Pray for the panhandle, S GA

GTJackets

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
831
Location
Moncks Corner, South Carolina
My in-laws from eastern TN have been at my house in eastern SC since last Wednesday. They came to visit for some things our kids had going on around the weekend. Then they couldn't get home. House is still standing, but they still have no water. My sister-in-law, their other daughter, lives just outside Asheville. They finally got the power back on yesterday but still have no water. The national guard was called in to help with the clean-up efforts. We were on the facetime with her yesterday and you could see the divers pulling bodies out of the river behind her. It's like something out of a horror movie over there.
 

Golden Tornadoes

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
837
@Augusta_Jacket @AugustaSwarm @augustabuzz @Tommy_Taylor_1972 and all of our South Georgia brethren and others in the path of the storm, hope you are all doing okay and had minor or no damage..
Valdosta finally checking in here. I can echo @Augusta_Jacket's and @AugustaSwarm's war zone analogy. Many places were impassable for days due to downed trees and power lines everywhere. We are currently still without power at my house, just running a few items off a generator. No water due to being on a well, but thankfully no major damage to the house. Carport collapsed, but neither mine nor my wife's vehicle were underneath at the time. Predictions are floating around that we may get power back sometime this weekend, but we will see. It's going to take a long time for this area to recover from Helene.
 

stinger78

Helluva Engineer
Messages
4,951
Valdosta finally checking in here. I can echo @Augusta_Jacket's and @AugustaSwarm's war zone analogy. Many places were impassable for days due to downed trees and power lines everywhere. We are currently still without power at my house, just running a few items off a generator. No water due to being on a well, but thankfully no major damage to the house. Carport collapsed, but neither mine nor my wife's vehicle were underneath at the time. Predictions are floating around that we may get power back sometime this weekend, but we will see. It's going to take a long time for this area to recover from Helene.
My church is sending between 8-10K bottles of water this weekend to Valdosta.
 

Tommy_Taylor_1972

GT Athlete
Messages
227
Thank you for asking GT33. When I learned before midnight last Thursday that the hurricane was turning eastward and not hit Tallahassee and then the farm in south Georgia, I took off to my primary home in Augusta, which was predicted to be in the new path. The drive was not too bad going up I 75 then through Milledgeville to Augusta. I arrived around 4 am when the winds were beginning to pick up. By 6:30, there were Category 1 strength winds 85 mph in my neighborhood 4 miles NE of the August National. All heck broke loose and with 100 year old pine trees coming down all over Augusta and hitting many homes. I did not have a large tree go down on my lot and the house was not hit. Several close neighbor's homes were destroyed. We were without electricity 4 days and without cellular and internet 5 days, better off than many in the Augusta and Aiken SC area. The hurricane made a bee line from Valdosta to Augusta destroying most areas along the way. Pecan and pine trees, cotton, corn, and peanuts were mostly destroyed.

The people in the original path from landfall thorough Tallahassee through Macon and Atlanta and beyond were very fortunate that it took a turn to the right as it made landfall. Since most In Augusta were asleep and expected only rain at time of the turn, it was a complete surprise to those along the new path. It will be several more weeks before electricity is returned to many in this area and throughout the path across Georgia. Crews from Texas to New Jersey are here working on the lines. Most our local Georgia Power crews had deployed to North Florida thinking the hurricane would go through Tallahassee and north. Those guys are real heroes, wherever they wound up.

The "surprise turn" of the path caused delays in state and federal emergency response because the counties in the original path asked the governor to request federal emergency assistance. The counties in the changed path were only to be provided emergency response assistance to covering sheltering costs only. It was pretty much the same for South Carolina county coverage requests, them thinking also that the path would be further to the west. My question is why, with all our weather forecasting technologies, emergency command center operations, means of communications and alerting, etc. that the people on the changed "surprise path" were not pre-warned and then alerted to prepare for this hurricane at least a little bit. Just like the Ashville NC floods are worse that their previous worst flood 100 years ago, I counted over 100 rings in the logs of pine trees fallen in my neighborhood.
 

GT33

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,282
@Tommy_Taylor_1972 Glad you're well.

FEMA is just inept. There's a lot of money paid to these folks, but they're just government employees & there's no incentive for them to a good job.
 

GTJackets

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
831
Location
Moncks Corner, South Carolina
On a much more positive note than my previous post...

My wife and I closed on a vacation house/rental property in July up in Sevierville, TN. We spent most of our summer up there cleaning and fixing it up. It was turned over to the management company a couple of weeks before the storm. It still wasn't live yet because they had a couple small things they wanted to add (a couple more smoke detectors, a door stop, things like that). That Sunday we told them they could use it if they knew of any families displaced by the storm at no cost. Our manager reached out asking about a family and if we would be willing to waive our pet restriction and allow them to bring their two dogs for a few days. Of course we did. They became the first guests in our new house this past Thursday and checked out today.

We heard back from our management company today that "Everything went well, I did not hear much other than she was one of the people rescued from the roof of that hospital. I think she lost her home and job all in the same day. Sure she just needed to escape the devastation for a few days!"

It was a crazy exhausting season of life getting to this point. But feels so rewarding to know that it all came together in time to bless this family with a much needed getaway and distraction for a few days anyway.
 

awbuzz

Helluva Manager
Staff member
Messages
12,285
Location
Marietta, GA
On a much more positive note than my previous post...

My wife and I closed on a vacation house/rental property in July up in Sevierville, TN. We spent most of our summer up there cleaning and fixing it up. It was turned over to the management company a couple of weeks before the storm. It still wasn't live yet because they had a couple small things they wanted to add (a couple more smoke detectors, a door stop, things like that). That Sunday we told them they could use it if they knew of any families displaced by the storm at no cost. Our manager reached out asking about a family and if we would be willing to waive our pet restriction and allow them to bring their two dogs for a few days. Of course we did. They became the first guests in our new house this past Thursday and checked out today.

We heard back from our management company today that "Everything went well, I did not hear much other than she was one of the people rescued from the roof of that hospital. I think she lost her home and job all in the same day. Sure she just needed to escape the devastation for a few days!"

It was a crazy exhausting season of life getting to this point. But feels so rewarding to know that it all came together in time to bless this family with a much needed getaway and distraction for a few days anyway.
You ROCK!
 

Golden Tornadoes

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
837
Good news here is we can take hot showers at the local high school now. Power that was supposed to be back on Saturday is now estimated for next Wednesday. Once the weather gets cold next week I won't miss the power so much. Been hard sleeping when the house is hot. Work is a nice break with power internet and AC!
You got power yet @BuzzStone? This is day 12 with no power. The local EMC is saying it could be Sunday morning before we get it back.
 

BuzzStone

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,504
Location
Landrum SC
You got power yet @BuzzStone? This is day 12 with no power. The local EMC is saying it could be Sunday morning before we get it back.

They have me scheduled to get power back at 11:45 tonight. At this point now I am ok either way. Now that the weather has cooled down I can sleep some at night. The weather is great now until Saturday. I know it has been hard for my wife and kids but we are so close to people who lost everything. If I can get my power back by Friday I plan on taking a week vacation and helping out where I can in NC.
 

TooTall

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,352
Location
Vidalia
First day back in business for the family store here in Vidalia. Still several without power but there are beyond more folks helping than I could have ever thought. One thing that gets over looked is donating blood. The local EMT Captain is a good friend of mine and told me they are having multiple calls a day for chainsaw accidents and folks falling off roofs or getting struck by limps under tension. Please consider donating. Situations like this bring out the best in folks for the most part.
 

GT33

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,282
We're about to take a healty sized face shot from Milton down here today, just depends on the next several hours who's going to get it the worst. We're about 4 hrs away from the leading edge.
 

GT33

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,282
I just realized that UCF has not cancelled its Saturday football game against Cincinnati. Wonder what changed from a few years back when UCF was a major staging base for the National Guard and UCF had no where to practice & all their players had to flee the state?
 
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