Well, the irony of this post considering the end of my last one… “ We can never be certain what the future holds, but I CAN be absolutely certain of one truth… the end result is always worked out for our good. We are to smile at the future, looking forward to what it will bring through anything and everything that comes knowing that it will be GOOD.” Who could have known that a few days after writing this our family would live through one of the worst, if not thee worst, natural disasters in US history?? Talk about not knowing what the future holds. Talk about having your plans derailed. Just when I thought we had settled into a new plan for the fall our entire world becomes some kind of crazy apocalyptic nightmare.
Understand, a hurricane in the mountains is not something we generally worry about. We’ve had plenty and it usually brings its share of obnoxious rain, usually on a weekend, canceling soccer games and other fun fall plans. Maybe the electricity will flicker. There were some predictions about “historic” rainfall amounts and a few rumors that it was “going to be bad”. I’ve heard about the flooding of ‘77 and it sounded pretty significant but, not near any large rivers, we especially were not concerned.
Rain and gusts set in over a period off and on starting Wednesday. It was a lot of rain. They canceled school Thursday. Then Friday. Our little creek tripled in size but it still didn’t even overflow the culvert and flood our road, which I’ve heard has happened but never seen myself. The electricity went out Wednesday night, then back on, back out Thursday at one point, came back on that night before bed… nothing out of the ordinary. When it went out again Friday morning we despaired of the showers we didn’t take the night before then it suddenly popped on again around 9am. We took it a little more seriously this time and scrambled to get in a quick shower for the greasiest of the family and fix breakfast before it was too late. Sure enough, Hannah stepped out of the shower just as the power went out. At this point we had all been living in ignorant bliss of what was transpiring all around our little hilltop. We’re 3400 feet up. There was wind and rain and our creek was high, power lines were down somewhere but we played games and cooked food and stayed dry. The worst we saw were a few trees in un-alarming places.
That morning the fire department drove down our private road. No sirens. And went up to one neighbor before driving away. Tim, being the concerned neighbor that he is, watched the interaction with the binoculars. What was happening? No sirens so is there really an emergency? We were dying of curiosity. At this point the internet and cell service were down so we couldn't send a text… thankfully the neighbor made the rounds to alert everyone else - prepare to be without power for potentially 5 days. Now we were getting worried. 5 days was unbelievable. 5 days was more than we’d been without during the worst snow storm. What HAD been happening out there? No internet and no cell meant no news.
Taking it all even more seriously we dug out the generator, now wishing we had filled up all of our gas cans. We filled up more buckets with water from the spring overflow (we were SOO grateful for that overflow - never out of water up here!). We buckled down and washed the dishes we had piled up, waiting for the electricity to come on so we could run the dishwasher. That wasn't happening anytime soon. We talked about how much longer it takes to do things without electricity. All day just to cook over a propane coil outside, boil water for dishes, collect clean water to rinse them… again I was grateful for the many times we had lived without running water and electricity. It’s work but it’s very doable work when you have a system down :).
Saturday morning the rain had finally stopped and so we decided to check on the neighbors. We had started running our generator on our fridge and freezers to keep our food from spoiling. Wanted to make sure everyone had what they needed. I thought it was just going to be Tim and I, but everyone was so stir crazy at this point that all 9 of us traipsed out to the neighbors on foot - wanting to spare the gas in case we needed to siphon it out for the generator. 5 days was no joke. Most of us ended up congregating and we all had various small needs, swapping gas cans and generators and ice. It was there we began to hear just how bad it really was out there from our neighbor whose husband worked for the power company. The flooding was bad, really bad. Asheville was in trouble. Lines were down everywhere. I40 to Charlotte was washed out. The bridge to Erwin, TN was gone so the highway was shut down. Our routes out of the area were slowly shutting down… We decided we all needed a boost so planned a bonfire for our house that night at 5:30 - sharing food before it spoiled :).
Then we decided to risk the gas and trek out to some other nearby friends. Again we all decided to go - going anywhere was better than sitting one more minute in a dark house (it’s crazy how much you use lights even during the day! Especially when there is a gloom that won’t lift for days on end). Going under I26 traffic was backed up for miles as police rerouted everyone off the interstate. That was a bit alarming… but again, touching base with people lifted our spirits. We invited them to the bonfire that night too. My sweet friends at the top of the next hill over were a hilarious mess. “We’ve been playing Naked and Afraid over here without the naked” she joked. In fact, they had been cooking over a fire outside since day one. Completely unprepared, no propane, no gas, no generator, no food… but while we were there a neighbor brought by a generator to plug in their freezer to save the rest of the deer meat they had been eating for three solid meals a day. I made them promise to come eat something else at our place that night. And we swapped a few kids around to give siblings a much needed break from each other.
We made a few more rounds to a few more neighbors, leaving notes under doors if they weren’t home. “Bonfire! 5:30, bring food :)”. We headed home to get some food going - we kept it simple with a big salad of veggies I didn’t want to spoil and some sausages thawing out in our freezer. While we plugged away, people began to drop by. It was nice to know they had the same idea we did - checking in and making sure we were ok and had everything. Some of our best friends came by from over 30 minutes out in Green Mountain. They brought the most startling news we had heard so far. The town was gone. Taken by the river. Their house was safe but they had watched their 5 foot wide creek grow into a football field. The pictures he shared were unbelievable. It was becoming more apparent that this storm had really blasted some places, but with no cell or internet we still had no real news. We tried to talk he and his boys into staying for some food but they were anxious to get home, they had come to check on us and get some water from the overflow.
I didn’t really expect everyone to show up but everyone sure did! I think we were all hungry for contact with people. A few faces that we hadn’t been sharing the same square footage with in the dark for several days. Neighbors and friends, we sat around the fire until it started to drizzle. Our tiny house barely holds us but we crammed about 30 people inside and laughed and talked in the dark with a lantern and a few flashlights, hardly able too see each others' faces. The kids ran in a pack from one room to the next with cinnamon rolls in their grubby hands that my girls had baked in the fire in the Dutch oven before the rain kicked us inside. A little burnt around the edges and maybe too gooey in the middle. They were delicious and no one had quite enough.
Just as everyone was beginning to head out the door, the lights came on!! We screamed, a few teen girls cried, and we all were ready for a shower as people climbed into their cars and hoped their house also had power. However, 15 minutes later it was off again to screams of Nooooo! A tortuous tease... The remaining few stumbled out the door, all of us a little disappointed to have it so close. But a few hours later it came on again and we all scrambled to take short showers and laundry on the short cycle before it dared to go off again. I was up late scrubbing bathrooms and washing floors. It was easier to do it with electricity and running water! I wasn't about to expect it to stay on this time.
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