Just to let everyone know, we’re okay after Helene came for a visit last week! Yup, I live in the Western North Carolina mountains and we were hit hard.

My sister and I share a home and we’ve been quite lucky. We’ve been out of power since 7:00 a.m. Friday, September 27th, but we do have a whole-home generator that we turn on a few hours everyday (to keep refrigerators and freezer working).

We got land-line phone service back Tuesday night, but only if the generator is on. Cordless phones don’t work without electricity! We got very limited cell service about the same time, though we had to drive to a higher spot to get the service.

The internet came on last Tuesday night, again only with generator, obviously. That has been fairly steady until this morning. We had an outage of internet for about 2 hours. Not sure, but it may be they were finalizing permanent repairs. I think a lot of the repairs in the past week were “patches” to get us through.

Brevard, NC, where I live, took a beating. We have some roads that are washed away or covered by mudslides, etc. But, everyone in the county (Transylvania – Halloween’s a hoot) has been accounted for and thus far, no storm related deaths reported here! Thank heavens!

Asheville, about an hour north, has been devastated! So much of the downtown is gone/ruined. The area around Lake Lure and Chimney Rock (where they have filmed several movies, including Dirty Dancing and The Last of the Mohicans) are in shambles. A lot of the town at Lake Lure is literally in the lake! Chunks of Chimney Rock have broken off and fallen over roadways. The scenic Blue Ridge Highway, noted for its spectacular views during fall when leaves change color, is closed indefinitely.

It’s sad what has happened. But, the outpouring of support from around the country has been tremendous! Crews from across the country have come in to help restore services, search and rescue teams are on the ground, mule-teams have driven in to help take needed supplies to those stranded in areas that are totally inaccessible any other way.

Bless them all! Our first responders have worked tirelessly throughout the past week plus!

I’ll be back when the dust settles!

God bless you all!

You have, undoubtedly, noticed I’ve been absent the past several weeks – during all the “mess” after the debate, no less! EGADS!

I’ve been having a lot of trouble with the site dashboard – and yes, I’ve paid the bills! So much so that I’ve moved the site to another server.

Unfortunately, it means I’ve lost all the prior posts! Sorry about that – it couldn’t be helped. Now I’m having trouble with my keyboard – letters sticking or not working. So please forgive any typos! I’m trying here!