them. My perspective on everything in life has changed, people have it good and don't realize it sometimes.
Is there anything specific you need that I can get for you?
Here’s an update, close to 10 hours ago, from French Broad electric:
We are now have over 50 crews working in Mitchell and Yancey county. These guys have done amazing work over the last three weeks. Even though we have power restored to the vast majority of our customers, we are now faced with more difficult situations in the remaining areas. In Mitchell, we are still plowing through popular creek and pigeon roost as well as Beams Creek. Our facilities in these areas were torn to pieces by high winds and what looks to be tornado like activity. Hundreds of poles have been broken and wire is down in almost every span. To make things even more difficult, most of the broken poles are on mountains or ridges, inaccessible with most of our equipment. With that, we think that we should have most of Beans Creek and Popular on by Wednesday and should wrap up pigeon roost on Monday. In Yancey, we have re-scouted the areas of Big Creek, Little Creek, Cane River, Pensacola, and Roses Branch. These areas were devastated by flood waters. Miles of our poles and wire along with the roads no longer exist. Access to these areas with our equipment has been impossible. The NCDOT is doing a remarkable job of creating new roadways, slowing making it possible to reach these areas. We have developed a plan to bring power in Big Creek and Little Creek with an alternate feed. Road access is still extremely challenging but we feel like we may have a way to provide service to these areas in the next couple of weeks. We will be constructing new lines without all of our typical equipment so things could take a little longer to complete. In Pensacola, the situation is similar to a point. If we can get access up NC 197 past Bowlens Creek, we will construct a new three phase line along the road bed. We will need to build miles of new line to reach up to ewuart Wilson road and other taps, but with multiple crews working, our timeline would be several weeks instead of months.
Parts of Roses Branch was completely washed away and so we will be looking at alternate ways to supply power. Currently, multiple crews are building lines down NC 80 that will cross the river into Yancey and give us the ability to pick up parts of Roses Branch that wasn’t washed out. Cane River is the most difficult to figure out. 19w is in large part gone. It looks like we can now get close to Langford Branch and will be moving that direction as soon as the road allows.
In going over these areas, I really feel for the people who live there. Many lost their homes and other possessions. Those that didn’t still have no way to get to their places. Please know we are doing everything we can to get power back to you if at all possible. We celebrate those that now have power of course, but our main focus is on those who do not.
We are now averaging over 100 pole replacements per day. Before this storm, the worst we had ever seen was a total of 120 poles over a seven day period in 2009. We are now well over 1200 poles replaced to date and still have hundreds left to do. Please keep our crews in your thoughts and prayers. They have been going strong for over 3 weeks now and all they want is for everyone to get power back to their homes.
We are now have over 50 crews working in Mitchell and Yancey county. These guys have done amazing work over the last three weeks. Even though we have power restored to the vast majority of our customers, we are now faced with more difficult situations in the remaining areas. In Mitchell, we are still plowing through popular creek and pigeon roost as well as Beams Creek. Our facilities in these areas were torn to pieces by high winds and what looks to be tornado like activity. Hundreds of poles have been broken and wire is down in almost every span. To make things even more difficult, most of the broken poles are on mountains or ridges, inaccessible with most of our equipment. With that, we think that we should have most of Beans Creek and Popular on by Wednesday and should wrap up pigeon roost on Monday. In Yancey, we have re-scouted the areas of Big Creek, Little Creek, Cane River, Pensacola, and Roses Branch. These areas were devastated by flood waters. Miles of our poles and wire along with the roads no longer exist. Access to these areas with our equipment has been impossible. The NCDOT is doing a remarkable job of creating new roadways, slowing making it possible to reach these areas. We have developed a plan to bring power in Big Creek and Little Creek with an alternate feed. Road access is still extremely challenging but we feel like we may have a way to provide service to these areas in the next couple of weeks. We will be constructing new lines without all of our typical equipment so things could take a little longer to complete. In Pensacola, the situation is similar to a point. If we can get access up NC 197 past Bowlens Creek, we will construct a new three phase line along the road bed. We will need to build miles of new line to reach up to ewuart Wilson road and other taps, but with multiple crews working, our timeline would be several weeks instead of months.
Parts of Roses Branch was completely washed away and so we will be looking at alternate ways to supply power. Currently, multiple crews are building lines down NC 80 that will cross the river into Yancey and give us the ability to pick up parts of Roses Branch that wasn’t washed out. Cane River is the most difficult to figure out. 19w is in large part gone. It looks like we can now get close to Langford Branch and will be moving that direction as soon as the road allows.
In going over these areas, I really feel for the people who live there. Many lost their homes and other possessions. Those that didn’t still have no way to get to their places. Please know we are doing everything we can to get power back to you if at all possible. We celebrate those that now have power of course, but our main focus is on those who do not.
We are now averaging over 100 pole replacements per day. Before this storm, the worst we had ever seen was a total of 120 poles over a seven day period in 2009. We are now well over 1200 poles replaced to date and still have hundreds left to do. Please keep our crews in your thoughts and prayers. They have been going strong for over 3 weeks now and all they want is for everyone to get power back to their homes.
Amazing! These guys should be celebrated as heros. We need to petition for a lineworker day.
Dick
Twelve Pointer
Dick
Twelve Pointer
Dick
Twelve Pointer
Dick
Twelve Pointer
Dick
Twelve Pointer
ummmmm
I have no clue what I did
I have no clue what I did