Hurricane Helene and The High Country

 

 

View in browser Greetings, everyone— It's been a long time since I popped into your mail boxes, I hope you're all doing well. I just haven't had anything really newsworthy to share—until now. I have tried to write about what I'm seeing and hearing and feeling about the devastation we're living in The Western North Carolina High Country caused by Hurricane Helene. Who would have ever, in their most vivid imaginations, believed there could be such wreckage caused by a hurricane here in the mountains 300 miles from the coast? That's one of those situations a fiction writer would step away from as being too far fetched to be believable. I have been finding it impossible to wrestle my feelings and words together to make sense to write about it. Until... Seeing and hearing crazy wild misinformation and blatant lies that can so easily be proven to be blatant lies was apparently the kick I needed. First—Regardless of what you may have heard or read, FEMA IS here and actively serving people. Red Cross is on site. The National Guard is here. A FEMA representative pulled into our driveway two days ago to ask if we were going to need help. They were ready to help do an assessment right then. Governor Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency on THURSDAY 9/26. If you want the truth of things, please do not limit your news sources—DO your research. Truth matters. If you're still reading, here's our story about what started as a "normal" week which started out nicely enough. We drove to Asheville to meet up with dear friends from Georgia and a visit to the Chihuly Exhibit at The Biltmore. The four of us spent a couple nights in Downtown Asheville, had a nice dinner at Rendevous one night and pizza at Barley's (no relation) the second night. And a couple of deeeelicious Espresso Martinis at our hotel bar. The hurricane news was beginning to get dire, the rain in Asheviile getting heavier and we knew it was time to head back home—us home to Boone; Vickie and Brent home to the North Georgia Mountains. We left about 8 a.m. on Thursday and it was a long, stressful drive home taking us about an hour longer than usual, but everyone made it safely. Helene hit us during the night. We lost power around 5 am Fri. Morning, back on at 7 a.m. Sunday morning. No cell service. No internet until Sunday night. As it turns out, we were luckier than we knew. We tried to take a drive into town Friday but only got to the bottom of our road which was a mess. Meat Camp Creek has washed away a lot of the road on both sides. Because things at our house were not terribly bad we were shocked. Horrified to see what had happened during the 48 hours we were in the dark. As it stands right now, many roads are closed and will be for days and days to come due to landslides, flooding, many totally washed out. Still a lot of high water. Still tons of trees and power poles and power lines down. Still many with no power, food/water/basic supplies, or cell phone service. Many homes washed away. Some, sadly, washed away with residents in them. There are search and rescue missions continuing. A feat not easily accomplished in this large, widely spread mountain community with hills and hollars and country roads. We are grateful to be among the extremely lucky. We are in the minority in this area at this time. Our hearts are broken. And feeling helpless. And, honestly - a little survivor's guilt happening as well. Hard to be too upset over the very tiny small things like no power or internet when so many have lost so much. "Home" had always been of huge importance to me. It's more than just a word.. Its my nest I am constantly feathering. Filled with memories of a lifetime. And these two ❤ This quote resonates loudly right now: Balakrishnan Rajagopal wrote, “home is so much more than a structure: It is a repository of past experience and future dreams, of memories of births, deaths, marriages and intimate moments with our loved ones, amid neighbors and a familiar landscape. The idea of home brings comfort and gives meaning to our lives. Its destruction is the denial of a person’s dignity and humanity.” My home community will never be the same. That said, please try your best to put an end to the misinformation. It's helping no one. My friend and neighbor, Jill Smith, posted the following at Facebook, which I am sharing with her permission: "This disaster is traumatic and horrible. It continues to be and will be for a long time. It is sickening to me to see all of the misinformation being spread on social media. None of that helps people. If you are sharing something, please make sure it is real and correct. Look it up, research what you are saying from more than one source. Instead of being judgmental in posts affecting this event, have compassion for the people that are helping and for the people who are suffering. Our emergency services have gone above and beyond the call of duty. Our citizens have gone above and beyond with their dedication, hard emotional work and compassion. Trying to divide people with hate is not helping. We are all traumatized here. It just doesn’t help to look on here and see people who don’t even live here saying horrible criticizing things. Things that are not true and things that are just there to create anger. Emotions are already high here. People here are doing the best we can. We need help not hate." We need help, not hate. Please hold the victims of Helene in your hearts. So much has been lost by so many. Too many have lost everything. Literally. Everything. But with the help, strength, prayers, and love of friends, family, and neighbors, those whose lives have been impacted and so sadly altered can begin the small steps of moving forward with their lives. Sending good thoughts to you all. Take care, xxoo Kaye Meanderings & Muses Kaye Wilkinson Barley P.O. Box 1274, Boone NC 28607 United States You received this email because you signed up on my website or have given me permission. Unsubscribe

From me

 I owe so many of you a response for your notes of concern.

I appreciate every one, and I love each of you for reaching out.

But, right now, the best I can do is say thank you and i love you.

My feelings, as many of you know, seem to sit right there on my sleeve for everyone to see.

I keep trying to write about all of this, there is so much I want to say, want to share, but I just can't.  

Maybe later.

So tired of the hate

Most of us are so tired.

Tired of the hate.

Tired of the sheer stupidity of what's being said.

Most of us want our normal drama-free lives back.

Below is a list of some of the things he has said which have helped him promote his campaign of hate.

VOTE

To End His Hate

Cartoon by Kate Curtis

 The Bulwark is one of my top "Go To" columns.

This is their latest.

If you don't want to read the entire column, here's an important takeaway of some of the ridiculous things you should know - 

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• Trump was the de facto leader of the Obama birther movement, even casually suggesting that the director of the Hawaii Department of Health, who died in a plane crash, was murdered as part of a coverup.

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• He openly mused that former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers wrote Obama’s memoir and that Obama never actually went to Columbia University.

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• He floated the idea that Ted Cruz’s father had ties to Lee Harvey Oswald.

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•  He raised doubts about Vince Foster’s suicide.

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• He wondered aloud if Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was suffocated to death.

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• He pushed the story that Muslims in New Jersey were cheering after 9/11.

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• He raised the idea that Marco Rubio was ineligible to be president because his parents weren’t yet U.S. citizens at the time of his birth. He did the same about Ted Cruz. And Nikki Haley. And Kamala Harris, too.

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• He questioned the authenticity of the Access Hollywood tape (this was after he apologized for it).

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• He claimed Obama had him wiretapped at Trump Tower.

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• He claimed the death toll from Hurricane Maria was inflated to make him look bad.

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• He said the noise from windmills causes cancer.

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• He pushed a video saying that the Clintons killed Jeffrey Epstein.

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• He said Ukraine could be hiding Hillary Clinton’s missing emails.

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• He said that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

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• He said that fears about asbestos were a conspiracy designed to line the pockets of asbestos-cleanup companies run by the mob.

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• He retweeted several conspiracy theories around the death of Osama bin Laden (that it could have been a body double).

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• He has said jobs numbers are manipulated, the unemployment figure was made up, the COVID death numbers were inflated, the Obamacare enrollment numbers were exaggerated, and the border crossing numbers “manipulated” to make the Obama administration look better. 

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• And, of course, he’s spread a steady stream of lies about election numbers. The 2012 one: dead people voted for Obama. The 2016 one: cheating in blue states like California and New York deprived him of a popular vote win. The 2020 one . . . where do we even start? Sharpies did not invalidate Trump votes; Dominion did not either. People weren’t throwing away bags filled with Trump ballots or randomly finding suitcases filled with Biden ones. Thousands of dead people didn’t vote multiple times. And, no, Italians did not use military technology to tamper with U.S. voting machines.

Oh, go ahead.  Go read the column.  It's just full of good stuff.  And things you should know.

Your vote is important.

It's important you know the truth.

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