Helene reaches hurricane status.

Friendly reminder, put a good splash of Sta-Bil in your small engines year around. I know more people with out power right now, than with. That fancy generator was a good idea when you bought it - but it just wont run with the needle corroded to its seat. Hope everyone is good out there. 

Hmm, not good. Does the inside of the gas tank look like that too?

I got a free, tiny Craftsmen chipper/shredder when my wifes uncle died. It had sat for years under the eve of his house. The carb was trash, all froze up so I replaced it with a cheapo China one. The tank was really rusty inside. I took the tank off and put a hand full of rocks in it and filled it 1/3 full with gas and shook it hard. Poured the gas out through a filtered funnel and then poured the gas back in the tank and repeated the process...over and over and over...till the filter on the funnel stopped collecting bits of rust. It ran mostly well. A year later i repeated that process as i had another job to do and it ran much better.

Also, I've run nothing but non ethanol gas in my small engines for probably the past 12-15 years and have had good luck with them starting when needed.  

So much stuff now has plastic fuel tanks - I dont run into many issues with the tanks being gross, but I usually wash them out with fresh gas or "brake clean". I work on stuff like this all summer long, and I've never once purchased non-ethanol fuel for anything I own. A shot of 'StaBil' in my fuel cans, and I'm set. 

Wow I can't believe some of these video clips I've been seeing.....

Not sure who on this forum is being affected. But my prayers and thoughts are with you guys. 🙏

I saw on the news where Cedar Key was just obliterated with the storm surge reaching 9.3ft, highest ever recorded. I have family that live nearby in Chiefland, in Levy county. They had some damage, mostly from strong winds. Glad you came through it ok. 

Damn, sorry to hear about your sailboat. But glad you are ok. 

Cool! Glad you have figured out how to keep the fuel fresh without having to spend the 75 cents/gal premium for non ethanol. 👍

Damn, so much of the good part of NC destroyed.

Far eastern Tennessee and all of western N.Carolina is destroyed. 

This was just one section of the many roads we had to navigate to get to our cabin.

That was a father and son clearing the logs away.

Soon as he did we drove over the rocks, and moved on to the next technical section. 

A normal 3.5hr trip, took over 8 hrs.

Had a chain saw with me, and my 4x4 recovery gear to cut, then pull shit out of my way.

Others were ahead of, and behind us doing the same.

We took two of our rental properties in Gatlinburg off the books, and let the management co. know they could be used free of charge for any rescue teams to use for cleaning up, sleeping, etc...

Jenn told the manager to charge their meals to her cabins.

Going to take years for a full recovery.

We're very fortunate. 

There are many who live in that area who don't have much more than a pot to piss in, even in the best of times. 

Some places will be isolated for an incredible amount of time. 

I don't know how they'll get by.

Our cabin suffered pretty severe damage. 

Again, we're lucky.

It's our weekend place, and we have insurance. 

There's no way we can cry about it when we've seen so much human loss just getting here.

Good luck with the cleanup, hope your cabins ok.

Thank you.

We drove past places, that are no longer there.

Damage to our weekend spot pales in comparison. 

Washed away roads take forever to fix. Sometimes they are rerouted which takes years to do. Mountain roads may be permanently closed if they are washed out. 

Good on ya Joey for opening your rentals up for rescue crews. That's patriotism.

Saw some video and photos of I-40 near the hartford exit.

East bound lanes washed away right up to the concrete divider of the westbound lanes. 

That gorge is always a mess to repair.

The reroutes are a huge headache. 

This time, most of them are washed out.

Every bridge crossing the Nolichucky river are gone. 

Those routes around 19w were the 40 bypass.

The traffic through Maggie valley and over the smokies is going to be insane.

Either that, or hwy28 east to over the skyway down into tellico. 

Luckily 19e is passable for me to get back home tomorrow. 

In my 40 years, I cant remember seeing the mountains get hammered by a storm like this before - I honestly didnt think it'd be possible. Lake Lure NC was my favorite little "get away" spot, and I'm seeing pictures of the entire 'downtown' being swallowed by the Broad River. Family in Morganton/Valdeese NC got crushed hard, what wasnt flooded is covered with uprooted tree's and mudslides, people have no power or city water. I'm 100% sure there's a lot of tough MF'ers in those mountains, my heart goes out to all those affected. 

Our place is up above Morgantown. 

Table rock rd leading into the gorge.

It's a war zone everywhere you look. 

Boone NC looks bad. So sad for everyone in its path. I have 2 residential lots behind Appalachian state University and some land on the peak of Palmers peak just west of Boone in Vilas. I recently sold our 6 acres right on a huge bend on the New River just east of Boone that probably took a beating. I hope they can get get to anyone in need fast. Lots of people needing supplies, oxygen water etc. Most were not prepared because it was so unexpected to be this devastating in the mountains. Horrible situation. 

Man I hope everyone stays safe. Unreal, a trading buddy of mine for quite a few years just sent this as well.

My elderly parents came across the section of I-40 east bound that collapsed Friday morning late Thursday afternoon.  I tried to upload a pic of the washed out east bound lane but still don’t have WiFi back up and running yet.  Parents were very lucky.  I am very thankful they made it back.  They were in their motorhome.  A 40k lb bus wouldn’t have floated down down the river, it would have found the bottom quick.

Just heard a news report on the radio a few minutes ago that 600 people are missing/unaccounted for in western NC.  I’m sure the number is high in E Tn also.  Like others have said, whole towns and communities just swept away.  This is about as bad as it gets folks.  I’m about 30 miles east of Morganton at the bottom of the mountain.  There are even some bridges closed around here but none have collapsed.  The ones in danger are the older ones.  There’s a couple that I have always puckered up on but now I’ll go out of my way to avoid for sure.  I love my NC mountains but I’m old enough now that I probably won’t live long enough to see all the places I’ve rambled through during the course of my life fully recover.  Sad times.  

Stay safe out there guys and hug your loved ones.  Things like this can happen so quickly.

The few videos I watched on Youtube this morning confirm what that man says.

Roads and buildings will not even be able to be rebuilt where they once existed as the river/creek channels have changed. Such a tangled mess of trees and demolished buildings, mud, dead vehicles etc.

I heard they had 1 foot of rain. 

We had 5-6 inches of rain and high winds but our house is ok even though our house was creaking and making sounds we had never heard before. It sounded like the siding was flapping in the breeze but none were loose. Power went out and finally came back on Saturday night around 7 PM.

Yesterday We took a drive around and going East for about 15 miles and coming back took a different route and there were lots of trees down then we went into our little town York SC and there were tons of big trees down and had taken out all the power lines with snapped off poles. Since our power was back on they already had new poles and lines run. On our drive We drove past at 50-100 lineman trucks with guys out working.

We are about 7 miles from erwin , tn where the hospital with the 60 people on the roof is located.

Just absolutely unbelieveable.

We are about a mile from the first bridge across the nolichucky that went.

I drove across it 2 hours before it was washed out. The river was up, but still about 20' below the road.

We had only had about 8 inches of rain over 3 days. And the water has been that high several times in the 10 years i have heen here 

wnc had up to 30" of rain 40 miles east of erwin that all flowed into the nolichucky.

At about 8 am the sun was out and it was breezy. Somewhere in a room somewhere somebody had an "oh shit!" Moment and they ordered the hospital in erwin evacuated at 930 am. The ambulances that got there to start moving patients became disabled shortly after 10.

The hospital was underwater to the edge of the roofline by noon. Swift current and huge clumps of debris prevented boats, and wind gusts of up to 50mph, and a limited number of winch equiped helos delayed their use for several hours. They finally got everybody off a little after 7 pm.

Fortunately there are several bridges remaining on the nolichucky. One had so much water running over it they assumed it was gone. When the water receded it was still there but they had concerns about its integrity. They had to rebuild a road that had caved to get one lane open to get equipment to it. They started cleaning it off and Were letting vehicles across it one at a time until yesterday when fema showed up and took over. They are not letting people in or out anymore.

This is not just a few people that are cut off. It is several thousand people along a 25 mile state highway. A lot of businesses including several manufacturing plants. There is an elementary school, gas stations, and 4 dollar general stores. At least 2 fire stations can no longer cover their areas.

There is at least one other bridge in the 30 miles stretch between the other bridge i mentioned, but it may be comprimised, and one down near greenville tn that is just below a dam they thought was going to fail. They have now released enough water that the eminent threat is over.

We lost a good friend that was a horse trader that was trying to move his horses to safety and got caught. They found his body last night.

About 150 others are missing just in ne tn. There were several small communities that were wiped out so completely there may be some that do not even have someone to report people as missing. There are so many people that have lost everything, and did not have flood insurance because the water has not been this high in at least the 280 years this area has had white men.

I know that many parts of asheville and smaller communities in wnc like swannanoa, boone, chimney rock, and the lake lure area have been hit hard along with several other communities like elizabethton, greenville, and newport in tn.

The devestation is simply unbelieveable.

It is frustrating because you want to help, but you cant get there. The people around here are just awesome with what they managed to put together to help.

Fema has come in now and , well, it is changing.

I understand the scale they do things is different but from what i am hearing they have been downright rude to those that put together the initial response and did really amazing things without much to work with.

Might just be what they have found they have to do.

so heavy...  I've been nailed by a few hurricanes/storms, and still cleaning/fixing shit from the last one, but pales in comparison and my heart goes out to all those impacted.

One of my old riding buddies from the other side of Charlotte loaded up his UTV, Bobcat and as many gas cans as they could find  plus filled their SUV with as much water and food as they could get into it and drove up to Black Mountain yesterday. 

Stay safe friend.

Drove south, and west of there today, trying to work my way back home to Kingston. 

I'll never be able to forget the mass destruction that I've seen these past three days.

And places that just aren't there any longer.

Places that will never recover fully from this.