My experience with Helene

[RJB]

I wrote a long post, but it disappeared because my Internet isn't working well so I will make a bunch of little posts.

But my biggest take away from living through a shtf situation is that: Although you provide your family with hot coffee with half and half, food, generators and most of the modern conveniences when the power, water, cellular/internet and everything else is out and a lot of people are without food and water, your wife will still complain. Lol

In fairness we were cut off from our 20 and 22 year old daughters who live 20 miles away. The bridge to their neighborhood was wiped out. We had to backpack supplies into their area. It's been an interesting week. I'll give a day by day account. In the next posts

 

[acptulsa]

... your wife will still complain.

The universal constant.

 

[RJB]

On Thursday night our power and everything went out. My town wasn't hit as hard as some places just a few miles away were, but for the next few days we were completely cut off. Trees and downed power lines blocked the roads. My neighbors and I attacked the trees with chainsaws.

We had zero communication. The local radio station just played reruns. Even the hourly news report played the same report until Saturday. Seriously, you want to throw the radio against the wall when it's Saturday afternoon and the news at the top of the hour tells you that a "hurricane is moving up through Georgia and will settle over the Tennessee Valley Thursday night and into Friday."

Occasionally my wife and I would receive a stray text from friends or family from the day before and only one out of a hundred that we sent were actually delivered.

We would receive occasional news alerts on our phones (like the amber alerts) that told us all the interstates to and from our area we closed, washed away or covered in a landslide.

That was some of the conspiracy theories we tossed around with neighbors was about the lack of all communication.

I live in a deep cove in the mountains and I went up a hill when the weather calmed and climbed a tree to deploy my antenna for my short wave radio, but all I got were preachers- the weird ones who blame all the world's problems on Constantine. There were a lot of foreign channels. However, I can read Spanish and French, but can't understand it when spoken.

When you are cut off from the world, it is awesome to have good neighbors. On the flip side you definitely don't want crappy ones.

 

[Working Poor]

Fortunately I have a solar generator so I was ale to keep my fridge on and I have a good variety of solar lights. The power and internet was off for 6 days. I had to go to walmart parking lot to call my son on my cell phone which never works at my home. I live on a creek and it rose up pretty high my house sits near the top of a hill I could see the water but it remained over 100 yards away from my home. About 20 huge trees fell we could hear them falling but none hit the house. I am hoping to maybe get some of them milled to use for projects around my house.

I am grateful that all we had was some inconvenience.

 

[RJB]

Fortunately I have a solar generator so I was ale to keep my fridge on and I have a good variety of solar lights. The power and internet was off for 6 days. I had to go to walmart parking lot to call my son on my cell phone which never works at my home. I live on a creek and it rose up pretty high my house sits near the top of a hill I could see the water but it remained over 100 yards away from my home. About 20 huge trees fell we could hear them falling but none hit the house. I am hoping to maybe get some of them milled to use for projects around my house.

I am grateful that all we had was some inconvenience.

Yeah that's the important thing. Everyone in my family is safe with minimal property damage. My wife and I will be out of work for a week or two as bills pile up. I don't care what people say here, I applying for that $750, lol.

I did get to test my solar generators. Despite the partly to mostly cloudy days, they kept my fridge and other things running as well as my neighbors. We drank water from the creek through our gravity filters. I saw it as a drill for something a lot more serious.

But there are people I know in this area who lost almost everything. I don't know if some towns around here will recover even in the next decade. To get to my daughter's, I drove past a neighborhood that literally isn't there anymore.

 

[Working Poor]

Yeah that's the important thing. Everyone in my family is safe with minimal property damage. My wife and I will be out of work for a week or two as bills pile up. I don't care what people say here, I applying for that $750, lol.

I did get to test my solar generators. Despite the partly to mostly cloudy days, they kept my fridge and other things running as well as my neighbors. We drank water from the creek through our gravity filters. I saw it as a drill for something a lot more serious.

But there are people I know in this area who lost almost everything. I don't know if some towns around here will recover even in the next decade. To get to my daughter's, I drove past a neighborhood that literally isn't there anymore.

Many people in my area lost everything too the area is so heavily wooded and so many huge trees fell several people died because of the trees falling. I heard emergency vehicles all day and night for 4 days. Many helicopters and small planes were flying over us on the way to the mountains. I live about 70 miles from the most hard hit area of NC. I let my neighbors come charge their oxygen tanks and let them keep one my solar changers.

 

[RJB]

Many people in my area lost everything too the area is so heavily wooded and so many huge trees fell several people died because of the trees falling. I heard emergency vehicles all day and night for 4 days. Many helicopters and small planes were flying over us on the way to the mountains. I live about 70 miles from the most hard hit area of NC. I let my neighbors come charge their oxygen tanks and let them keep one my solar changers.

Oh man. Sorry. I don't know anyone personally who has died, but I haven't heard from everyone yet. Again my condolences. Like I said, when we were first cut off, I didn't realize how bad it actually was until Saturday. Although I drove through a heavily hit area (Swananoa) to help a few friends, I still don't feel like I have a full grasp of it.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Thanks for the info [MENTION=962]RJB[/MENTION]

Were you able to meet up with [MENTION=10850]phill4paul[/MENTION] /

 

[dannno]

But my biggest take away from living through a shtf situation is that: Although you provide your family with hot coffee with half and half, food, generators and most of the modern conveniences when the power, water, cellular/internet and everything else is out and a lot of people are without food and water, your wife will still complain. Lol

https://x.com/pearlythingz/status/1842718538307395615

 

[RJB]

Thanks for the info [MENTION=962]RJB[/MENTION]

Were you able to meet up with [MENTION=10850]phill4paul[/MENTION] /

We had a good talk on the phone. And then texted today. He was going about 80 miles East from me and wasn't quite sure where he would end up. He is a very good man.

 

[Anti Federalist]

We had a good talk on the phone. And then texted today. He was going about 80 miles East from me and wasn't quite sure where he would end up. He is a very good man.

Gotcha.

Yes, I agree.

 

[acptulsa]

Yeah that's the important thing. Everyone in my family is safe with minimal property damage. My wife and I will be out of work for a week or two as bills pile up. I don't care what people say here, I applying for that $750, lol.

Don't see why not. Like seniors and Medicare, they charge us so much in taxes we can't afford to also buy something that works right.

But be advised...

 

[Anti Federalist]

The universal constant.

It gets worse as you get older.

The bitching focuses on you, until you become, what once was her whole world, the man who lit up her life, and gave her butterflies in her stomach, a senile stupid old fool who has single handedly fucked up every single thing in the world.

 

[RJB]

I drove 20 miles north and back on the interstate. About 1 in five vehicles were pick ups loaded with supplies. A lot of them were from out of state. I saw no vehicles with government plates or government vehicles loaded with goods. Phil is one of our angels.

 

[acptulsa]

I drove 20 miles north and back on the interstate. About 1 in five vehicles were pick ups loaded with supplies. A lot of them were from out of state. I saw no vehicles with government plates or government vehicles loaded with goods. Phil is one of our angels.

All action, no bullshit. He's the man.

Glad you and WP are hanging in there.

 

[RJB]

A military helicopter regularly drops off supplies at a nearby church. My kids like watching it. However, all the roads are open to get to to that church. It's a total waste of fuel and obviously there for show. There are many towns and neighborhoods still cut off where that chopper would actually be of value.

Another thing is that the army has the technology to erect a bridge to cross a wide river to destroy a town with heavy armored vehicles in a matter of hours, but they won't use that technology to bridge a creek to feed stranded people.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

A military helicopter regularly drops off supplies at a nearby church. My kids like watching it. However, all the roads are open to get to to that church. It's a total waste of fuel and obviously there for show. There are many towns and neighborhoods still cut off where that chopper would actually be of value.

Another thing is that the army has the technology to erect a bridge to cross a wide river to destroy a town with heavy armored vehicles in a matter of hours, but they won't use that technology to bridge a creek to feed stranded people.

Just thinking about the logistics of landing a helicopter, I'd imagine that in a mountainous, forested area, good landing spots might be hard to find.

 

[Working Poor]

Oh man. Sorry. I don't know anyone personally who has died, but I haven't heard from everyone yet. Again my condolences. Like I said, when we were first cut off, I didn't realize how bad it actually was until Saturday. Although I drove through a heavily hit area (Swananoa) to help a few friends, I still don't feel like I have a full grasp of it.

I don't know anyone personally who died either. I have just heard about them. There is still some mess around here. I know it is much worse in the mountains and in other areas.

I have been taking care of a very sick friend for the past few years. They died on me just a week before the storm. We have had a long friendship and had many partnerships in different projects over the years.. Their passing has really affected me. I also lost my oldest brother not long ago. Many of my friends and family have passed in the past several years. I am stilt standing though quickly becoming one of the oldest members of my family and friend groups. It is shocking how many of my younger friends and family have passed.

I think the great culling has been going on for a few years now.