Home again

 

Hurricanes in landlocked Western North Carolina, who'd have thought that could be such a big deal?

My son has lived in western North Carolina for many years. He used to have a house high up on a ridge that was safe, but the rest of the town is in a valley and all the water runs off the mountain, flooding it regularly.

This time he was with friends during the worst of the storm. They had no electricity, except for generators and those didn't run the water pump, so they put out five gallon buckets to catch the rain for flushing toilets. Those buckets filled right up!

Afterwards he and friends went down into the town to help remove trees and see what else they could do. The town had water up to the drive through windows in local businesses and one place they had bailed out a few years ago completely collapsed this time.

The second night he spent helping other friends and they had a sort of hurricane cook out, but the next morning he made his way to his present home higher up in the mountains. There was still no power and no cell phone service, so no internet either, but the only real danger were the washed out bridges and roads.

Little did he realize that his biggest problem would be a lack of gas! As of this afternoon there was still no place he could buy gas, so he is stuck at home not working. He has power and cell and internet. He knows where the safe roads are.

He just doesn't have enough gas to go anywhere and get back home again. Sometimes it's easy to forget how reliant we are on all these different conveniences that seem so ordinary on a regular day.