This column is very long but it gives as complete a picture as I’ve seen so far of what is and may be happening in the region hit by Hurricane Helene, especially the region around the lithium and quartz mines.
Appalachia: Murder always happens for a reason
Ginger Breggin, Telegram, Oct. 4, 2024
https://tinyurl.com/3p5hxubb
“Something evil is going on in the North Carolina mountains”
Untold potential for riches are there for the taking in the mountains of Appalachia. The Americans living in the mountains are the only barrier. Murder always happens for a reason.
It is no less than mass murder. Reports of a complete absence of state or federal assistance in the devastated areas hit by Hurricane Helene are now crowding the social media airwaves.
Bodies floating down the rivers. Bodies hanging in trees. Tangled in piles of debris. Utility company linemen are the first into most of the demolished areas. They report finding children as young as three wandering naked in the mud, crying for their parents, some with ropes dangling from where their parents lashed them in desperation to timber.
The smell of death is everywhere. About 1 million souls lived in these Western North Carolina counties, with additional souls dying in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee.
Help is not coming
State and federal authorities have not been on site for the first week or so after the storm dropped like a bomb. There is no update on the number of dead, missing, and rescue of those who have survived other than local accounts.
A report out of Asheville, the largest flooded-out community in North Carolina, says some FEMA workers have just arrived with porta potties for the local inundated hospital which is still without any electricity or any water.
Volunteers, community members, and now some aid workers beginning to trickle in are bringing the dead to the privately owned Mission hospital in Asheville, which is now designated the place to bring bodies in the region.
FEMA is quoted as saying they are too tied up at the border and won’t be sending refrigerator trucks for body storage. FEMA also was overheard saying “add a couple zeros” to whatever the body count is right now… One local report on X cites reports of over 900 bodies already at the hospital that
haven’t been identified.
A report out of Chimney Rock, NC said a ‘government official’ has told residents at a town meeting that the federal government is seizing land, and the entire area will be bulldozed–bodies, still-standing buildings, and all. One local pastor was going door to door with water, and found there were so many bodies that they changed their delivery request to body bags.
“They are not picking up the bodies. They don’t wanna identify the bodies and they’re just leaving them to rot in the streets.”
And “Something evil is going on in the NC mountains.”
The disaster region needs pilots with planes, helicopters, people with big equipment and trucks. The 82nd airborne is still not ordered to participate in the rescue, their Apache helicopters are on the ground waiting for Title 10–the emergency order that is required to activate the 82nd airborne.
FEMA is AWOL
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is AWOL. The few FEMA representatives trickling in a week after disaster struck are actively disrupting volunteer efforts. Emergency supplies are being taken from volunteers and locked up, FEMA directs survivors to use nonexistent internet or telephones, and some state and federal officials are threatening volunteers and survivors with arrest.
Federal relief is reported to be loans—and the contracts required state if funds are not paid back on time all property may be seized.
Unverified reports state North Carolina police have now issued a statement that they will start arresting any federal employees trying to stop or hinder rescue operations, have been debunked.
Survivors of the hurricane and the floods are still without power more than a week after the storm and the rains–there is no date for restoration in sight. Food and water are running out or gone and small communities are still cut
off.
Dehydrated and starving people have been abandoned
Dehydrated and starving people with no cell phones or other means of communication have been abandoned. A Brannon Howse media interview with the nonprofit Aerial Recovery organization confirmed the federal government absence and further confirmed that they were told not to conduct search, rescue, and recovery work in both Lake Lure and Chimney Rock when they arrived with former special forces volunteers, equipment, chain saws.
The volunteer rescue crew were stopped and ordered to leave by the local police.
Elon Musk posted a video of the devastation filmed by some of his Space X engineers flying into North Carolina to deliver Starlink terminals and supplies. Musk said “my blood is boiling” because FEMA would not let the Musk company helicopter land to deliver the critical supplies.
Columnist Leo Hohmann reminds us that this region of the US is Trump country: If your house is destroyed and you are literally trying to survive in an atmosphere with little or no food, water and shelter, and your cell service is out, will you be thinking
about voting?
What if you are fine but you haven’t heard from a family member since the storm hit. You are searching for them, wondering if you will find them dead or alive. Will you be thinking about votin3g?
I don’t think so. So, we have to wonder if this is not only a humanitarian tragedy being left unattended by the federal government but whether it may also be a concentrated voter suppression effort.
Most recently the Biden-Harris administration has announced release of $750 per person in FEMA funds for hurricane victims. Colonel Douglas Macgregor exposed to Tucker Carlson that illegal immigrants coming over the border are being given $2200 per month.
FEMA has been transformed into emergency aid for illegal immigrants, paid for by US taxpayers.
Infrastructure is another critical survival matter that is suddenly in short supply. In our last column we documented the ILA (International Longshoremen’s Association) strike that started over the weekend. Docks across the Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf are closed. Steel, heavy equipment, building supplies, and replacement parts for everything from rescue equipment to heavy electrical transformers come in by boat.
The regional electrical grid has 360 substations out of commission. There is a massive shortage of transformers in the US, with wait times for replacements of up to five years.
So those heavy transformers knocked out by the hurricane are not going to be replaced any time soon. North Carolina has over 360 substations out of commission in its Western region.
As of October 4, the striking ILA port workers are returning to work until mid-January after negotiations settled on a wages agreement. But the high voltage transformer shortage will not be remedied anytime soon.
January of 2024, the federal government transferred two high voltage power transformers to Ukraine to “enhance the reliability of Ukraine’s Integrated Power System and ensure its maintenance during this and following winters.” This was done despite the shortage of that equipment to ensure US electrical grid reliability. Now weare without theback up supply of transformers needed to repairthe grid in the damaged part of Western North Carolina.
North Carolina lawmaker Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) reported:
“The flooding provides a unique challenge not previously faced by substations in Western North Carolina…There is a high likelihood that the substations are not repairable, and replacement of the substation equipment will be necessary.”
Latitude Media, covering energy news, reported:
Many substations [in Western NC] are reportedly completely flooded, leaving Duke Energy, the investor-owned utility that serves the region, unable to accurately assess the damage until the waters recede and the bulky equipment can be dried.
Replacement, however, is a tall order. The disaster is coming in the midst of a shortage of electrical equipment, and especially of the transformers that substations use to switch power voltage from direct current to alternating current, or vice versa.
As electricity demand across the U.S. increases, so does demand for the equipment that renewable projects, electric vehicle chargers, and countless other things depend upon.
And manufacturers are already at capacity — and expanding it further is made challenging by a tight labor market. Transformer prices have risen over 60% since 2020.
The idea that some of the lightly populated region of the heavily forested mountain region of North Carolina might not be rebuilt begins to make a diabolical kind of sense.
The United States used to know how to do rescue. I wrote about traditional American rescue activities and contrasted them with the lack of assistance during the Maui/Lahaina “wildfire.”
That signaled a blatant, unhidden disregard for the fundamental decency and traditions and values of Western Civilization.
Americans Know What to Do When Disaster Strikes
Americans know what to do when disasters hit. We have been doing rescue, survival, and restoration for as long as we have had communities, from the first small outposts dotting the East Coast to the spread and growth of towns and cities across this amazing land.
We know how to “do” rescue. Many of us learned in our youth, during Scouts or other volunteer organizations. Many of us have served in the armed forces, as EMTs or police, or as a member of volunteer fire departments, or we have had training in CPR and first aid. My father was a member of the ski patrol in its infancy, in New York State.
Now, most communities and certainly most regions have established Red Cross offices.
Rescue begins when an alarm goes up. There is a fire, a tornado, a hurricane, a flood, or some other disaster. People gather to help stem the damage, set up a central meeting place, start keeping a list of survivors (and those lost), gather supplies to sustain everyone, comfort the stricken, and start the clean-up and the restoration. Temporary housing is arranged, care for children is established, and the beginnings of a return to normalcy occur amidst the comforting of those who have been through the traumatic experience and loss of family, friends, community, and home.
Rescue is not coming—What is being done?
This is not your Granddaddy’s rescue anymore. The burning question is why?
“Never let a serious crisis go to waste” was known as Rahm’s rule. Rahm Emanual was chief of staff to President-elect Barack Obama, when he issued that famous declaration.
So, we ask what can be done with this massive disaster? We have touched upon the first action — condemn the lightly populated portions of North Carolina including the damaged electrical infrastructure meant to service the area.
Suddenly the need for transformers is lessened. But eliminating the need to replace key electrical grid infrastructure is only the beginning. There is so much more benefit to be gained by emptying these mountains of the American citizens who have lived and worked there.
(Concluded in Part 2, tomorrow.)
Primary Author: Ginger Breggin
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