My county, Greenville County, has the highest rate of residential power outages of any county in the five states most impacted by hurricane Helene (Florida, Georgia, SC, NC, and Tennessee): 100%.

I tried to drive up to my studio at Caesar’s Head mountain yesterday. It was a hellscape. US-276 up the mountain is solid blowdown with no possibility of being cleared the last eight miles to the NC/SC state line, according to the three volunteers (with ONE chainsaw) who I encountered at the tangle of fallen trees four miles below my studio, for at least a week, and probably two.

I’ll be posting pics as soon as I can get my computer charged. And more comments about the situation.

Bo

I'm still holding on to hope that the friends that I haven't spoken to since Thursday are OK. Time will tell.

Keep the faith. ❤️

Partly because of so many vehicular accidents; most (probably 95%) traffic lights are out. Anarchy reigns at most road intersections with inoperative traffic signals. About 30% of drivers (now there’s a familiar number), from my observations, seem to think no light means a green light. A few, like me, treat an intersection with inop signals like a 4-way stop. The rest think that several vehicles at a time should get through. Mayhem prevails. Tempers flare.

Our governor was a fraternity brother of my brother-in-law. KA at U of SC. The Knights of Alcohol. The Old South lives. The KKK in kollege. Gov. Henry McMaster is as dumb as dirt, and a Trump toady through and through.

and a devastating wildfire during a pandemic. Without the help of federal funding there would have been chaos, hopelessness, and, certainly, more deaths. And yet many victims I know who are on their feet thanks to government help still "hate" the government.

Better keep those bootstraps handy.

Death tolls are going to rise. It's early days.

Meanwhile has anyone heard a word from the other sides candidate? Not that I care but...crickets.

Thanks to all deities everywhere for President Biden!!

It helps to get updates everywhere. I hope your governor is in state.

McMaster is not in-state even when he is in the state, if you know what I mean.

Wind and rain from Helene didn't get to NC until Friday PM. Western NC was already flooding by noon Thursday. (Got photos from friend in Black Rock.) The rains which caused that flooding had been ongoing since the previous Tuesday. The front which created the heavy rain was what is called "a predecessor event". That is the extent of its association with Helene.

It may not seem like much, but it is an example of how even non-critical aspects of history become distorted by mislabeled headlines. What percent of the world today believes that the flooding in NC happened because tropical storm Helene dumped all that rain on their mountains in the 3-4 hours it was actually there? The breaching of Waterville dam was coincidental to Helen's arrival but the water which built up to cause the breach was not.

Hey you, Media! Is it too much trouble to use the 10-15 words necessary to state a few facts or are you just lazy or stupid or both? If you can screw something this simple up, what chaos are you going to create on November 6th?

Raindrop based on the origin of the clouds.

Even without the rain that was already falling, there were high winds plus the extra rain.

Without the already accumulated rain the amount that Helene dropped on WNC was a significant amount in a short span of time.

Water is one of the major attractions in WNC. Almost every town and village that flooded is water adjacent to a lake, river or reservoir. It doesn't take much to reach flood stage and then for banks to get overrun.

The picture is complex and nuanced.

Hurricane Floyd hit the NC coast and we all thought we'd dodged a bullet. It kept dumping rain as it moved North.

Within a few hours that rain had filled the Cape Fear, Black River and the NE Cape Fear River, they hit flood stage, quickly went over and suddenly people were on their rooftops needing rescue.

I was surrounded like an island and couldn't go anywhere for five days. The National Guard troops were up and down in front of my house going from roof rescues to the shelter in town for five days.

There has never been any doubt or debate about the cause and it was Hurricane Floyd.

Also the Waterville dam isn't in North Carolina. It's in Tennessee.

The big picture is clear and we should all be compassionately supportive of those who are suffering. I think it probably makes small difference to them what gets blamed for their heartaches and losses.

I hope you can find what you're looking for and be satisfied with the outcome.

❤️

A bridge near her is out and most of the roads were closed due to landslides. She has no power and spotty internet/cell service. The club near her has a generator but will run out of propane tonight or tomorrow. They cleared the roads so that single lanes can get through. It took her 4 hours to go 20 miles but she is now in a part of North Carolina with fairly open roads and power. She has a second home that has power that she is headed to. It was nice to talk to her.