Hurricane Helene Week and Aftermath
It's been a bad two weeks.
I've got about 8,000 pictures (not an exaggeration) to dig through and edit/cull/post, so that'll be great. No major damage to personal self or belongings. It has been a nightmare. I'm posting this from the Subway near my workplace (heads up, they do not allow you to use coupons on roast beef subs anymore).
All roads in WNC are considered closed, please do not attempt to go up there. Roads into Brevard area are pretty clear, but the last thing they need is to divert resources if you have a car accident or just plain get in the way. Power is back to most of the more populated parts of upstate SC here, but internet is still out pretty universally. Roads are almost entirely clear. Cell service is hit or miss, due to so many people being on the network.
The entire Palmetto Trail system is closed due to damage, and Conestee (That's Conestee in Greenville, not Congaree in Columbia) is closed. The central city part of Falls Park is reopened, and appears largely undamaged. I went to Harbison today for the first time, didn't make it very far, but damage seems minimal there.
The Scale Park there in Duncan... Well, it looks like shit. I did a full walkthrough today, as the light was fading. It's an absolute shame I can't upload the videos here, but a rough, heavily edited summary of the damage, downed trees, etc, follows.
"So in the main park area that's five larger pines, minimum 40ft. Three smaller pines, much smaller; one smaller tulip tree, two larger tulip trees; one larger pointy leaf oak, black oak? Maybe 50ft? ; Rounded leaf oak, (White oak?) smaller, 30ft or so; two sort of mockernut looking trees, one maybe 20ft one much larger, half of all damn trees look like mockertnut, I don't know why they do that.
Two more spiky leaf oak, (black oak?) larger, by the retention pond, one split in half; retention pond still a little swollen. Why is there no noise? It's the time of day for noise (roughly 6 or 7pm). No hoof prints, only raccoon... Another slightly smaller pine down over the pond, there's a third spiky oak, where are all the bugs? It's the time of day for bugs. Very suspicious, still no deer tracks, since the flooding there should have been at least a few visits here, we haven't had rain in a week, tracks shouldn't have washed away. The gorge/whatever flow path beside the park is definitely wider, the tightly packed area here at the mouth is untouched but deeper in here... What is that, ten feet wider? (profanity censored) It looks like those two larger trees up top were holding a lot of soil, and when they fell... So the basin here is so much larger. There's some smaller pines up at the top there, but they should re-root I would think. Little landslide here... Yeah, don't come down here.
Out on the other side of the gorge, officially off of the park property, I won't tell anyone if you don't.... There's not much damage here, actually. The trees are all standing.. oop, except for this little tulip tree here. Joro web here, interesting, I've been seeing a good number of webs walking out and about today, but the actual spiders aren't there in the middle where you normally see th-(profanity censored, there was in fact a joro there, I had just walked into the web and he was on my shirt) Yeah, don't come here, they've cleared out the actual trail pretty well, but there's still some smaller debris."
Please exercise common sense precautions when you go out! Even the clearer trails do have some wet areas for slipping, rocks that are loose, trees fallen, etc. If you need assistance or resources in the Upstate area, let me know! I'll help and help connect you as I can! Stay safe, all.
... they absolutely cheated me on the amount of meat on this sandwich.
