We’ve talked about the disaster of Hurricane Helene, which swept through the southern Appalachian mountains and caused unprecedented devastation.
But now, let’s discuss the aftermath. Locals and federal government employees are reported to have gone head-to-head. The stories that people are self-reporting over there are quite different from the shiny stories in the media about how glorious FEMA has been in lifting people up.
There are remaining questions about the death toll, with the North Carolina government putting the official number at 96 people confirmed dead, but folks in the area are telling a significantly different story.
I guess you have to decide who you are going to believe – the folks living it or a media and federal government that has lied to us repeatedly over the years.
This video is long, but it contains many clips of locals sharing their experiences. In my opinion, it’s well worth the watch.
What are your thoughts?
Do you think that the residents are telling the truth? Do you think FEMA is doing enough? What about the insurance companies?
Let’s discuss it in the comments section.
Good morning, dear Daisy. I couldn’t make it open the video. It said sign in but I could never make it work.
That said, I certainly trust my fellow southern mountain folk over any government agency!
Hi, Amy! You can click on the red arrow in the middle of the video screen to make it play here on this website 🙂
Boots on the ground over government & media? Never.
Whoops, need more coffee. I meant I’ll always believe boots on the ground over media & government, my bad.
Oh, I thought that was sarcasm. good laugh.
I believe boots on the ground. The regime in office now wants us all dead or in fema re education camps. We’ve got people from my neck of the woods in texas there, helping with relief efforts
they’re also in Florida. The Appalachian people are a strong proud self reliant bunch. God bless them.
IMHO, people who live in this general area, Carolinas, Tenn, have been ignored for generations: wherever there’s poor people eking out a living in the hollers, mountain tops, away from ‘civilization.’ There’s documentaries about it for anyone willing to research; I watched them decades ago. This video will become one of those made now. Kindly pray for victims.
Absolutely the boots on the ground are where the real story is. Missing in so much discussion are the natural resources such as lithium under these places that the gov’t so desperately wants to control.
I find it shocking but not surprising how the lies and lack of respect for human life is just pouring forth from FEMA and the likes. Very sad state of affairs for the once great country of America. Just ask the people of Lahaina and all the mainland wildfire victims and let’s not forget East Palestine, Ohio just how much help they have gotten from FEMA etc. How much their lives are “recovered” today.
These mountain people are showing the grit and determination that built this country and I pray for their encouragement and safety daily.
This has been a huge wake-up call to anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear!
I clicked on the “Watch on YouTube” link in the lower left-side corner and the video immediately began playing. That’s where I copied the access data below:
What Is Actually Going on in North Carolina? (Part 2)
per this 1:17:54 length video, from Truthstream Media on Oct 11, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HpHvX-M9Oo
In addition this story may be highly related:
Here’s how HAARP creates and modifies extreme weather as a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION, 10/21/2024, by S.D. Wells
https://www.naturalnews.com/2024-10-21-haarp-creates-modifies-extreme-weather-weapon-mass-destruction.html
Also see this:
https://geoengineering.news/#
–Lewis
Read the report where internal memos from FEMA prioritized minorities and LGTB-whatever over pretty much everyone else in need of help.
Then there was FEMAs new DEI policies.
Like most government agencies they are slow and inefficient. Some times when they show up, they can be helpful. Other times they just get in the way. Best thing to do is set up a local, community emergency plan. If and when FEMA shows up, you tell them who is in charge.
At a press conference on August 12th, 1986, US President Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
It was true in 1986, and I think it’s even more true today. The only difference is that the left-wing media is actively working with the government to try and keep it quiet.
The Left wing media has been busy since the Wilson administration, at least.
I’ve watched part of the video, but paused it so we can get to the early voting center. It’s heartbreaking and maddening at the same time.
Daisy, I implore you to consider blocking any of the regular trolls if they post their usual disgusting comments. Let them do it someplace else. This tragedy is too painful to be exposed to their mockery.
With all due respect, Carla, I disagree with blocking posts. I find it interesting to see what they think. And then as I have proven with news articles with facts, debunking their claims or assertions. That is important. It combats misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. We need to provide a space where everyone can state their point of view. Then we can debate it, discuss it and even provided facts and evidence to back our own point of view. That is what a healthy democracy, a healthy republic looks like. I welcome their efforts to disparage Daisy, the OP or those of us who post here on a regular basis. It gives me an opportunity to prove them wrong.
It would be a wicked act to deny and disparage what the people in Appalachia have been through. Or blame them – yes, I’ve seen comments on other forums that blamed them. And then mocked them because they’ll have trouble being able to vote.
I’m all for open debate, but it would be callous to treat this tragedy as just another political or social event. I can’t imagine the torture they’ve experienced in seeing their houses float away, their loved ones torn from their arms, seeing their dead neighbors’ bodies stuck in trees, their pets and animals drowned, and to top it off be denied help from their own government. A government that can’t write checks fast enough for illegal aliens, Lebanon and Ukraine.
They’re being treated like dirt by the feds and I don’t want to see it justified.
Carla, I’m with 1MJH on this one as well. While I admit Daisy has deleted posts of mine before (justifiably so) I believe it is important for different (maybe even cruel) posts to be allowed to be posted. 1MJH is like the blogs ticker and he takes time to refute and educate folks that aren’t extroverts (known to me as the smart ones😊😉), and correct the offender (kind of like snapping a pinch collar on a bad dog) who posted.
In the end this is a private blog owned, operated and written by Daisy. It’s her house. If someone decides to take a crap on the carpeting and wipe their tail on the drapes, it’s within her preview to deal with it as she chooses.
I delete a few things: insults with no point made, threats against public figures, racial and ethnic slurs, spam, and stuff that will put me on a list as a “hate site” I delete it also when people are mean to my writers. I don’t really care if people are mean to me. 😂
Jim, I agree that it’s Daisy’s house and she can do what she wants to. And this is going to be one of the rare instances when I disagree with you and 1st Marine. Have you read the comment posted by Robert LeVan? I’d made the assumption that some of the OP readers were victims of Helene and the federal government. Sadly, I was correct about that. It’s too much for them to get shot by friendly fire after all they’ve been through. And to tell the truth, I don’t consider the typical comments by the resident trolls anything close to friendly. They disgust me.
I have a blog, and when there are comments left that fit the criteria that Daisy stated, I block them. Let them go exercise their free speech someplace else. I wouldn’t allow anyone to sit in my living room and blast members of my family that have innocently had tragedy befall them. I don’t care what they have to say. I’d show them the door quickly.
You and 1st Marine can use all the logic and fact-based arguments on the trolls, for all the good it does. Which I assume is 0.
Now is the time for all good men. Drive tractors under armed militiamen guards, to the airport. Hook up to those helicopters and drag them off the runways. The militia can solve the problems with any FEMA reps who try to interfere.
We the people have got to stand up for what is right, when people are actually still perishing from all this devastation caused by our Government’s interference with weather. Take back the confiscated goods from FEMA, and distribute it to people on 4X4s, side by sides, and other ATVs to get it to the people who need it. And, in my opinion, those helicopters that were hovering above the supply staging areas, should have been shot down.
Sorry, Daisy, but it’s time for the American people to stop pussyfooting around.
Bless you,
OD
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug0IL7k3elQ&t=112s&pp=2AFwkAIB
O.D., if you have 3 minutes, I’d love to read your comments on this; as it represents an historical record of what FEMA was actually established for and it’s function vs. what we’ve been led to believe it’s function was intended for.
Jim, I’m glad you posted this. I didn’t know that truth about FEMA. I now makes me wish, even moreso, that I was young enough to go to the Carolinas and help out, personally. I’d like to stick that word “terrorism” which they lay on patriots, right up their “where the sun don’t shine”. They need to know the difference between terrorism and patriotism. I pray that Trump will get in, and that he will have the backing that he needed to have last term… but then I also know that the voting machines are still programmed to disallow this.
I stick by what I posted above, and wish people were bold enough to put FEMA people out on their butts. They need to be totally run out of the area, and not allowed back in. Now is – indeed – the time for all good men to come to the aid of the country.
Blessing, Jim,
OD
I hope one of the first things President Trump does is de-fund fema, divide its funding by 50 and send it back to the states. The same thing with the education dept.
I like how you think!
Thanks. I actually intended to say disband or eradicate fema, as well as the education dept. And that’s just the start of what needs to happen.
Yes send education and disaster aid back to the states. The governor proves again and again they are incompetent to handle our money.
It’s worse than merely incompetent, government money is a control mechanism. Not just the receipt, but the regulations saying the agency now has control. “Taking the King’s Shilling” has its consequences.
Previous to the 2016 election, Trump said he was going to drain the swamp. I don’t believe he did that in the least. Now he’s saying all kinds of great things he’s going to do… things I mostly agree with. Hopefully he isn’t just running his mouth again.
Yes. I, too, was disappointed that he didn’t drain the swamp. It appears that he negotiated playing ball with the GOP leaders, which was a bad mistake. We got 2 sort-of-conservative Supreme Court justices out of the deal, but not much more; especially from mcconnell. This time around I’m hoping for better. Frankly, I’d like to see at least 2 agencies disbanded and the money – and regulations – go back to the states. And I believe that nearly all of the agencies should be spread geographically around the U.S. It makes more sense plus, hopefully, many of the civil service employees would resign if they faced living in Nebraska or Oklahoma, etc.
DEMOCRATS stood in the way of draining the swamp with 2 bullsh*t impeachment hearings and COVID. But, he did expose the swamp, for all to see . Now they are trying to incite violene against him. You can’t expect one person to do it all. Everyone has to stand up.
FEMA is just another division of our corrupt government that needs to be de-funded and done away with. I’m old enough to remember how well certain programs like the school system, hospitals, etc. ran before our government got so involved. Between the greed, disregard for truth or decency and their inept thought processes I do not believe our government in the US does any thing good for the taxpaying US citizens.
I can only watch this in short pieces. I am weeping for the people. Weeping for the families who lost so much. Weeping that this is just old news to so many Americans. They don’t even know that they don’t know.
Darn it. It says the video is “Restricted”
I remember in junior high we students had to watch a documentary on Hitler’s holocaust.
I am glad I watched it, as it inculcated a deep suspicion of government in me.
I think this documentary ought to be shown to junior high and high school students today.
The Federal government is NOT here to help us.
They are here to prevent us from being helped and giving help.
Technically we can’t even fully trust the boots on the ground style videos and reports. People could be making stuff up for clicks, just like at any other time.
There are YouTube channels of people who live down there and have for years. Those reports I would trust more than unknowns saying horrible things. Unless they have a history of crying the sky is falling on every video they have ever put up.
Yes I’m jaded.
You trust the federal government but not ordinary Americans?
Some folks do unfortunately like to show up at disaster sites and make stuff up, just to get attention or ask for “donations.”
Discernment is always valuable during times like these.
No I don’t trust the government either. I over edited my comment for brevity and clarity and apparently deleted my assurance that I’m not a fan of anything federal or even state level.
Daisy – this was heartbreaking but unfortunately, not surprising. JoLyn is my friend and coworker, and it was an honor to help fund her kind of assistance this past week! We all need to rise up and do what’s right in the face of the bureaucracy that is so messed up! It’s the churches and not-for-profits who know what people need and are responding with ACTUAL help and compassion in this horrible disaster!
THANKS for all of your amazing blogs!
FEMA by their continuing action has painted a target on their back and I have now sworn to rely on my fellow Americans over this corrupt org. in every situation
It’s so difficult to find an organization you can trust to use your donation wisely and to deliver to the hardest hit areas. Samaritan’s Purse is an amazing organization run by Billy Graham’s son. Please consider donating to them. They have hundreds of volunteers on the ground and in the air. Their website is samaritanspurse.org.
Samaritans Purse is based right there in the disaster area yet instead of begging for help to the organizations they were delivering drinking water, meals, and generators all over those mountains with all of the supplies they could get hold of. They are helping clean out mud and wet wallboard to get ready to rehab homes that can be rebuilt. If I could I’d donate more to then as I’d know where it went.
Watching the video just shaking my head, what can you say. I pray for them all, the poor souls going through this and all the brave ones helping. God be with them all.
I had to play around with youtube to get it to play, but I got it. Then I downloaded it.
BTW: I don’t have a youtube account. Never have.
I also have part one from early October.
FEMA needs to be rebuilt or totally erased.
2 years ago Northern New Mexico had horrific fires caused by government controlled burns that got out of hand in the predicted but ignored high winds. Hundreds of homes and ranches and tiny mountain towns were burned. FEMA promised many payment but has actually paid very few. It’s been two years and folks here are talking a class action lawsuit.
It breaks my heart that FEMA has any power at all that stops private help in donations or helping hands. Our small town in western New Mexico is short on jobs or housing but we’ve sent donations of clothing, bedding, camping gear, cold weather sleeping bags and more. And I’m sure many others have also sent things. Then on October 18th Roswell and Dexter NM had half a years rain in a few fours. Flooding in the towns was 6’ or more and cars floated away into parts of town and some washed down the river. A connecting bridge between towns washed away and about half a dozen in Rosewell are destroyed. FEMA can come unless the federal government declares it a disaster area. There is a governors declaration already done.
FEMA seems focused on illegal immigrants. Certainly not focused on Americans.
Recently FEMA told northern NM folks there is no money to pay for suffering and loss even though it was government carelessness that burned so much of the northern part of the State. I hope a court will side with NM citizens this time and demand the promised help. It’s been two years.
Folks in NM have moved to help folks in Roswell and hopefully tiny Dexter as well. A pastor in Roswell opened his church for a shelter. Americans would pull together in times of disaster if the government doesn’t stop them.
I’m hoping to find a way to send garden seeds and hand tools to our southern states that have beef so destroyed. There are mountain folks that have always gardened. Yes many places are right now uninhabitable. But there are folks living in tents on their land who plan to stay and find a way to rebuild there. I’ve visited in many mountain churches and homes in decades past and they are tough determined people. I’m too old to be of any use there. For many gardening is about as much a part of their way of life as hunting or hard work is. So I’m thinking that’s a project I can work on.
I watched the entire video. Much was things I’ve already seen but I wish more folks were paying attention.
I am in Cocke County Tennessee where we had historic flooding. My family’s home and property were fine, but so many were not. I did have two children stranded for a few days at the ranch where they work/volunteer. My son is a volunteer firefighter and their station had one of their trucks float down the river during a rescue (it was recovered later but unusable). The response from around the country for our county has been incredible. Multiple fire trucks and gear donated to stations. Hay and other farm supplies from other states. Churches with needed supplies. The communities came together and made things happen. Electricity was restored quickly; water was restored quickly. Our emergency services went above and beyond their call of duty to make it all happen. I am not sure just how the federal government has been involved in all of this and I feel like that speaks volumes – we have relied on our local information channels.
Okay, I’ll start with a little nuance: There are folks in these respective federal agencies who truly want to do the right thing. Also, there’s a high probability that there are indeed those posting who are sensationalizing . . .
HOWEVER, when I consider the damnable lies and gaslighting we’ve been subjected to by this government – and especially THIS current regime over these last several years – you can be sure I’ll trust our people there, as well as fellow veterans who are doing everything they can to “git ‘r’ dun”!
I have believed from the outset that the death toll is going to go waaaaay higher, and I am alternately sick at heart for the loss and suffering, and proud as I can be of the church and the ordinary folk, along with the veterans, who have done so much, and are in it for the long haul.
I hardly need to say that here, but folks need to wake up, pull their heads out of their “fourth points of contact”, and realize that it’s up to us! The government and its attendant bureaucracy is incompetent and/or actively hostile to us!
I am currently sitting in Burnsville, NC at a volunteer site. Please believe the people on the ground. Folks cannot even rebuild. The land they owned is now a river or creek bed. Others, the land is gone as it washed in huge mudslides down the mountains. I cried just seeing the huge debris from people’s homes and businesses in the river bed. Folks are here mucking things out and still using dogs to look for bodies. I have been through two hurricanes but the debris field is just so huge. These valleys became huge funnels of water destroying everything.
Believe the boots on the ground. I live here. The local churches and communities are taking care of business way better than the government. Dolly and her group have stepped up.
WHERE are the Sheriffs??
Exactly my thoughts. Sounds like you know that in 1997 The U.S. Supreme Court in Printz v. U.S. (521 U.S. 898) , made a ruling that gives the Sheriff the ultimate power in their county… power over Potus, over everybody. During the initial aftermath of Helene and FEMA’s stupidity, numerous Sheriffs said they’ll deal with FEMA that initiates the blocking of help to the folks.
Numerous Sheriffs stated that however others weren’t backing the people in their county. Sadly in this day and age, Sheriffs are politicians and not LEOs at this point in their careers.
I live in the affected area of NC on top of Shumont Mountain, overlooking what’s left of the resort towns of Lake Lure and Chimney Rock.
2 weeks ago, the official NC death toll was 192, which was completely bogus. Now the official toll is half that. What happened? Did some of those dead people come back to life? I don’t think so. From what I know just in my area, the official death toll from 2 weeks ago was probably 5 to 10 times lower than the actual death toll.
More than a thousand people were missing after the Lake Lure dam failed. A large number of them haven’t been found yet. In places where we knew houses had been along the river, there is no longer any evidence that a house had ever been there. Nothing. No foundation. No power pole. No fencing. No pavement. Nothing, repeated over and over again in place after place.
Not only did FEMA not help, they actively impeded private efforts to help, threatening private helicopter pilots with arrest and loss of their license even if they evacuate people for medical needs. I talked to two of them who landed in the field close to my house, and they got the same story from all of the other pilots they had talked to.
Elon Musk provided starlink receivers so that those of us who had no power and no working cell towers in range, could communicate with the outside world. FEMA confiscated them. So Elon did an end run around them and directly donated them to local volunteer fire departments. Thank you Elon! You enabled us to connect to the outside world when everything else was down.
Without power, well pumps don’t work, and although I have a spring down the hill from my house, it will take a lot of chainsaw work to get enough downed trees out of the way to get there. For 23 days we got water from the firehouse, 30 gallons at a time. But when your horses, pigs and chickens drink a minimum of 24 gallons a day, That’s a lot of water that has to be brought home to give you enough to drink and flush a toilet with.
With my small pastures ruined and all of my feed destroyed the generous donations of strangers, flown in by helicopter, got those animals fed and kept them from starving. FEMA wanted to put a stop to that. After all, we sort of kind of had a road, in most places anyway, except where it fell off the mountain. If we were really, really careful, we could get down and back without dying, and eventually we could get somewhere where we could buy feed after making numerous detours around areas where the roads were completely gone. So it wasn’t a crisis situation, not really. After all, people in Asheville were having to drink their Chardonnay in the dark so they had it really hard, and needed to be taken care of first.
FEMA wanted to confiscate all the donated food and water supplies from our firehouse, which were mainly brought in by men in 4×4 UTVs over a dangerous emergency road which was cut over the course of about a week. Luckily, after making as much nuisance out of themselves as possible, they were told to pound sand and leave since they weren’t going to help us.
3 weeks after the event, a small crew from the North Carolina national guard showed up. Had we been waiting on Roy Cooper, a lot of us would have already been dead.
We’re alive and slowly starting to recover thanks to the generous donations and help of many private individuals and groups from across the country and despite the “help” of our federal and state government. But in my property alone which didn’t suffer any flood damage despite 38 inches of rain in less than 24 hours, it will take months to clear up the tree damage , not to mention having to build a new barn. And the people down in the flood and avalanche areas have it far worse.
If your house suffered flood damage or was even destroyed, insurance companies aren’t paying unless you had flood insurance. We live in the mountains with little creeks and streams and small rivers around us. It never rains this much and people would laugh at you if you wanted to buy flood insurance.
Insurance companies are trading those with avalanche damaged and destroyed homes the same way. Did you have avalanche insurance? No ? It’s tough to be you.
Big organizations are here with open checkbooks paying pennies on the dollar for properties. Desperate people who’ve lost everything and are facing the prospect of no insurance money coming in have no other choice. We saw the best of people in the beginning. Now, we’re seeing the worst sort of vultures swooping in to devour the carcasses and the remains of people’s lives.
I could go on, but this post is long enough. Suffice it to say that the situation on the ground in Appalachia is far, far worse than what the government and media are telling people, but the individual men and women and private groups in this country are the best in the world!
Thank you so much for the personal update. I figured that, given the independent nature of Appalachian people, there were sure to be readers who live there. Your post wasn’t too long, in fact, I hope you continue to keep us posted. God bless you.
Here are the simple facts. FEMA has 20,000 employees spread out over the entire country at currently 20 natural disasters that Helene is but one of. Wildfires, flooding in Vermont and two hurricanes are probably the best known. There are 1200 FEMA responders in Western North Carolina. So it might take a little while to get to everyone affected.
Thank you James. Greg for your effort to whitewash the absolute incompetence , neglect, and actual malice we’ve seen from FEMA.
We learned a long time ago that we can’t depend on the federal government or the state government when we need help. They’ll be here long after the immediate needs have been met, then take the credit for “rescuing” us . Meanwhile, people died waiting for help that ordinary heroes, churches, companies, and other groups just couldn’t provide fast enough because their resources don’t match the governments’. At the same time, the aforementioned heroes not only helped tens of thousands of people, they SAVED A LOT of those who would have died waiting on FEMA.
I know. I live here. I saw it take place. If that’s not the case for you, then what you’re getting from the MSM and government sources is far from the reality of life in this area and FEMA’s “help”.
Hi Daisy,
I am new at this computer stuff. I was trying to get more info on donating to these poor souls that have lost everything. I do not trust anybody as most individuals are not trustworthy. I do trust you and info that I have seen. I lost my wife last year and thought it would be a great idea to donate some clothing and blankets if possible. If you can give me some info on where to send, physical address to deliver these items, it would be appreciated and I would be able to help, a little. I tried to email you, but was not able to as it came back as undeliverable. I just want to help the best I can and make sure that these items are received by those in need. Thank you for your time and consideration.