Hurricane Helene Aftermath: The Overview

I don't have time to write a long post today.  I'm at a friend's house who has power, water, and internet, which I don't have at my house.  I need to make the most of this time with those things to catch up on seminary work, get some grading done for my online classes, and then I need to do some shopping and banking before heading up the mountain on Friday.

Last Friday, we lost electric at 4:30 a.m.,  as I was writing a blog post about how I didn't expect to suffer many effects from Hurricane Helene beyond some additional rain.  I didn't worry too much until a few hours later when trees started to fall.

Hurricane Helene's Position when the Power Went Out

We are fortunate.  No trees fell on our property or our house, like the 3 that fell on a neighbor's house:

We have spent the last week trying to help our less fortunate neighbors.  

We haven't had much internet access and spotty cell phone service, so it's been good to have a purpose.

Yesterday I headed to a friend's house in Columbia.  I needed to get to a place that had power and enough cell phone service that I could use my phone as a hotspot.  Happily, last night her internet was restored.  Today I plan to write and grade and try to regroup.

Spartanburg Methodist College still doesn't have power, so I don't know if classes will resume on Monday as previously planned.  My friend has offered to have me come back next week, and I may take her up on it if SMC doesn't have power.  I will need to do some additional class work, both for my seminary classes and the online classes that I teach.

I am still stunned by this storm.  I still find it surreal that I moved hundreds of miles inland and still found myself in this situation, and I'm still surprised, as I always am, that a tropical storm strength event can do this amount of damage.  I am hopeful that this will be a once a century storm, and I won't have to see this kind of storm in the mountains again.  But I am also suffering under no delusions that past planetary performance can predict future performance.

But let me once again stress that overall, I am in good spirits.  I know that I am lucky:  I have friends, family, support, a great neighborhood, resources of all kinds.