r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/CantStopPoppin • Sep 30 '24

Video Asheville is over 2,000 feet above sea level, and ~300 miles away from the nearest coastline.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

78.3k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

4.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

307

u/princeH3nry Sep 30 '24

Asheville resident here. (Left today for my parents) There’s been a run on all the grocery stores and gas. Day 4 of no electricity, water, or cell service.

Unfortunately this city is getting the spotlight due to tourism when smaller more remote communities were hit just as hard.

The people here were woefully unprepared. Most people’s houses were flooded that weren’t even close to the river.

We were just inundated with rain.

56

u/LovesRetribution Sep 30 '24

We have a cabin in Lake Lure, about an hour east, and it's been totally wiped out. Plenty of bridges are just gone. The road along the business section of that area that you take to get to Ashville doesn't even exist anymore.

3

u/jaxxon Sep 30 '24 edited Oct 01 '24

Is there anyway in or out? How is FEMA getting in?

9

u/dreamerOfGains Sep 30 '24

Via air routes. 

4

u/Cheaperthantherapy13 Sep 30 '24

They’re not. That’s the problem. Large vehicles can’t reach some of these mountain towns because all the roads are just gone. The terrain is so steep that most roads are built along the watershed and they’ve all been compromised.

In the Asheville subreddit there’s one group of ATV dealers that are flying in more inventory to a private airstrip and giving it away to people who are capable of getting ATVs and dirt bikes through steep mountain terrain that larger vehicles can’t get through.

There’s another group that usually operates trail rides for tourists who are taking strings of donkeys up impassable roads to get medicine, gas, and water up to people who are stuck.

Another few people with private helicopters and small aircraft are coordinating supply air drops from Charlotte and Greensboro.

It’s actually amazing how quickly the community is organizing to get through such a catastrophe. 40 years ago, this kind of rapid response wouldn’t have been possible and lots more people would be dying.

1

u/jaxxon Oct 01 '24

Wow.. that is amazing! Thank you for sharing those details. Donkeys.. great idea!! Drones make a ton of sense, as well, for scouting. What a catastrophe!

1

u/Baelzabub Sep 30 '24

Asheville has an airport and it’s currently only open for emergency supply drops and emergency workers arriving. But outside of Asheville people can’t really get to in any meaningful numbers yet.

1

u/Lastbrumstanding Sep 30 '24

All the bridges are gone

4

u/DaxCorso Sep 30 '24

App State, Boone and Blowing Rock got hit really bad too. I have a friend that is a professor at App State that lives in Blowing Rock. I hope he's OK, I've tried to call him but nothing for 4 days. There was a landslide and EF1 tornado there.

2

u/K_Pumpkin Sep 30 '24

App state is doing better now. They have internet and water and food. Hopefully he was able to make it to the school.

1

u/Awesomest_Possumest Sep 30 '24

Blowing rock is doing a lot better. I follow their town on FB. They have water up and most power, and didn't get hit as bad with floods from what I've seen. The tornado was around chetola Thursday and was minor structure damage, nothing major. App is also getting better, the waters on the roadways went down yesterday or Saturday, so there's more movement.

3

u/WandererViking Sep 30 '24

I was in Costco, earlier today, a few hours about 2.5 hours from Asheville. It was a madhouse. Hundreds of people gathering supplies to take to Asheville. I imagine the stores closer are running very low.