Hurricane Helene

-
Our place in Port Charlotte, FL dodged a bullet for once. We lost our roof in Ian a couple years ago, Al is pretty familiar with that one. The entire house had to be gutted back to bare cinder block and stud walls and completely rebuilt. Work was finally finished this spring. We are on the canals at the NE end of Charlotte harbor and the entire neighborhood was inundated by Helene. Our house is nine feet above sea level and the water reached about 8.5' and was lapping against the walls. Side patio and front stoop were under water. Luckily the floor slab is another 6" up and water didn't get in the house. All the neighbors across the street are slightly lower and had 6-12" of water in their houses. I can't believe how much water got pushed up the harbor by that storm. Our family has owned that place since 1956 and that is the closest we've come to flooding. Every other time was wind damage. What a kick in the nutz after dealing with Ian, which affected every house in the neighborhood to one degree or another. We can't get down there for several weeks but have offered our neighbors use of our house as they need while theirs are drying out.
 

Our place in Port Charlotte, FL dodged a bullet for once. We lost our roof in Ian a couple years ago, Al is pretty familiar with that one. The entire house had to be gutted back to bare cinder block and stud walls and completely rebuilt. Work was finally finished this spring. We are on the canals at the NE end of Charlotte harbor and the entire neighborhood was inundated by Helene. Our house is nine feet above sea level and the water reached about 8.5' and was lapping against the walls. Side patio and front stoop were under water. Luckily the floor slab is another 6" up and water didn't get in the house. All the neighbors across the street are slightly lower and had 6-12" of water in their houses. I can't believe how much water got pushed up the harbor by that storm. Our family has owned that place since 1956 and that is the closest we've come to flooding. Every other time was wind damage. What a kick in the nutz after dealing with Ian, which affected every house in the neighborhood to one degree or another. We can't get down there for several weeks but have offered our neighbors use of our house as they need while theirs are drying out.
Glad to hear you dodged the bullet !
We rebuilt and sold our place in St James City after "Ian" we still keep in contact with friends there. Our old place has gotten water in it 3 times now since we sold. Seams things are just getting worse. Just sold the place in the North Carolina mountains . Curious about what it got.
This is just after a normal rain !
20240109_115802.jpg
 
I'm up in Cincinnati. The wind knocked down two 50' + trees. The one missed the house by (---) this much. It did get the back deck. The top of the tree took out about 4' of deck railing, several chairs are bent up and a glass top table is destroyed. It also destroyed a really nice pop up that we had out there.
We didn't loose power on my street, but there was close to 200k out at one point yesterday.
It's a mess, but nowhere as bad as the folks in North Carolina and Georgia seemed to get it.
The storm is parked over top of Paducah Ky now and throwing a lot of rain up my way.
sorry to here about lose of property but glad you are okay and dry.
 
We just got a ton of rain and wind here, but no flooding in our area.
 
lots of winds and rains here in southern Indiana nothing major. Hope all of our TN and NC and Florida friends are all ok
 
Erwin is where our place is at. All our neighbors are trapped. No way out No cell phones, no water and no electricity. Erwin and that aera is bad off. Record flood level was 22 feet in 1901 it hit 32 feet. A lot of houses in our are washed away Last contact we had was yesterday and our place was still there but the water kept going up. It may be months before we can get in there, don't know what we will find.
 
Seeing the footage in Chimney Rock / Lake Lure is heartbreaking.

My wife and I vacationed in Asheville several years ago and drove that road. The damage is devastating.
 
Erwin. This video only shows about 1% of the damage there. This makes me so sad. This is a poor area, they only had 2 major employers and one left about 7 years ago which was a large railroad yard. Most of you never heard of Erwin so I'll tell you a short story. The reason they had such a large railroad yard in the middle of the country (in the middle of nowhere) is because they supplied the NFS. Ever hear of it? Nuclear Fuel Services. It started in WW2 and was a top secret. They wanted a place in the middle of our country so if enemy bombers came to the USA they couldn.t fly that far. Alot of people there were born there and live their lives out there. The biggest event there is the apple feasible I know times are really tough right now but if anyone could send a few dollars it would help. Bumpus Cove/Little Germany Rd. are hit really hard. I don't have any idea where to send it to but I guess city hall would work. Please keep everyone out there in your prayers. Thanks.
 
Erwin. This video only shows about 1% of the damage there. This makes me so sad. This is a poor area, they only had 2 major employers and one left about 7 years ago which was a large railroad yard. Most of you never heard of Erwin so I'll tell you a short story. The reason they had such a large railroad yard in the middle of the country (in the middle of nowhere) is because they supplied the NFS. Ever hear of it? Nuclear Fuel Services. It started in WW2 and was a top secret. They wanted a place in the middle of our country so if enemy bombers came to the USA they couldn.t fly that far. Alot of people there were born there and live their lives out there. The biggest event there is the apple feasible I know times are really tough right now but if anyone could send a few dollars it would help. Bumpus Cove/Little Germany Rd. are hit really hard. I don't have any idea where to send it to but I guess city hall would work. Please keep everyone out there in your prayers. Thanks.
Never heard of it until tonight. I’ll see what we can muster. Prayers for all you and yours
 
We're 60 miles mostly south from Cedar Key where Helene landed. 8 miles inland from the gulf. 6 miles from Crystal River that got buried in water. Yet we got less than 3" of rain (which we routinely get in a thunderstorm). Hard to believe how Helene dropped so much rain once it made landfall and moved up into Georgia and north of there.

We lost power for about 38 hours - that's very minor compared to what others experienced. Helped some elderly neighbors with their generators. Found one 94 yr old guy had tried to fuel his generator while it was running and spilled gas all over it and himself! Could have been going to a funeral on that one. Needless to say, I took over taking care of his generator as well as another older gal with a similar situation. Prayers for all of you cleaning up.
 
Last edited:

We're 60 miles mostly south from Cedar Key where Helene landed. 8 miles inland from the gulf. 6 miles from Crystal River that git buried in water. Yet we got less than 3" of rain (which we routinely get in a thunderstorm). Hard to believe how Helene dropped so much rain once it made landfall and moved up into Georgia and north of there.

We lost power for about 38 hours - that's very minor compared to what others experienced. Helped some elderly neighbors with their generators. Found one 94 yr old guy had tried to fuel his generator while it was running and spilled gas all over it and himself! Could have been going to a funeral on that one. Needless to say, I took over taking care of his generator as well as another older gal with a similar situation. Prayers for all of you cleaning up.
Hey Dave, we're up in MO. Visiting family. Glad to hear the area is good. I wish I would have gotten a neighbors phone # so I could have a report on my place.
 
Paging @Charrlie_S are you OK down there? Can you let us all know how you’re doing!
Thanks for asking. We are fine. Dodged another bullet, unlike many others. No major rain or major wind. No power outage except for about 5 minutes three times. One tree branch about 3 inches in dia laying in the front yard. Biggest issue was losing cell service untill about noontime. Don't know when it went out.
 
We got hit pretty bad here. No power since early Friday morning and probably won't be back for another couple days. We lost water for a day or so but it's back. My neighborhood was fortunate, all the trees are far away from the houses but some got some shingles ripped off and there are downed trees all over the place. Power has been out for basically the whole city, had to drive 30 minutes away just to find a grocery store that wasn't closed or swarmed with huge lines of people out front.

My wife has a friend a bit south of Charlotte where apparently everything is fine, we might head up there for a couple days at least until we get power back at our house. Lots of people around us are running small backup generators but I didn't have the foresight to get one and obviously now trying to buy one in this area is going to be a pain.
 
since our crazy wet sping they shut off the water 4th of July , dry as a popcorn fart here now ..
 
Talked to a buddy of mine who is a little north of Charlotte and he said they go about 5" of rain, and internet and cell service is still sketchy.
 
Still trying to raise my battle buddy and long time friend, lives near the NC/SC line. Flood map puts his county in the zone. Hoping it’s just a lack of signal/power thing
 
Spent 5+ hrs today with our church doing some work to help those hit hard by the storm. WOW was that an eye opener. To go into someone's home with 3" of standing water (still that much after 2 days) and haul out their entire life possessions and throw them out on the curb? Well that is just a sick feeling that made me feel like we weren't really helping. But the folks seemed appreciative as they know someone has to do that so they were very kind to us. Humbling to say the least. We did 3 houses and a 100+ yr old church today. At the church, they had 3' of water (that was now gone) so we had to break up and haul out all the pews and pull up all the carpet. Nasty, nasty work. I'm worn out tonight!!

My heart goes out to all who are impacted like this.

IMG_20240929_210112.jpg

IMG_20240929_210101.jpg
IMG_20240929_210028.jpg
 
Last edited:
We're near the SC/GA/NC border. We took a beating. Luckily no major flooding in our area but lots of trees down, power out probably for days yet. We have to go travel a bit just to get cell service and power/internet to stay in touch. Our prayers go out to everyone that is dealing with the flooding. Looks like Asheville and Lake Lure area got hammered.
Kitty and I and all the kitties made it fine. The storm was on track for us to be on the dirty side, but it tracked to the east of us instead, thanks be to God. We never even lost power. We did lose internet, but we watched Clint Eastwood DVDs all night. lol
Yep, guess who's just to the east of you!
 
We're near the SC/GA/NC border. We took a beating. Luckily no major flooding in our area but lots of trees down, power out probably for days yet. We have to go travel a bit just to get cell service and power/internet to stay in touch. Our prayers go out to everyone that is dealing with the flooding. Looks like Asheville and Lake Lure area got hammered.

Yep, guess who's just to the east of you!
Prays to you. Glad you are safe.
 
Just heard 3rd hand, but in Ashville N.C. I don't know exactly where but children are running around asking where their parents are and they are pulling 100's of bodies out of there. The smell is horrendous. No reporters allowed. **** this is so bad. These areas need water bad. Help if you can.
 
Just heard 3rd hand, but in Ashville N.C. I don't know exactly where but children are running around asking where their parents are and they are pulling 100's of bodies out of there. The smell is horrendous. No reporters allowed. **** this is so bad. These areas need water bad. Help if you can.
I can confirm this from boots on the ground doing said mission.
 
-
Back
Top