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This is my eyewitness report after delivering water, food and supplies to western NC. After setting context/location, I want to report what and who I saw, and what and who I did not. But first the BLUF - bottom lines up front.

BLUF:
1. the east Tessentee Valley was largely without power, but escaped the devastation from winds and floods. Damaged, but not devastated.
2. their were numerous individuals working with their chainsaws to clear downed trees from the gravel roads and driveways up to people’s homes. The main paved road (Tessentee rd) was cleared the day before.
3. As of Wednesday 2 Oct the utility company had not made any repairs, but the local phone company had installed a couple generators at the DSLAMs to restore phone service to the valley for folks who had intact lines.
4. My elderly friend had had his driveway (1/2 mile long) cleared of three downed trees that AM, by a local guy who was out and about looking for trees to clear - as a free service. He had no power, but his phone was working with really bad static, so as of Wednesday AM he could talk to family and friends.
5. I delivered my pickup truck load of supplies and water, and by the time I left Wednesday early evening four more local folks had come by delivering supplies and checking on folks.

NET: All the help, all of the supplies were handled by people like you and me.
6. No local law enforcement seen, but realistically, none needed.
7. No federal presence seen. Zero, even in Franklin, the county seat. Franklin had power, cel service and spotty internet. McDonalds was open ;-) Decent coffee.

Some background and details

Location: Macon County, NC- Franklin is county seat; I was in the Tessentee Valley up the Fish Hawk mountain range, which is on the lee side of the ridge from Highlands (west of Highlands,) on the ‘other’ side of the peaks. This area is in the heart of the Nantahala region, adjoining the Nantahala National Park. Nantahala is a Cherokee word meaning “land of the noon-day sun.” It’s named that because the valley walls are surprisingly steep, and the valleys narrow - the sun doesn’t reach the floor of the valley til 10 AM or later. Not surprisingly the Tessenetee river flows the length of the valley, east to west, and empties into the Little Tennessee river. Many streams come down off the mountains to feed the Tessentee river.

There are no ‘developments’ there, just individual homesteads on rugged acreage. There’s a couple places where a landowner bulldozed a road or two and sold lots, but nothing like a subdivision. Homes are spread out all over up and down the valley and mountain sides. Everyone gets their water from a well (or a stream if they have access to it) and these wells on the mountainside can be 500-1000 feet deep. Ours was 500’ deep. Absent 240V power, the well wasn’t going to produce water. In the valley floors the water table might be 30 - 50 feet. Utility power comes over the mountain, supplied by Haywood EMC. It’s all aerial and the area is heavily wooded (hardwoods - hickory, oak, sourwood mostly).

Context: three decades ago we bought property up there on the mountain where it is not only beautiful, with long views etc etc, but somewhat uniquely our property had a water fall and two year round streams. It was very remote, true four-wheel drive access only. No cell phone access, dial up internet, POTS landline phone from Frontier. We built a true log cabin up there and we had visions of retiring there.

Our nearest ‘neighbor’ was a bit to our west. You had to go downhill then take a different gravel road, then up their gravel driveway to their house. I’ll call them Jack and Jill, not their names. Jill passed 3 months ago. Jack is 93 years old and now lives alone. Getting feeble but pretty spry for a 93 year old. Over the decades we had become good friends and after selling our cabin in 2012(?) we still frequently drove up there to visit. My wife calls Jack every Saturday AM to chat and check on him. (His children live in N California and Hawaii).

Fast forward to Helene and the aftermath.

Helene blew through up there Thursday and Friday. Not a weather issue after about 2 pm Friday.

My wife tried to call several times Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday and all we got was “your call cannot be completed as dialed.” The phone lines were down, obviously. On Monday noonish his daughter called my wife to let her know that she had received a text from a friend of Jack’s who relayed that Jack had no power or water, and the roads in/out were obstructed with tree falls, but “Jack said he was OK.” FYI - in his basement he keeps and old ROTARY PHONE connected to his phone line, so even though his cordless phones had long since run out of juice, his Bell phone was working just fine.

There’s no way a 93 year old who keeps almost NO food in the house, and can’t run his well is going to be “OK.” And no power, no lights except for flashlights. You get the idea.

So Monday afternoon I hit our nearest Costco to load up. What heartened me about the Costco experience was that probably every 5th shopper was loading a cart with goods for NC victims. Individuals, spending their own money and time to help those in need.

Driving up to his place I pass through Clayton, GA and stopped at Ingle’s grocery to buy food. Ingle’s is HQ’d in Asheville and their corporate systems were down, so it was only cash sales. I had taken a proper amount of cash out of the safe prior to my road trip, so I was good to go. A nice real world reminder to keep adequate cash on hand.

After entering NC I turned right onto Tessentee Rd which almost immediately crosses the Little Tennessee River. The bridge was fine, but you could see a pretty high water line mark.

At first the area looked like nothing had occurred. But once I got about 4 miles east into the valley, the number of downed trees increased a lot. The trees that had blocked the main (only) road in had been cleared by ‘regular folks’ according to the people I spoke to at the little Methodist Church (I stopped to ask about the situation and the storm). I asked the church people about local efforts and they reported it was just folks there in the valley doing it for ‘their neighbors.’

When I reached the turnoff to proceed north on the gravel road (4 wheel drive only) up Little Fish Hawk Mtn, I hadn’t gone more than 50 feet before I saw where a big pine HAD blocked the road, but was now cut (barely) enough to get my truck through. I had packed a backpack and boots in case I needed to hike up (oof) to get to his house, but fortunately some individual(s) had cleared the three more trees up the mountain road.

When I reached the house it was a beautiful day in the mountains, about 72 degrees, light winds. Jack had the doors and windows open to let the air through. As expected, he had not bathed since Thursday and was dressed like an old man living alone. He was excited to see me and exclaimed “you’re the second person to come see me today.” The prior visitor had dropped off two 1 gallon jugs of water and some peel top cans of stew. I told Jack my Plan A was to take him home with me, but he insisted he was fine, it was like camping, and he wasn’t going to leave his house. OK ... Ever try to argue a 93 year old into leaving their house?

So I unloaded the goodies from my truck and was sitting their talking with him when another person from his church came to deliver water, food and supplies. Nice! They didn’t stay as they had more homes to check on. They were in a big ‘gator’ with stuff loaded on the rear platform.

I asked Jack what I could do for him right then, and he asked me to take him to McDonalds for a cup of coffee (hadn’t had any since Thursday AM) and to stop by his pharmacy. So we drove into Franklin and enjoyed a couple cups of senior-discount coffee, then went by his pharmacy and returned to his home.

Shortly after we got back to his house, he had another visitor - the woman who cleans his house and her husband. They brought food and water and the husband was ready with tarps and tools, etc to do home repairs, but none were needed.

So by the time I left about 5 pm, he’d had four ‘neighbors’ stop by with necessities and love. Nice, eh? When I left, he had enough food and water to last for 10-14 days easy. And plenty of stubbornness to stay put. We’ll check on him again next week though.

Noteworthy: I only saw locals doing the work, never saw any gummint anything doing anything. Americans will rise up to help their neighbors. If the gummint will stay out of the way.