helene day 2

During the storm I was not anxious, but the day after reality set in. I started to feel a heavy heart as I attempted to clean-up the yard and I realized that this storm had caused major damage and that my family was fortunate compared to many people in the area. There was debris everywhere but we were starting to get word that things were much worse outside of our immediate neighborhood. We received word that Maya was safe in Charlotte and that they were in a hotel that had power, so we knew she was safe. We knew roads in and out of Boone were mostly impassable so we would need to arrange getting her back with us later.

We still didn't have power which meant our fridge was off, but luckily Jill had gotten ice the day before so we fixed up a cooler to transfer food to. The freezer was still keeping some cool in so we also transferred some food from the fridge to the freezer section. We knew we would be fine for water supply. We had stored a lot of water during the last election, and so we tapped into it, and I know had the fresh water supply from the spring that has a gravity feed to the shop. We would always be able to get fresh water from it (at this point I was glad I didn't install an electric water pump on this line).

I started ripping carpet out of our muddy basement and pulling out furniture that was ruined in the guest room. I made numerous piles of debris in the lower front yard and I started hauling the piles of stuff to my large burn pile. It was a full day of labor moving debris and eventually burning everything. We still had limited knowledge of what had happened around us, but we walked down the road with our dog and discovered that most of our neighbors were ok, but that there were many downed trees and wash outs near culverts and the various creeks.

You don't realize, until something like this event, how many creeks there are in the area and how water has to flow down extreme slopes in order to drain away. The water had to go somewhere due to gravity and it would just find a way and then cut and carve through the terrain. You begin to realize how our Earth has been sculpted by water and soil erosion over a span of time when you witness  something like this. You also realize how rushing water had the ability to carry anything away. A tiny home that was near the Watauga River was picked up and slammed into a bridge that it encountered. The impact was so strong that the roof that was above the bridge railing kept going and was protruding out into the roadway.

Later that day Jill and I got out in the truck to see if the Dollar General was open or to see if there was a gas station open, but we could only go a few miles up the highway before we got to a blocked area or major washout. A furniture store up the road had been flooded and all of their inventory was scattered across the highway. We checked on a local church at Seven Devils for a friend that Jill works with. It was completely flooded. We drove home and settled in for the night and hoped that our food would stay cold in the cooler through the night.