swimmerbabe11 said:

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I have a friend helping coordinate getting them body bags, one town alone needed 250. Everyone else is basically asking for whatever they can get because its still rising.

Lord have mercy.

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A friend's brother is over there helping and said his group has pulled out at least 150 bodies. That's just their group. Horrifying situation.

Everyone needs to help us out here. We understand that the federal response is part of the unfolding story. Posting information on the response from the feds can include negative reports. We have no issue with information about the federal government that would paint their response in a negative light. But please use this thread to stick with the information about the damage, rescue, and recovery efforts.

Save your own commentary on the politics, politicians, government spending, etc. for another thread. People are using this thread to post personal information they are getting from friends and family in the region and to stay updated with the ongoing news of damage, rescue, and recovery.

Having to work through politically charged commentary or opinions and theories about why the federal response is going one way or another begins to make the thread difficult to work through if all you want is information about the unfolding news on the ground.

We do understand that there is a gray area here. Do your best to post about politics on a different thread.
If you have any questions or complaints, email us at moderator@texags.com. We will not engage in a conversation about this in the thread.

Waffledynamics said:

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swimmerbabe11 said:

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I have a friend helping coordinate getting them body bags, one town alone needed 250. Everyone else is basically asking for whatever they can get because its still rising.

Lord have mercy.

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A friend's brother is over there helping and said his group has pulled out at least 150 bodies. That's just their group. Horrifying situation.

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I'm seeing reports like this literally everywhere. The deaths are going to go into the tens of thousands.

Mentioned this a few pages back. The numbers of human remains detection canine teams I've seen activated indicates to me that they've got lots of work to do.

is there any reputable calculation yet?

Independence H-D said:

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Mentioned this a few pages back. The numbers of human remains detection canine teams I've seen activated indicates to me that they've got lots of work to do.

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This may very well exceed the 1780 hurricane that killed 22,000. Never thought I would see that in the US in my lifetime. Now we know what Harvey levels of rain does in a mountain region.

Nanomachines son said:

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Independence H-D said:

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Mentioned this a few pages back. The numbers of human remains detection canine teams I've seen activated indicates to me that they've got lots of work to do.

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This may very well exceed the 1780 hurricane that killed 22,000. Never thought I would see that in the US in my lifetime. Now we know what Harvey levels of rain does in a mountain region.

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Yep. Mud slides. Entire hollers gone. Entire towns gone. And based on some of the videos, it went from a lot of water to deadly in half an hour or less

swimmerbabe11 said:

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is there any reputable calculation yet?

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None that I have seen and I have been looking several times a day for that information. So far, just radio silence on that subject.

Where was that hurricane? That killed 22,000?

aggiehawg said:

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Where was that hurricane? That killed 22,000?

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The Lesser Antilles.

aggiehawg said:

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Where was that hurricane? That killed 22,000?

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hurricane_of_1780

one safe place said:

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TAMUallen said:

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This dude bout to get ratio’d https://t.co/eJ4JfNLdt9

— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) October 4, 2024

Yall read that? Buttiegieg trying to brag about sending 2 million

TWO MILLION

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Not even enough to replace a single 40 foot long two lane bridge on a rural road.

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Maybe they mistyped and meant to write billion

one safe place said:

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TAMUallen said:

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This dude bout to get ratio’d https://t.co/eJ4JfNLdt9

— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) October 4, 2024

Yall read that? Buttiegieg trying to brag about sending 2 million

TWO MILLION

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Not even enough to replace a single 40 foot long two lane bridge on a rural road.

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Doubt you could even get the dirt work done for a bridge for that paltry amount.

Thank you.

aggiehawg said:

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one safe place said:

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TAMUallen said:

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This dude bout to get ratio’d https://t.co/eJ4JfNLdt9

— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) October 4, 2024

Yall read that? Buttiegieg trying to brag about sending 2 million

TWO MILLION

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Not even enough to replace a single 40 foot long two lane bridge on a rural road.

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Doubt you could even get the dirt work done for a bridge for that paltry amount.

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You could buy maybe a couple D9s and that's it

God bless these people because they need so much help to ever get back to anything close to normal

Looking at FEMA floodplains maps for Asheville and others, while there are buildings within the flood zones, I wonder how much outside of the designated areas were flooded.

Not pointing fingers at all or victim blaming just curious.

EllisCoAg said:

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Looking at FEMA floodplains maps for Asheville and others, while there are buildings within the flood zones, I wonder how much outside of the designated areas were flooded.

Not pointing fingers at all or victim blaming just curious.

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Aren't those maps mostly related to flood zones near rivers, creeks and lakes?

I mean I understand the hollers were mostly created by water to begin with but that doesn't translate into a floodplain, does it?

Lived in New Mexico for a bit and those arroyos were the storm sewer system but when there was any rain of note, they became raging currents which usually sadly claimed kids lives from being too close.

EllisCoAg said:

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Looking at FEMA floodplains maps for Asheville and others, while there are buildings within the flood zones, I wonder how much outside of the designated areas were flooded.

Not pointing fingers at all or victim blaming just curious.

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Based on my limited time there, many of those hollers were danger zones. Almost all of them have seasonal creeks that run down them. 30 inches of rain in those creeks? It's like what we saw in the hill country is 98 and 02 only with much steeper, less spread out terrain

Could easily have been a nightmare, which is why so many are interpreting the relatively small amount of coverage as very bad news.

For more context, there were several homes I visited that you actually couldn't drive to. They parked on one side of the creek and built a foot bridge across it. They did that because it never floods. But when this happened? I'm certain they flooded. And the one and half lane country roads alongside the creek? No chance.

Quote:

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Based on my limited time there, many of those hollers were danger zones. Almost all of them have seasonal creeks that run down them. 30 inches of rain in those creeks? It's like what we saw in the hill country is 98 and 02 only with much steeper, less spread out terrain

Could easily have been a nightmare, which is why so many are interpreting the relatively small amount of coverage as very bad news.

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I am surprised the dams held out so well. Watched part of a video about Douglas Dam on the Tennessee side? They had all eleven floodgates open for several days, starting before the storm even got there.

Considering those TVA projects were constructed so many decades ago, quite a miracle.

Quote:

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As search for Helene's victims drags into second week, sheriff says rescuers 'will not rest'By JEFF AMYAssociated PressThe Associated PressPENSACOLA, N.C.

PENSACOLA, N.C. (AP) The search for victims of Hurricane Helene dragged into its second week on Friday, as exhausted rescue crews and volunteers continued to work long days navigating past washed out roads, downed power lines and mudslides to reach the isolated and the missing.

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Quote:

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"We know these are hard times, but please know we're coming," Sheriff Quentin Miller of Buncombe County, North Carolina, said at a Thursday evening press briefing. "We're coming to get you. We're coming to pick up our people."

With at least 215 killed, Helene is already the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005, and dozens or possibly hundreds of people are still unaccounted for. Roughly half the victims were in North Carolina, while dozens more were killed in South Carolina and Georgia.

In Buncombe County alone, 72 people had been confirmed dead as of Thursday evening, Miller said. Buncombe includes the tourist hub of Asheville, the region's most populous city. Still, the sheriff holds out hope that many of the missing are alive.

His message to them?

"Your safety and well-being are our highest priority. And we will not rest until you are secure and that you are being cared for."

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Quote:

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Along the Cane River in western North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department had to cut their way through trees at the top of a valley on Thursday, nearly a week after a wall of water swept through.

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Quote:

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Pensacola, which sits a few miles from Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi River, lost an untold number of people, said Mark Harrison, chief medical officer for the department.
"We're starting to do recovery," he said. "We've got the most critical people out."

Near the Tennessee state line, crews were finally starting to reach side roads after clearing the main roads, but that brought a new set of challenges. The smaller roads wind through switchbacks and cross small bridges that can be tricky to navigate even in the best weather.

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Quote:

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"Everything is fine and then they come around a bend and the road is gone and it's one big gully or the bridge is gone," said Charlie Wallin, a Watauga County commissioner. "We can only get so far."

Every day there are new requests to check on someone who hasn't been heard from yet, Wallin said. When the search will end is hard to tell.

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<sigh>

LINK

Quote:

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I am surprised the dams held out so well. Watched part of a video about Douglas Dam on the Tennessee side? They had all eleven floodgates open for several days, starting before the storm even got there.

Considering those TVA projects were constructed so many decades ago, quite a miracle.

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Couldn't agree more.

TVA lakes are at their highest levels in the summer, then they're slowly dropped to their lows in the winter. It's always been that way, and it's done for flood control. Candidly, it doesn't take much rain in the Smokies to affect the lakes in this area. Since more of our precipitation comes in the winter, the lakes are at their lowest. .

Douglas Lake is huge, and the lake levels fluctuate from a high of around 995 feet above sea level in August, to a low of around 950 feet in January. Prior to Helene, Douglas was around 978 feet. As of two or three days ago, Douglas surged to 999 feet above sea level.

We live 'down-stream' from Douglas on Ft. Loudon Lake (the first branch of the Tennessee River). Though we are one hour west of the devastation, I was certain the water levels on Ft. Loudon would soar, since any rains in the mountains always end up at some point in the Tennessee. We barely saw an increase. That said, the TVA dams on the Tennessee River (I think there are 8 or 9 of them before the river terminates into the Ohio), were spilling a tremendous amount of water over the past few days.

Politics aside, the building of the TVA dam system has been a huge benefit when it comes to flood control.

aggiehawg said:

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swimmerbabe11 said:

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is there any reputable calculation yet?

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None that I have seen and I have been looking several times a day for that information. So far, just radio silence on that subject.

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I'm praying that the missing are just cutoff by washed out roads. I'm not allowing myself to fathom the alternative.

This guy managed to hike into the Lake Lure/Chimney Rock area and get some video. He's got some good content showing the destruction and situation up close.



At 11:37 he spends some time talking with a lady whose riverfront home in Bat Cave was destroyed. Here is what her house looked like before, and of course you can see the after in the video.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/s49smfghms4pMdLw9

Glad to hear that area had only one casualty.

captkirk said:

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This was resolved thankfully

Thanks for expediting approval for support flights.

Just wanted to note that Sec Buttigieg is on the ball.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2024

I'm glad Elon is helping

The challenges of disaster relief operations are the level of devastation and locations are unknown until the hurricane takes its toll. Therefore, there are no precise prepackaged relief operations and entities. It takes time send in the cavalry unfortunately.

FEMA is the bill payer and has the huge pot of money to pay for disaster relief operations and most governmental and military entities need to access those funds. Budgets are driven by requirements, and knowing future disaster relief operations is impossible. Therefore, these relief entities and agencies have to coordinate with FEMA for operational funds.

Nanomachines son said:

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Same day pic.twitter.com/0kMdKNcB6G

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) October 5, 2024

You can't make this up.

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It's pathetic!