Hurricane Helene As it Happened - We're Fine. Others are Not.

we just got hit with a 1 in 1,000-year Rain event somewh comparing it to the 1916 flood but really we splitting hairs we got an unprecedented amount of rain and Asheville is completely in shambles it was the remnants of hurricane Helen which hit the West Coast of Florida we're getting pictures and video from family that are just heartbreaking and this was all made worse because before Helen came before we got that 15 in of rain there was already flooding going on from a previous rainstorm that was completely unrelated and I can't believe what we're seeing

out here and although we have no electricity or cell phone reception or gasoline or groceries or medical care we're okay right now if you go out to town entire parking lots are full of people just trying to get out text messages and make phone calls because all the cell phone towers are out and when you can get a bar the data connection is severed and so you can't send or receive anything if you live in South Carolina Tennessee Georgia Florida especially I just hope you're okay and that you're staying safe because here there are entire

roads missing so I'm going to show you some footage from the past 2 days show you how we've been getting along here on Burn Peak and then we're going to see if the roads are passable through Bard North Carolina so I can check on the burn Peak ranger station we had to refund guests I hope a tree didn't go through my roof and most of all I hope my neighbors there are okay I haven't heard from any of them because they don't have cell phone reception I'm doing some final preparations it's been raining since last

night about 4 in everything soggy and we're expecting up to 15 in here on Burn Peak got this extension cord already with the E Truck in there and this drain over here somebody got a little bit overzealous with a string trimmer I ran it over here to try and spread it out not ideal but better than just dumping down next to the foundation like it was we're here in the Attic these are the skylights over here shattered the outer pane filling with water so what do we do well had I known earlier we could have

tarped it but my flight got in last night and uh roof is at a 45 pitch soaking wet I am not going up there so we're going to Raw Dog it and hope for the best when you have no cell phone reception and you have no power you end up sleeping really good cuz nobody can get in touch with you but now we got to get things running time to start the generator now we only run the generator for an hour a day but this goes 24/7 since 8:00 a.m. yesterday my truck has been running

the refrigerators let's see how much is left 96% battery so since yesterday 96% battery 4% per day that gives us a pretty good amount now because there's nowhere to get gasoline we just run the generator for an hour in the morning and an hour at night to give us a little bit of normality and also to add pressure to the water tank so that we can fill up water bottles and wash dishes and things like that if you have City water then your water just works all the time and if it stops working you're in

big trouble here we have a well and so they actually drill a well and they drop a submersible pump down to the bottom and it doesn't just turn on when you need water it actually fills this tank over here it's 50 gallons doesn't quite provide 50 gallons now when the pressure gets really low then I need to turn on the generator it runs a pump there's a well pump controller and then we can see the pressure go up and then it stops at about 65 and then we have water for a good amount of the

day now if we have to take a shower or something like that that's not quite enough then we probably have to run the generator to provide continuous pressure but if we just run the generator for a minute it will fill that pressure tank it we'll have water all day for washing dishes filling bottles whatever all right my neighbor says he's going to venture out to try and find some gas from everybody I hear that's not going to be a thing which one are you going to Marathon in in in Mills River Marathon and Mills River

I'm going to try edwa I'm just going to grab the chainsaw and see if I can do it it looks like uh road crews have been out here because I'm able to get through here at least there just landslides everywhere there is no way we're getting through here oh yeah there is one road that goes way up and it might go over this and I might be able to get into town that way I'm just seeing Tree Tops like the tops of trees poking out here this is devastating that fire hydrant over there is not

even surver going to check this out and see how we do okay it still hasn't reached the inside of the Gator we got to keep it going we're going to make it we're going to make it but the motor is up a little bit higher and I know the intake is up a little higher so we're good no traffic lights are working I mean just nothing everything's a four-way stop [Music] I suspect this wire isn't alive but oh that's not good that's not the longest gas station line I've ever seen I guess cuz it's so

hard to get here so $25 limit per person that's probably a good thing so everybody can get a little and somebody with a big bunch of cans like me can't just take it all I should have remembered from Florida when they're hurricanes that's what they do but man been trying to send a text message back home and nothing is getting through I have two bars but I mean that just means the cell phone tower is powered up but there's no internet to it getting closer thank you sir have a good one you too that's it

that's all we can get look at this as you can see by the trees this is not where water normally is sometimes it overflows but this is insane and what's really sad is this is like food supply those look like pepper a lot of people are doing the same things they're trying to get in touch with loved ones that they have not been able to contact because there's no cell phone reception and they're just trying to get to them to see if they're okay that's the story is I keep hearing from people kind of waiting

in line and I'm just so thankful I have starlink and I can communicate with everybody nobody's wondering whether we're [Music] okay okay [Music] so up here it's pretty aggressively graded so there are landslides but these are really small landslides there're not houses above them or beneath them but you can see when you just make the grave too Steep and it's not vegetated enough enough water that's it I'm out early to go in check on my house in Isa Forest it's under a whole bunch of trees and I haven't heard from any of my neighbors there

I suspect they can't get cell phone reception or anything I hope they're okay all right I'm getting closer to my house in Pisa forest and I am hoping I can even pass this road it looks like a lake out there there was water over there but over here it looks dry I think we can get through please please please this neighborhood is so wooded it looks like the roof is definitely covered in some debris I mean that's not even a lot of debris from here that looks okay my deck over here is covered in debris

but that was a close one smells pretty good in here if slightly humid all right about what you would expect I think we freaking dodged a bullet here that is an extraordinary relief I don't even deserve this all right now to check on some of the neighbors these are really good people like they call me anytime there's a problem they don't mind that there's an Airbnb here like they're super super cool and so I want to just check to make sure they're okay so I did check on one of my neighbors last night an older

woman who lives alone at the bottom of the hill her generator was just running full blast I said are you conserving Fuel and she said I don't know how to turn the generator off I'm going to go and check on her today and see how she's doing and see whether she was able to get in touch with the gas company I'm just going to go home and lay low and conserve fuel for at least 2 or 3 days otherwise you drive around and you burn half a gallon of gas trying to find Fuel and we

have some fuel and so we can just make it last rather than doing this foolish searching this was really our worst fear we actually need something in Asheville my daughter got surgery not too long ago and one of her incisions is inflamed and so they called us in antibiotics there are no pharmacies so we have to go to Mission Hospital which has been hit really really hard and that's all the information I have I have to find the hospital pharmacy they called us in an antibiotic so my father-in-law and I are driving out there and

we have to use gasoline if everything goes right you just hunker down in your house for a few days right but if not then you got to make stuff work it looks like gas stations are starting to open up this one I mean just diesel just diesel so some of those cars are in for route Awakening they got lights over here I guess because it's the airport they were able to get power going over here for the past 3 days Route 26 has been closed end we don't know how passable it is it could be

that some exits you can get off of and some exits you can't the information varies so we don't know if this is going to get us to Mission hospital and all gas is precious no this is our exit and it's closed that's cuz of that water my B to look at it oh man oh it's totally flooded continue oh my I hope nobody's in this campers it's like the entire River Arts District is gone it's just crazy let's go in here and then we're going to get to the main entrance and then I know where

the pharmacy is man hey I just need to go to the pharmacy thank you appreciate you they won't give me the prescription they won't give me the prescription because it was called in electronically and they can't get them all and so I need to deliver a script to them or admit my daughter to the hospital so I need to stop shooting this and deal with this shout out to doctors and nurses when your difficult job gets even more difficult our doctor friend said that people are coming here with buckets of Creek Water to flush toilets

because they can't flush them I think my daughter's going to be all right we have ointment and we have doctor friends and by tomorrow we'll have everything worked out but I wish we had known that we need to walk in with a prescription I mean the doctor called it in and presumably the doctor thought we were able to go in there and get it but they were just turning away anybody who had their prescriptions called in electronically we thought we could at least go to the grocery store for some dog food but there's just people

scalping stuff like $6 Waters out front and to be fair better than no water the power the power just turned back on what am I doing the power just turned back on so we got power we all slept well with no humidity in the house I took a hot shower but honestly for the last few days I've been living in relative luxury I've been able to use my electric toothbrush right there are other people celebrating much smaller wins like okay we have a place to stay now or we finally got food so this platform right

now is for helping the people and then once the people are helped we're going to help the trails and although I don't know what that restoration effort is going to look like I'm going to make sure that we're part of it this has been devastating for the entire Southeast because a weather event like this just doesn't happen here not in a 100 years not in a thousand years and nobody was expecting it and so I hope you're all staying safe if you or loved ones have been affected by the storm I wish you the very

best and I hope you get the help you need we should somewhat be getting back to business as usual here but thanks for riding with me today and I'll see you next time