Helene - everyone okay?

[Pauvog1]

Hey friends,

I hope everyone is doing okay. We're fine in Coastal Georgia, just no power (might be out a few days). Hope everyone else fared well.

[catgrowlB]

Lots of wind and rain this morning in central NC. Lots of rain this whole week. Power flickered off and on a few times, but otherwise OK

[York-aholic]

One thing I learned from having been evacuated for a week and a half with the CA wildfires is that if power will be out for an extended amount of time (I turned off our generator so it wouldn’t run the whole time) is:

Empty the ice in the ice maker of your fridge/freezer and obviously then turn off the ice maker.

Otherwise you come home to a buckled floor in front of your fridge. Tearing up some of the vinyl flooring and replacing some of the sub floor is tomorrow’s number one chore.


Hope everyone weathered the storm!

[davidgilbreath]

Cobb County was drenched as well as the northwestern quarter of the state (which fared better than middle and southern portions). At least fifteen were killed in Georgia including a firefighter from the Blackshear area (Pierce County). Helene was disastrous.

[Mary Ann]

Sorry to hear all that -- my friend in central northern VA also had power and phone go out, and not even in the main path.
Here, we were 108 yesterday, with near zero humidity.

[GC]

I'm about an hour north of David in NW GA. We had not so terrible rain and moderate winds. I really feel for the folks in the southern half of the state and in the Panhandle. It was a disaster for them.

[gocsick]

Got the remnants in Ohio.. Neighbor had a huge oak tree come down in their house. Luckily it crushed the spare bedroom so no injuries.

[JESimmons]

I'm also in coastal Georgia - far away from the eye but we lost lots of trees and power was out for two days. We got lots of wind but little rain.

[Mary Ann]

I just saw on the news what happened in Asheville -- astonishing; I would have thought at that altitude and location that a hurricane, any hurricane, was just a really windy rainstorm. Wow; I saw there were locations that got 30 inches of rain, and many with 20. That sounds like Katrina level damage. Yikes.

[catgrowlB]

^ Yes, western NC (Appalachian mountains) was hit very hard. Boone, Asheville, Chimney Rock all had lots of flooding and damage. Part of I-40 was washed out and will need to be rebuilt. The town of Chimney Rock was literally washed away and completely destroyed. Back in the day (1980s - 1990s) as a kid, my family would go up to Chimney Rock for vacation. Beautiful area; a shame what happened to the town

My roomie has family west of Asheville. They still don't have power

[sweaty]

It's the deadliest US storm since Katrina. Terrible. I have been assigned to SC. What I have seen so far is a lot of this:
https://tubaforum.net/viewtopic.php?p=70783#p70783
Many residents have told me stories of how they just happened to go to the bathroom or fell asleep in the living room right when the tree crushed their bedrooms. They are amazed they have not been severely injured.

Regarding the hardest-hit towns in NC and FL, I looked them up on a color-coded topographical map:
https://tubaforum.net/viewtopic.php?p=32369#p32369

It is hard to imagine how those towns could NOT be flooded given the elevation. This is not intended as a "I told you so" post, but a reminder to proactively use available information to take protective action. The solutions are building codes, infrastructure, and individual preparation. We don't have to live in fear of the weather.

[Billy M.]

I'm in the panhandle of Florida (westernmost part), we got cloud cover, a little breeze, and some sprinkles of rain. Fortunately nothing more. Checked on @Stryk multiple times to ensure he was alright as he was much closer to where the storm made landfall. He came out alright as well.

[bloke]

Of course (in western Tennessee) we did not suffer...
Memphis (a dense/mature oak forest with an above-ground power grid strung underneath it) had its predictable/routine power outages, but none here...and the strongest (rare) wind guts were probably only 50+ mph. I heard reports of locally higher ones, but only of interest (rather than consequence).

The thing that we ended up out here (at blokeplace - from the two-so-far hurricanes) was a whole bunch of pond water recovery (from this summer's drought). Its not full, but it's better than it was.

This far north, the routine threatening weather events are tornadoes (which tend to be really spooky phenomenons), but - by the time hurricanes arrive - they are merely rain events (and usually with no lightning).

Helene flooding: horrible/incomprehensible

Back when we lived in Memphis, we were at the "bottom" of a very conveniently located ("location-location-location") cove. it was so low that the ceiling of the second story was about level with the street that services the cove. Due to a lawsuit, a previous owner of that house ended up with an amazing underground/complex drainage system (which protects the house from flooding) but - regularly - I had to go out and and keep the intake (AND the out-go - on the adjacent school property) clean. Otherwise, we could have ended up with a flooded house anyway. (Early on, I learned that this was necessary, when water reached the top of the front door's stoop, but - luckily - didn't make it into the house.) I don't know if we'll ever move again, but this place (at least the buildings and road into here) is/are up on very high ground, and I won't be buying any more low-lying properties. There's a reason ($$$) why so many trailer parks are located in floodplains.