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I and my loved ones are safe! Praise be to God! Thank you for your prayers!
I realize that many of you wonderful friends among our readers have been very concerned about our welfare.
Depending upon which weather channel you watch, and where in Western North Carolina (WNC) it was reported, we had from 12-30 inches of rain in about 36 hours! When the high winds hit the area, all the trees started swirling, twisting and swaying in a scary fashion.
The winds and rain blasted us from the east which is very rare in our locale. We would hear a loud crack or snap and look out the west-facing windows and see another tree had come down. By the grace of God, none fell on my house. Of course, we soon lost power and it has been out ever since with no reasonable estimate of when power will be restored.
Duke Power’s text alert says that maybe by Friday, power might be restored to a good portion of the affected area. But outlying areas (including my house) may take longer.
Having lived in Palm Beach County, Florida in the 1980s, I have been through a number of hurricanes, but I have never seen such terrible devastation as this except for when I was in the middle of Hurricane Camille in August of 1969 when I was an airman in tech school at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Hurricane Helene was “only” a Category 4 when it made landfall with winds of 135 mph. The highest is Category 5 starting at 175 mph. Hurricane Camille’s winds broke the wind gauges when they exceeded 210 mph!!
I am guessing that the winds at my house probably did not exceed 75 mph, but the fact that the ground was so saturated with water is what allowed that level of wind to simply uproot massive trees and knock them over.
There is behind my house a little stream which usually has barely a trickle of running water. That tiny creek is about four feet deep and is lined with trees on both sides.
The favorite tree behind my house was a massive sycamore tree—which readers may recall is the one I referenced in my stories about remedies for poison ivy. It broke in half and then the root system gave way and it fell over the stream and crashed on the neighbor’s fence behind me.
That was typical of many trees up and down our block. My next door neighbor to the north lost all the trees lining the creek behind his yard. I lost about half of mine. The raging torrents of water rose higher and then it flooded into my yard about 15 feet toward the back (west side) of my house.
The waters in the yard of my next door neighbor to the south covered his yard about halfway to the rear of his house because his property is slightly lower than mine. Father was merciful at that point and the waters then began to recede.
The power went out at about 4:30 a.m. on Friday. I felt my bed shaking along with the entire house. That was reminiscent of when I felt a similar shaking of my bed when we had a minor earthquake about 17 years ago.
The winds increased and lasted until about 11 a.m. Friday when it began to dissipate. By that time the downed trees blocked roadways and took down power lines everywhere.
Neighbors came out with chain saws and began working to clear a passage for vehicles. We were hemmed in on all sides and could not get further than about a half-mile from my house. Here is a picture of how a tree crashed through a mobile home not far from my house.
Cell service had been non-existent since the power went out. (As I write this today, some has begun to be restored.) Water pressure soon trickled to a stop.
Fortunately, one of my neighbors has a pool and said to bring over a bucket anytime to get water to flush toilets. We had stored drinking water and other supplies for a long time for such a time as this.
In my mind, I was recalling the gratitude of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in 1621. It caused me to be even more humbled as I realized how much rougher it was for them in the Mayflower facing the storms of the Atlantic in the late fall of 1621.
Once I got a bit of durable signal, I was able to see that there have been many texts, emails, and voice messages that were “stacked up” in my devices.
Please understand that I cannot answer them all personally. But just know that I will read as many as possible. We greatly appreciate your prayers and offers to help.
We do not know when power will be fully restored and with that the restoration of all the other modern conveniences—such as fully-stocked grocery stores, water, sewer, internet, and mobile phone services.
It is very easy for us to take all those blessings for granted, but to me this has been just a foretaste of what might be coming on a national basis. For decades we have encouraged our readers, listeners, students and supporters to prepare for just such events.
It need not be caused by a hurricane because now, with a vast alien army of “newcomers” scattered in virtually every community in the USA, what would it take to bring about chaos on a national scale? We all know the answer.
Imagine no power, no water, no sewer (toilets and sinks backing up), no news from your normal sources, no internet, no cell service, etc. Add to that the certainty that there would very soon be widespread looting of grocery stores and any other store that might have valuable merchandise.
Another neighbor lady’s “boy” friend (he is 48) made a trip back to his family place in the mountains outside the urban area to pick up some supplies. As he approached town, he saw that—very oddly—there was one block where a traffic light had power. He then saw about “a hundred” (that may have been exaggerated) utility bucket trucks peeling off into that neighborhood.
Evidently, many of the alien “newcomers” assumed that the chain store supermarket at that intersection also had power. He drove by the store’s front door and realized they were still in the dark.
He said there were probably 500 (almost all of whom looked like “newcomers”) who had driven or walked there and he said he could easily see that about 40 percent of them were openly armed! Later, we learned that at about two in the morning, they broke the windows and looted that grocery store.
Regarding the Bible Conference in Minneapolis
Steve Jones and I spoke about an hour ago, and I filled him on some of these details. With us still being in the middle of our move to our new office location, and that alone would still have taken quite a while to get the boxes unpacked and everything set up to operate—and now with this major catastrophe affecting everything—including life itself—in the WNC area, I told Steve there is no way that I can make the trip for the Conference in the Twin Cities.
I would need to be leaving here in about two weeks, and goodness me, I don’t even know that we will have power restored, let alone the major tasks of beginning to get my house repaired and the new office set up!
Of course, I am very disappointed that I will not see all of you dear friends at that time.
Hold the presses! This just in a minute ago: I just received a reply text from Sandy, my office manager. She lives in east Asheville and said they have no water, no power, but are doing OK. She just now got a cell signal.
About an hour ago, I also heard from Jesse, our IT manager. It has been difficult for them also, but he and his loved ones are safe in north Asheville. Unfortunately, a tree fell on his car and it is probably totaled.
Among the texts that I have been reading was one from a dear friend who said she just heard that we are OK. She went on, “I know you are going to need funds. Just let me know if you can get it faster through the website, and I’ll send it. Can wire it if need be…”
We have a lot of work ahead of us to begin to finally get everything out of the old office, to get our new office unpacked and up in operation. As far as I know, there is no damage to the new office space.
In the months ahead, it will also be a challenge to get the damages to my house repaired. Skilled workmen will be in short supply for months to come. We are grateful to God and to you for your gifts and continuing support.
Payments made through Stripe and PayPal are accessible through our website, but if you are going to send through postal mail, please hold off until we know power is back on. Remember the USPS cannot do their work without electric power and gas to run their trucks either.
Urgent Note Regarding our New Address
And very importantly, just before the storm arrived I had discerned that the new mailing address (which we announced in these blogs and in our August FMS cover letter, the office street address which included the Suite #) that address is NOT going to work. Whenever it rains, moisture accumulates in the bottom of the box which is located on a pedestal outside our new office.
Therefore, please send correspondence to me personally, or to Stone Kingdom Ministries, and address all mail to the following new and permanent address:
PO Box 9, Fletcher, NC 28732 (I was delighted to get a single digit box number.)
Please understand that we may need to skip blogging from time to time until we can get our office organized into functional operation.
There are a million stories I could share about the momentous events of the past week, but we wanted to get this much out to our readers, students, and supporters to inform you of our situation. Praise ye Yahweh!
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