WWTBAM Bored

I am praying for the people who were affected by Helene, especially those in North Carolina. These people, especially those in the small mountain towns, are without power and water and many other things, and may well be for some time, as the roads are in some places, just gone.

Last Thursday, we in the Atlanta area were bombarded with cell phone alerts all day, warning of all the things we could expect. Waking up in Atlanta, we saw very little of it. Another false alarm, we thought? But, my God! If it did not take an unexpected turn to the east, Atlanta would have been devastated. Stories are just now coming out from friends of mine who have friends and relatives in the stricken areas. Please do what you can to help those in North and South Carolina and South Georgia. There is real devastation there.

We live in the Eastern part of NC and were largely unaffected. My wife is a former EMT and is friends with many rescue workers who have gone west to help. They are reporting many bodies left where they fell because there are still so many people who are still alive and need to be helped. The people of the western part of the state, which is incredibly mountainous and rugged, never imagined they could be affected by a hurricane, especially to this extent. The city of Asheville is saying it will take years to fully recover.

My school is collecting non perishables to send out and I think just about every school, church, and many businesses are doing the same. Truly a disaster.

My business unit within our larger company (we are a non-union power business unit that does transmission, substation, and distribution construction) have 1,500 folks on the ground in FL, GA, NC, SC, and VA working the storm damage. I don't know the total number of resources from other companies (or our union side), but this is one of the largest storm recovery efforts in a long long while, maybe since Andrew.

Everyone here probably does not like Jeff Jackson (a Congressman from NC), but I find his video reports very helpful and encouraging. He's been doing them for a few years -- they're not new -- but his past two have been on the storm's aftermath.

Here's the most recent (the URL says it's a TikTok video but I am able to see it without that app or a login, don't have time to look for a YT/other version).

Lots of facts in here (including that 90% of people now have power, again, he is only reporting on NC, so TN, SC, etc. may not be those same numbers).

This video does include a criticism of one unnamed Congressperson, so if you want zero politics, this may not be what you want. But we are in the Political Lounge, so it seems OK.

And on a shallow note, Jeff Jackson I think always records his videos right after arms and shoulders day.

https://www.tiktok.com/@jeffjacksonnc/v ... 2497262894

My nephew just got power back on in Columbia, SC. Also got a generator.