{"id":597,"date":"2024-09-28T11:47:41","date_gmt":"2024-09-28T15:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/?p=597"},"modified":"2024-09-28T11:47:41","modified_gmt":"2024-09-28T15:47:41","slug":"after-the-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/2024\/09\/28\/after-the-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"After the storm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"347\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/nolichucky-800x347.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/nolichucky-800x347.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/nolichucky-300x130.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/nolichucky-150x65.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/nolichucky-768x333.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/nolichucky-1536x666.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/nolichucky-2048x888.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/nolichucky-1280x555.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Nolichucky River, where a bridge used to be. I think the red-roofed buildings are part of Uncle Johnny&#8217;s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a gorgeous morning in my Charlotte neighborhood. The sun is shining, wind is still. Hard to believe we got hit by Helene yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not everyone got through unscathed. Just 2 1\/2 miles northwest, residents were evacuated as the Catawba River swelled past its banks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Three miles west of my house, the road into Mount Holly (over that same Catawba River) is flooded out. Most of the residents there still don&#8217;t have power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">In the mountains<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s far worse for the areas Helene visited after here. That includes so many places in the mountains I&#8217;ve grown to love so much:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The NC Dept. of Transportation says, simply, &#8220;All roads in Western NC should be considered closed.&#8221; That includes big chunks of Interstates 40 and 26, major routes to and from the area.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The 252 miles of the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway were closed in advance of the storm. No news yet on when it might reopen.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>All the rain that&#8217;s fallen &#8211; not just from Helene; there were big storms in the days leading to its arrival &#8211; has converted many roads to waterways and properties to ponds.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mudslides and fallen trees have added to the damage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>There are iconic places that are no longer there, replaced by rocks, mud, the remains of buildings and homes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The touristy town of Chimney Rock has washed away.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A hospital in Erwin, TN was surrounded by water. Dozens of staff and patients had to be rescued from the roof by helicopter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>That same water, roaring down the Nolichucky River, took out a bridge where the Appalachian Trail crossed. The bridge led to funky hostel Uncle Johnny&#8217;s, now seriously damaged.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Floods also did damage to popular &#8220;trail towns&#8221; Hot Springs, NC, Roan Mountain, TN (a frequent haunt of mine) and Damascus, Virginia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had hoped to get up to Tennessee (Roan Mountain!) before it got too cold to make one last check of &#8220;my&#8221; segment of the AT. Now, I won&#8217;t be getting there till April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, things like heading to the mountains for freshly picked apples, or to watch the leaves changing for fall, will be out of reach for most of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s going to take a long time to sort all this out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a gorgeous morning in my Charlotte neighborhood. The sun is shining, wind is still. Hard to believe we got hit by Helene yesterday. Not everyone got through unscathed. Just 2 1\/2 miles northwest, residents were evacuated as the Catawba River swelled past its banks. Three miles west of my house, the road into Mount&hellip;<\/p>\n <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/2024\/09\/28\/after-the-storm\/\" title=\"After the storm\" class=\"entry-more-link\"><span>Read More<\/span> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">After the storm<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21],"tags":[24,22],"class_list":["entry","author-admin","post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-appalachian-trail","category-hiking","tag-appalachian-trail","tag-hiking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":601,"href":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mirrer.com\/MirrerView\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}