Single hurricane thread

[GoCubsGo]

That's a pretty good overview, but the damage is still coming.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/reopening-40 ... p_catchall

[Vrede too]

That's a pretty good overview, but the damage is still coming.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/reopening-40 ... 25554.html

Some damage will never go away.

Less reported on:

Loved ones gone, businesses destroyed: A Tennessee town struggles to recover after Helene
As families of the dead deal with loved ones' absences, companies hope they can reopen after the hurricane's floods and officials look for ways to pay for the rebuilding.



... Lee Brown, Erwin Utilities CEO and Unicoi County economic development chairman, said unemployment rose from 4.3% in September to 5.6% in October.

In the utilities’ electric service area, which includes Erwin and part of Unicoi County, Embreeville and Bumpus Cove, officials counted 145 damaged homes: 80 of them destroyed, about 40 with major damage and 25 with minor damage.

They also estimated 31 businesses and industries were affected, with about 11 destroyed, 14 with “major, major, major damage,” according to Brown, and six with minor damage....

The farmland loss also affected farmworkers who come seasonally to the region on agricultural visas. Generally they work through November, but some returned to their countries ahead of schedule due to the losses following the hurricane, said Ana Gutiérrez, a workers rights organizer for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Soon after the flooding, families who remained were asking Gutiérrez’s group to connect them with financial assistance because bills were coming due and winter utility bills were about to go up as colder weather set in. FEMA assistance is not generally available for temporary agricultural workers and noncitizens without legal status....

Surging floodwater and panicked prayers: How a workday at a Tennessee plastics factory turned deadly
An NBC News investigation and timeline reveals how events quickly and dramatically unfolded amid a "one-in-5,000-year flood."
Oct. 18, 2024

As Hurricane Helene dumped record levels of rain on East Tennessee, the swollen Nolichucky River overtook a small plastics factory and the only road out. A panicked group of workers, who had climbed aboard a truck’s trailer in front of the plant, were swept away by the raging floodwater.

In the days after the Sept. 27 flood, the bodies of five of the Impact Plastics Inc. employees were found: Sibrina Barnett, 53; Monica Hernandez-Corona, 44; Bertha Mendoza, 56; Johnny Peterson, 55; and Lidia Verdugo Gastelum, 63. The search continues for a sixth employee, Rosa Maria Andrade Reynoso, 29. Five employees on the trailer survived.

Her body was found Oct 31.

... Conflicting narratives have emerged about what happened that day. Workers have told NBC News they were anxious about the impending hurricane-related weather when their shift began and that their worry grew as weather service alerts and notifications pinged on their phones.

“I just wish we never went to work that day,” said Impact Plastics employee Robert “Robby” Jarvis. “Because it was unnecessary. All these lives we lost because of that. It was wrong.”

By the time their workday began people knew about the unfolding devastation in WNC.

Damage caused by flooding from Hurricane Helene around Impact Plastics on Oct. 4.

... The Unicoi school district canceled school for Sept. 26 and 27, Thursday and Friday, citing weather warnings. Foam Products Corp., in the same industrial park as Impact Plastics, closed their doors Thursday and Friday as well, according to the general manager, Perry Muse. It was the first time their Erwin plant had ever closed for extreme weather.

Impact Plastics, which manufactures components for cars, helicopters, furniture and other products, decided to open that Friday; so did other nearby businesses.

WHY???

(heartbreaking timeline)

... 10:56 a.m.

Hernandez-Corona, one of the victims, responded to a message from her sisters on WhatsApp asking if she was OK and if she had gone to work that day. “Sí. We are. Flooding,” Hernandez-Corona wrote in three brief messages shared with NBC News by a family member. “My God,” one of the sisters responds.



... 12:52 p.m.

Hernandez-Corona sent another audio message to her sisters: “I’m here on a trailer but the water is about to get here. Please, God bless us. I don’t know what is going to happen. Take good care of my children.”

... Since that Friday, Sept. 27, “the most difficult thing is to have to understand that she is not there,” said her husband of 38 years, “to cross that door and to understand that she’s no longer there.”

[GoCubsGo]

I remember reading about that in October. Near Neo.

[Vrede too]

I remember reading about that in October. Near Neo.

Erwin, TN is at about the halfway point between me and neoplacebo - about 1 hour for each of us.

[GoCubsGo]

I remember reading about that in October. Near Neo.

Erwin, TN is at about the halfway point between me and neoplacebo - about 1 hour for each of us.

Isn't Neo in Johnson City? Or is it Kingsport?

Erwin is bout 90 minutes from you. Briefly dated a woman there.

[Vrede too]

Erwin, TN is at about the halfway point between me and neoplacebo - about 1 hour for each of us.

Isn't Neo in Johnson City? Or is it Kingsport?

Erwin is bout 90 minutes from you. Briefly dated a woman there.

Kingsport - My bad, 1 hour 2 minutes is the slow route, 39 minutes is fastest per Apple Maps.
1 hour 9 minutes to Erwin for me.