If you don't know, I live in the part of the world that was severely impacted by hurricane Helene. I was without power, internet or phone for about 19 days. Thankfully I, and my family are all safe. We were lucky enough to avoid significant damage to our property. During the event and its aftermath, I kept a log of what was happening. It ended up being over 11000 words long. I'm not going to post everything here, but I'm going to drop a few excerpts, lightly edited. I'm also considering putting the full text into a zine or something, once I have the mental wherewithal to accomplish something like that.
9/26 - Thursday Hurricane Helen coming in as of Thursday night Lots of wind and rain as we go to bed The mouse I ordered in from amazon finally arrived. It was delayed by a couple days, probably because of the storm. It was delivered to the wrong place. Our neighbored have a parcel box for deliveries, with their addresses listed right on it. Our address is not listed on it. Amazon sent me a picture of the box sitting outside the package box for our neighbors, loosely covered by a plastic garbage bag. I’m not even mad at the amazon driver, the weather is already pretty bad ad they probably should have even bothered delivering it. We decide to drive down and pick it up. By the time we get there it looks like someone put it in the box, and we don’t have enough light to put in the code to the parcel box and retrieve it. We go back home and go to bed
9/27 - Friday Wind and rain all morning, and by the time it ended about 10, things were looking up. We still had internet and power, but that wouldn’t last. The internet went out about 11:30 and the phone was out when we tried to make a call to my manager and let her know.
We went down the driveway and it was covered in trees. At least two had fallen into the drive way. Our northern neighbor's driveway up was also blocked by a couple trees. Water had flooded the creek and was running down the road, which it would do for at least another few hours. When we finally got down past the blockage (after the water stopped rushing) and looked further down the asphalt, just past where it ended, there were some down power/phone lines We could see pas that on the dirt road and there was a divot at least 2 feet deep down the middle and an even larger tree down in the road.
Another neighbor came to use our landline, because she didn't know it was out. We gave her some water anyway and I took her a big travel mug for her once she made her way through the brush on the driveway (we didn’t want her crying to carry it an navigate the fallen trees at the same time. We had cheeseburgers on the grill for dinner.
Without internet we started watching The Good Wife on my plex server. About half way through the episode we lost power. [nb we realized later that this is probably when our solar batteries went out. We had probably been off the grid since that morning when the lines went down] We had the generator on but called it a night anyway.
9/28 - Saturday We spent the morning clearing brush from the driveway. Although clearing it was only a first small step because the road was also impassable. Our northern neighbors were clearing their part of the road, so we got an update on their situation. We had an early lunch before putting another hour of work in and got done (or at least stopped) around noon. We had cleared the driveway mostly. We went in and Amy & Mary took showers, I just napped. That afternoon my back froze up (probably because of all the work) and I took some alive and Amy slapped a couple salonpass on my back as well. I spent time thinking of all the camp songs I could sing and trying to remember the 12 points of the scout law in order. I could remember them all in buts and pieces, but it took some work to get them all in order. For the record, they're: Trustworthy Loyal Helpful Friendly Courteous Kind Obedient Cheerful Thrifty Brave Clean Reverent
We killed the generator and are going to only run it a few hours a day to slow spoilage in the fridge and freezer. after dark we got around with flashlights and battery powered lanterns. We slept with the windows open because it was too stuffy otherwise. Amy and I went to bed speculating about what was happening on Big Brother, since we couldn't watch the latest episodes. 9/29 - Sunday We have turned the power on for a couple hours at a time but are keeping it off more than on. Mary guesses at our current rate we can probably make it at least a week. Which is good because we probably will have to.
She also dug out a radio (Grandma’s AKA Jim’s Mom’s) and we turned that on this morning for a little while. It was not encouraging. Damages from Ohio to Florida, with power losses all along the way. The radio hosts were clearly pretty distraught and heard on-air that some of their normal cohosts had been contacted, and were audibly relieved. there were more than a few technical issues. A few people called in with updates from different parts of the local area and lots of the news was bad. 2.5+ hour waits to checkout at an ingles that was open, and a few gas stations reported open. There was a press conference that we listened to part of (before killing the generator) and it was pretty bleak. Lots of damage everywhere and not much in the way of updates regarding progress.
We heard through the grapevine that one or both of the bridges to town are out, and a house burned down on the way out. Because there was no way for the fire department to get there. Oh yeah, the fire station nearest us got flooded out too.
There's a group of neighbors who have started organizing, at a local barn. They sent runners runners to knock on all the doors on this side of the bridge and check on everyone they could find. They're gathering supplies and trying to get them where they're most needed. One of the neighbors also has a tractor with a tree grabber which is making it much easier to clear the roads. Up to the bridge at least.
It also turns out there's one more way out, but it involves a difficult road, that also goes by the house that burned down. Everyone who doesn't have a generator (and thus no water) is encouraged to get out.
10/3 - Thursday, Probably Sending text messages is becoming an arcane ritual. Have to find the right spot and move the right way. Hope something gets out. Sometimes the wind shifts and new messages come through like an oracle. Heard from mom and got a couple texts through to some close friends letting them know what was happening.
A trusted neighbor came by with… conflicting information. It’s either going really well or not, depending on the question you ask her. i.e. “We’ve done so much in seven days, but things won’t be better for at least a month.” I think there’s a maximum radius for accuracy in information. I know very well what is happening in my house. What my neighbors are up to I know pretty well, but not as much. The further away a piece of news comes from the less I feel I can trust it. It is ironic that the game called telephone is all about information getting lost in the retelling, but an actual telephone would do so much to make things clearer.
I’m trying to focus on the things in front of me. The decisions I can and must make based on the information I have and can trust. The less accurate the information (or the less I trust it) the less I feel like I can make concrete decisions about any of it. We are safe. We are supplied. As and if that changes we can make different choices. Otherwise the possibility space gets too large and overwhelming to the point of being useless to consider. And waiting feels like (based on what I know, and that’s all I can base it on — which is flawed anyway but what else am I supposed to do?) the safest choice right now. The longer we can wait, the better things will be in the rest of the world. Waiting isn’t inaction if it is a choice.
10/4 - Friday Well it’s been a week since the storm. Kind of weird to think about.
Someone at the barn got a starlink, and it's hooked up to a Prus a few hours a day so people there can get internet. They're still doing daily hot lunches on grills for anybody who comes by. While Iwas down there to check on then internet and call my mom, a helicopter landed and two guys got out. They left a couple boxes of MREs and cases of water, really putting the too little into too late.
The temporary bridge out has been finished, so people can get back into (what's left of) town.
10/6 - Sunday Another week without sending my newsletter. I
The milk in the coffee was spoiled, which means we’re probably not running the generator enough. Amy and Jim stopped by the propane company while they were out and scheduled a delivery for next week. fingers crossed they can get here.
Mary wanted to watch a movie from my plex server and she picked Invictus. So I have finally seen more than the first 40 minutes of it. I’m not sure it’s worth it. Everything happened as I expected and the only character with any personality was Morgan Freeman as Mandela, but he mostly just felt like a guy doing an impression. I have no real understanding of rugby, but I didn’t at the beginning either. There’s a ball. And everybody hugs for a while.
10/8 - Tuesday Another helicopter landed at the barn today. Dropped off a couple generators which is actually a good thing. Those will be needed. Felt awkward, but that is ok. There was a student reporter from a college in Boone, who had been picked up and was traveling with the chopper to get stories and information. It was kind of clear he was in over his head and doing the best he can. He talked to some other folks before wandering up to us (Amy, Jim and I) and asked us about downed power lines. He asked if we knew where any were and I just sort of gestured broadly. He didn’t seem to get it, so I pointed out that if he walked to the barn where we had come from, he would literally walk over some, so he could get pictures of those. 10/11 Friday. Again. It seems like my cellphone spot isn’t working today.
Went down to the barn around 11:30 and the meeting that started at 9:30 was still going on, which was a surprise. Meetings are complicated. Read another volume (11) of The Boys, on my iPad. I transferred a bunch of Hellboy comics to my iPad as well while the generator was running. Made me really want to pick up that iPad Air.
Realized I haven’t taken my brain drugs for a couple days. Might be why I’m feeling weird. Need to take them when I get back from the barn. I’m thinking about the new sign at the barn that says “stores and gas stations are open, only take if you have real need” and a similar message on the white board inside, that’s says something like “if you have money to buy things, don’t take things here from those who don’t.” It just feels like the thin edge of the wedge of capitalism sneaking its way back into everything. Not that we have been without capitalism during this emergency, but it’s interesting how quickly “means testing” creeps back in. “What if someone gets something they don’t deserve” is the question unasked. And the correct answer is the world will move on, and things would be fine.
Neighbors have been coming over in the evenings, when the generator is running, so they can take a hot shower. It feels good to be able to share what we have with the rest of the community. 10/12 - Saturday We drove into town and got lunch at Five Guys. It was nice, almost normal except they only had bottled drinks (the city is on a boil notice.) I also heard them playing House of the Rising Sun, so I got to think about common meter and sing different songs to the tune of Gillian’s island theme in my head.
10/13 - Sunday One of Amy's childhood friends drove an hour to come check on us today. The visit was really for the friend’s benefit as she had been very anxious about Amy (and the rest of us,) even after getting updates via our limited internet connection. Most of the visit was sharing terrible things back and forth about how bad everything was. They mentioned one of the power folks from out of town was surprised at how friendly and thankful everyone was, which isn’t usual, apparently. We also saw a bear come up on the porch, and her cub was following not far behind. We watched them head down the driveway.
The Internet came back!! We only have it when there's power, but since our internet comes over from a radio tower, that tower appears to have been fixed, so when we run the generator we can get online. 10/15 - Tuesday While we were getting ready for dinner, Jim noticed that the generator had turned off. Which means we have power again. But this still feels lke it isn't over. we've seen and heard so much of the devesattion back in tow, that i don't know if it will ever be over. ” All the boring places we go to are closed or destroyed. Sonic, Zaxbys, Walmart. That’s our whole weekend some weeks.
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Like I said, that's just some excerpts. I skipped whole days and significant events, because even reading the log again is pretty difficult for me, let alone sharing it with strangers on the internet.
I hope you are all doing well, hug your loved ones. Here's a picture of a cat.
