The lights went out. Then the water system failed.
When Helene came to visit WNC on this day last year, things didn’t look too bad in this neighborhood until I tried to leave it. Downed trees blocked every road out. The power was out for nine days. Water for 17. And that was for a neighborhood otherwise pretty much unscathed. (It was worse in rural areas and for people on wells.) Internet was unusable for a week. With so much devastation and relief work going on, it was three months before we toured the county to survey the worst. The pharmacist who gave me my Covid booster in July last year died when his four-plex was swept away in the flooding. Our house painter lost his best crew member. His body wasn’t found until sometime in December. While for much of the region things have gotten back to normal, cleanup and recovery continues to this day.
The National Weather Service today is sucking wind in the middle of hurricane season after eight months of Trump 2.0:
Some National Weather Service staffers are working double shifts to keep forecasting offices open. Others are operating under a “buddy system,” in which adjacent offices help monitor severe weather in understaffed regions. Still others are jettisoning services deemed not absolutely necessary, such as making presentations to schoolchildren.
The Trump administration’s cuts to the Weather Service — where nearly 600 workers,or about 1 in every 7, have left through firings, resignations or retirements — are pushing the agency to its limits, according to interviews with current and former staffers.
Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine Forms, Imelda Likely Soon
Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine has officially formed in the Caribbean, and Tropical Storm Imelda is expected to form this weekend. Tropical storm alerts have been issued for the Bahamas. The storm is expected to batter the Bahamas with heavy rain and strong winds as it moves toward the Southeast coast, where we could see a landfalling named storm next week. The exact track of the storm is still unknown because of several potential driving factors like a stalled frontal boundary that is draped across the Southeast and Hurricane Humberto, which continues to strengthen nearby in the Atlantic.
When severe weather threatens since last fall, people around here get a touch of PTSD. Like now.
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