Most of you reading this know that Maureen and I spent 35 years in Southern California. During that period we lived through many significant seismic events; Northridge, Loma Prieta, Big Bear, to name a few that registered 6.0 or higher and caused significant damage in their respective areas. And most of you know that my career was in “Building & Safety.” I began my career as an entry level field inspector and retired as the Building Official/Deputy Director of Community Development. So I was trained in all levels of Emergency Management Services (EMS), from early disaster response and field safety evaluations of structures to resource management, services, and support at the Citywide level. In all those years and all of those earthquakes, wildfires, floods, Santa Ana winds, and La Nina rains and flash floods, Maureen and I were always prepared to a certain level but in reality, barely inconvenienced.
In 2013 we were making college visits for Liam and we stayed in an Air B-N-B house on the other side of the French Broad river from where we now live, literally at the edge of a cattle farm out in the country. There was an insignificant thunder storm that knocked out the power to the house for a few hours. But when you're in the country on a well, that means no fresh water, which also means limited bathroom use (can't flush toilets), and if you have all electric appliances, no cooking. So when we finally moved, Maureen insisted that we have a generator. Me, having some knowledge about such things, hired the big electrical outfit out here in Western North Carolina (WNC) to install a new service panel with a transfer switch and a 30 Amp receptacle for the generator cord to feed the whole house. Not important but I also had them run a feed to my shop and install a sub-panel for all my woodworking needs. I mean, they were already here! Anyway, in the nine years since we moved I've had to power up once for two hours, and didn't really need to but it was a good test run for the house.
They say the best things to have in an emergency are knowledge and skills. Because of the potential snowfall in the winters, Maureen got an interest for a while in being prepared. We found a “Prepper” group not too far away and attended a few meetings. They were a little on the extreme, Armageddon being what it is, but all-in-all were a friendly group. I always joked, my efforts toward being prepared was to pack up my family, move out of earthquake country, cross over past tornado alley, and stop before I hit the hurricane coast. I called us the “Reverse Beverly Hillbillys!” But we stocked on some non-perishable foods and keep fifteen gallons of gas on hand for the generator for that winter that we've yet to see. And then there was Helene! Who knew?
Thursday, September 26th, late evening: The winds started blowing and it's raining pretty good. We're not concerned because every time we see a forecast Helene is going to turn west earlier and earlier, possible even skirting WNC altogether. We go to bed oblivious to what's to come.
Friday, September 27th, early morning: The power goes out about 4:30 AM. We get up at sunup Friday morning and it's still raining to beat the band. I get out and hook up the generator and we fire up the coffee pot. A bit later Friday morning as we're standing on our back deck, we watch eight (8) trees come down that we can see from our rear deck. One in the neighbor's yard, three on my property, and the rest just off the back property line. I was a bit concerned because there are three large trees, still standing thankfully, on my neighbor's slope just between our houses that were catching a lot of the storm winds which were blowing in my direction. I think his house shielded the trees enough that the trees, thankfully, did not succumb. My neighbor and I are going to have a discussion about me having those removed in the near future. Fortunately, none of the houses in my neighborhood were hit by a tree. We have not seen an updated storm path map as of this writing, but I'm convinced the projections were wrong and Helene did not turn and we got the full force of the tropical storm and the flooding and damage up here on the mountain reflects that. If we only caught the edge of the storm I'd hate to think how much worse it might have been in the center.
Friday, September 27th, mid afternoon: Liam finally makes it home from work. Liam goes in around 3:00 AM to work everyday which was before the worst of the storm came through. The UPS Center lost power along with everyone else. When they were finally sent home, Liam, being Liam, without a sufficient amount of fuel to mess around much, offered to take a buddy/co-worker home who would have otherwise been stranded. Liam ended up trapped by a downed power line in an unfamiliar area and ultimately had to abandon his truck and run back to the UPS facility, about three miles. There was no way to communicate his predicament to me as cell service was already down. Luckily, a supervisor at UPS was able to bring him to the house.
(At this time, this next part is second and third hand information, not confirmed by me. We're still not really able to get much current news, even now.)
I have been told that the previous record for the flooding of the French Broad river was around 20 feet+ above “flood stage”. I was also told that sometime between Friday and Saturday, the French Broad crested around 30 feet+ over flood stage. I've heard the entire town of Marshall, 10 miles north of us and down on the river, was completely washed away. I cannot begin to describe the devastation of Bernardsville, within 15 miles northeast of us. They must have been directly in the path of the worst of the storm. I'm also hearing Hot Springs and Spuce Pine are also devastated, possibly even gone.
Sunday, September 29th: There is no way to get on or off the mountain. There is some level of damage on every major artery on all points of the compass. There is no consistent power to the cell towers. We get the occasional burst signal where we receive incoming texts and send out any queued up in our phones. Our entire neighborhood is doing better than probably 90% of WNC. We have banded together and have been so fortunate.
So, how are Maureen, Liam, and I, and what are we up to? I had emptied the generator gas tank and run off the excess of gas not two weeks ago because the gas, I believed, was getting old. Not thinking we were going to get hit this hard, I had not topped off my fuel supplies but I still had roughly 12+ gallons of gas on hand in my three 5 gallon cans. Also, my truck and Maureen's car were at about a half a tank each. Here's an argument for acting first and thinking about it later.
Saturday, September 28th, late morning: Liam and I jumped into my truck to head to Erwin Tennessee to scavenge some gas. We're not getting any news so we didn't know we would not get through. We stop at the Mars Hill exit, about 10 miles down the road, because there is a Shell station close to the exit. We see cars lined up at the pumps, and as we get closer we hear a generator. Our hopes are dashed when we find that the generator is for their food coolers and they are not pumping gas. However, it was a fortunate detour because I spoke to a couple that had come from Cherokee the night before and the Cherokee area had power. Liam and I turned around and headed for his old stomping grounds in Sylva, near his college, which is very near the Cherokee Indian Reservation. Eureka! Because there is no communications to speak of, word was not out. We were able to fill my truck and 5 5-gallon cans of gas, $97+ dollars worth, for a neighbor who has a generator and myself. We also raided the local Walmart for canned goods, batteries and other essentials. Liam noticed a bunch of his peers talking on their cell phones. The Sylva Walmart had a hot spot in the back corner of the store so we got our cell phones, caught up on texts and called immediate family.
Saturday, September 28th, early evening: I heard through the grapevine that the radio emergency news channel announced Saturday late afternoon, that Jackson County (Sylva) had power. Liam was encouraging me to head back to Sylva that afternoon. It was a good idea and maybe we should have gone but I was done for the day.
Sunday, September 28th, early morning: I headed back to Sylva with borrowed empty gas cans and Maureen's car. We were able to beat the crowds that were sure to follow. The convenience store gas station I visited the previous day was tapped out so I began to get a little concerned. But there was a Sheetz a half mile away that still had gas. We pulled right up to a pump, no wait. I figure they had started rationing like the gas stations closer to Waynesville. I asked the attendant; how much gas can I buy? He shrugged and asked me; “how much do you want?” I was able to fill up Maureen's car and purchase another 25 gallons of gas, $112.50 worth, for the neighborhood generators, so we were golden. Maureen and Carol-Anne came along to use the Walmart hot spot, and we all did the text and call family and friends routine. I also stocked up on toilet paper and paper towels to share with the neighbors. We tried to buy beer and wine, but it was Sunday before noon smack dab in the middle of the “Bible Belt”, so we were denied. Didn't they know there was a crisis? I'm not sure of the logic. Are they afraid if they sell alcohol too early people will go to church drunk? If you want to drink before church wouldn't you just buy it Saturday night? The ride home for us was uneventful but the news about power in Jackson County was out. The other side of the freeway heading to Jackson County was a parking lot. We're being told that power should be back on by Friday (we've our fingers crossed). I'm running my generator three times a day, roughly two hours each time, using about 2 ½ to 3 gallons of gas a day. So we can get to Friday easily.
Monday, September 30th, late evening: Liam is going to work in the early morning and we're using the camp stove to cook some hot soup for his thermos when all of a sudden a brief flame flares out from the openings. Apparently the seals on my 35 year old camp stove have deteriorated and propane is leaking into the interior of the stove housing. We have a backup burner on the grill, but whew, that was scary for a minute!
Tuesday, October 1st, 6:35 AM: We have power! When I shut off the generator last night, I meant to throw the transfer switch on turn on the main breaker just in case the power came on. Of course I forgot. When I woke up this morning and went to get my generator out I noticed lights on in an upstairs room of my neighbor's house. And sure enough, our street has power.
Immediate Aftermath: As I'm writing this section we are still in an information void. There is an emergency AM radio station doing a bunch of human interest stories and the occasional update, but we have no real news. The only pictures we've seen of the flooding and devastation are the ones I took driving to Sylva to show Maureen. If you stand on my front porch it looks as if we just had a windy storm and I need to get out and blow leaves. If you drive out of our street you see the downed trees and power lines, and the single lane paths cut through the tree trunks and branches fallen across the roads, cleared mostly by our neighbors because we're not really a high priority for emergency workers. However, we can get in and out for gas and food. Make no mistake, the damage, devastation, and human toll is every bit as tragic as you are seeing on TV. However, I want to reassure all of our friends that we were completely fine and would have still been had this lasted twice as long, or longer for us personally. Between our generator, camp stove and grill, we had water for cooking, drinking, and personal hygiene, and had at least one hot meal each day. We had more food than we could eat. Carol-Anne and Maurice emptied their refrigerators and freezers and brought it to our house, and we're sharing with our neighbors so defrosted foods would not spoil. Our house was the water station for our immediate neighbors and their friends and family. Maureen and I were able to keep one of our neighbors fed and healthy and give a friend who's husband was out of town a place to stay and not be isolated. Liam, with his big heart, insisted we reach out and check on one friend who had not shown for work and the parents of his roommates to make sure they were doing OK and getting by. We were able to provide them drinking water and water for personal hygiene.
After Action Report: What did we do right?
1. Bought a house with a well and septic. Even homes that had some access to electricity, that were on City water, did not automatically have access to clean water. Many of the water treatment plants near the river were overwhelmed and contaminated by the flooding. If the water was being distributed it still needed to be boiled and sometimes there was no power to pump water into the water towers so the water towers ran dry quickly.
2. Installed a 30 Amp receptacle and transfer switch for the generator. Nine years ago (can you believe it's been 9 years) when Maureen insisted we have a backup generator, I hired the big electrical contractor to change out my service panel and provide me with a safe connection to my generator that powered my whole house, including the water/well pump. Many of my neighbors that were able to acquire a generators after the storm could only run extension cords to refrigerators and lights but could not power their house and wells. So they still had no fresh water. Some found ways to back-feed through existing receptacles but that can be less than safe if you're not careful.
3. Purchased a Honda Black Max generator. This was just dumb luck, it's what Sam's Club had in stock nine years ago. I've had that generator in my garage since. I run it quarterly to makes sure it will be there when I need it but it has otherwise remained untested. OMG! That thing was a beast! The only time I had to pull the starter cord more than once was when I forgot to toggle the on switch. It also was efficient in my opinion. I have nothing really to compare it to but we ran it roughly 6 hours total each day and used less than 3 gallons of gas per day. Consider this a 5 Star endorsement.
4. Had gas cans with gas on the property. I could have done better but we didn't lose any food even from day one. That's all I'll say about that.
5. Had three months of emergency, non-perishable food on hand. We did not have to tap into that ultimately but it's piece of mind.
6. Reacted quickly when opportunities arose. Being “Johnny on the spot” made up for what I lacked in preparation. It's always better to be doing something than waiting for something to be done.
7. Started talking to my neighbors early about security. The rule of 3s. You can survive:
a) 3 weeks without food;
b) 3 days without water;
c) 3 hours without shelter;
d) 3 minutes without air; and,
e) 3 seconds without security.
In a disaster, everyone is focused on food, water, and fuel. However lack of security can be the thing that you have the least amount of time to react to/recover from. It did not become an issue for us and there was minimal looting of residential neighborhoods reported, but we suspect a couple of the unfamiliar vehicles that drove to our cul de sac and back out may have been scoping to steal a generator or looking for empty houses. We made it obvious that our group was looking out for each other.
After Action Report: Things I can do better?
1. Take potential weather event notices more seriously. Watching the weather reports it looked as if Helene was migrating west before Asheville so we were complacent and caught by surprise. I guess Helene didn't get the memo. It's better to be prepared unnecessarily than be caught unprepared.
2. Make sure all of the vehicles gas tanks and gas cans are full if a weather event is suspected (See no. 1 above).
3. First opportunity I get, I'm buying at least 5 more gas cans. They can sit empty until the next storm warning. If I fill them and the storm passes as a non-event I can always use the gas in our vehicles. But I won't have to beg and borrow gas cans to have extra fuel on hand.
4. Two is one, one is none! That's an old prepper adage that we learned the true meaning of when my 35 year old camp stove blew a seal and we had to stop using it. I don't know that I need two of everything but I'll probably look around and at least get backups for the oldest and most essential equipment.
5. Look into satellite internet. As I'm writing this we still don't have any reliable communications. Cell service is down. The few texts I've been able to send and received have been burst connections and are completely unreliable. All of our information is from the grapevine, word of mouth, second and third hand. We have been chasing rumors of hotspots around town trying to let family know we've been OK.
6. Have an emergency meet up or pickup plan in place. During that brief period when we didn't know where Liam was we didn't dare leave the house in case he might find a way home, which he eventually did. I have a nice 4x4 and could likely find a way to get out to get him if I only knew where to go.
I'm wrapping this up incomplete without the ability to fact check without internet. Maureen and I are out today to find a hotspot (found one) and I'm sending this as is for all of you to see how we are. I'll edit again when we have service. Please rest assured, Maureen, Liam and I are GOLDEN for now!
