Helene: After the storm

The past few days will go down in history.  The comparison I keep hearing is that "this is our Katrina" and that's not inaccurate at all.

If God saw fit to humble us, He certainly did with Hurricane Helene.

As I write this it's almost 7:30 pm EST on October 1st, 2024.  I was away from the house for much of the day so I don't know when exactly the juice came back on but when I returned an hour ago the power was restored.  It had been out since a little before 8 on Friday morning, four and a half days ago.  So that's about a hundred hours that we were without electricity.

I drove around the area on Friday night.   Didn't get too far.  There were big trees fallen all over the place, across the roadways.  I've never seen so many power lines down.

I had to conserve battery power on the various devices, like my phone and iPad.  Yesterday morning I ventured out and got to the library in downtown Spartanburg, found a spot on the floor next to a wall outlet and recharged the phone.  I've been limiting its use, employing it only when absolutely necessary.  Because there was no telling when power would come back to our homes.

My dog and I are in upstate South Carolina.  And it could have been much worse.

Asheville, North Carolina is a little less than an hour to our north.  As of this evening I-40 going east out of the city is open but nothing else.  The town is pretty much unreachable except by helicopter (Asheville Regional Airport is starting to get supply flights coming in but that's a bit far from the city limits).  At last count more than 60 people are dead from the storm in Buncombe County.

Half an hour to our west, we have friends in Greenville.  They have been without power since Friday.

The town of Chimney Rock has been wiped off the map.

Sections of highways in the western part of North Carolina have been destroyed.

Local schools are out until Monday next week.  Remote learning via Internet is also out.

The power crews are working around the clock to restore electricity.  They have come in from all up and down the country and some have arrived from Canada.  They can't possibly be appreciated enough.

As for my own account...

Restricting the use of devices meant that it would be unwise to write, no matter how creative I was feeling.  And the only flashlight I have is on my iPhone.  So  I spent the daylight hours doing lots of reading.  I try to read George Orwell's 1984 every few years and I was behind on that so Sunday afternoon I was engorged in that novel.  And yesterday, for whatever reason, I started re-reading Helter Skelter.  I did write a bit for my book, the old-fashioned way: with a pen and notebook.  So I guess it can be said that my attempt to contribute to the world's literature is sort of a multimedia effort.

It's been a wild past few days.  And I was expecting the power to be restored sometime late Friday.  So I'm very thankful that it's back.

I've been through hurricanes a number of times in my life.  Helene topped them all.  For it to come this far inland and still packing a punch is almost a freak occurrence.  It's being called a one-in-a-thousand-year catastrophe.

And that's pretty much my report.  Going to spend the rest of the evening getting my bearings back, take a LONG hot shower, give my dog Tammy some love and treats, maybe watch a movie.

Helene has certainly made me thankful for things that we too often take for granted.  And like I said, it could have been worse here.

Thoughts and prayers going up and out for everyone who's been affected by this storm.