Wouldn’t 30 miles north in AL be near your territory? Also, Fountain looks nice at the top of Bay County.
Actually, you aren’t far from the highest point in FL at something like 340 feet.
JimA
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10-20 years ago we had a late winter rain storm. A combination of melting snow, a couple inches of rain falling in a few hours, and the hills funneled the water into the creeks. The water lines that crossed the creeks were torn out when the rocks and dirt covering them was washed away. We were without water for most of a week. I feel so bad for the people of Asheville.
I’m always surprised how optimized and thus fragile the macroeconomy is. I was reading about Hurricane Helene and saw that Spruce Pine, NC got a record 24" of rain. Hmm, Spruce Pine, NC, that sounds familiar. Where did I hear about Spruce Pine? An article back in March.
A Wharton professor who studies AI, innovation, and start-ups dramatically claims that “the modern economy rests on a single road in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.”
Turns out, the quartz under Spruce Pine is the purest in the world. And you need high-purity quartz to make semiconductors. You can purify dirty quartz but that costs money. Cheaper to use Spruce Pine quartz. So the entire planetary semiconductor infrastructure is optimized to rely on a single road to a single factory at a single mine in the mountains of Appalachia, currently engulfed in a flood that swept away roads, bridges, and towns, killing dozens, and the death toll is still rising.
I want to be clear, I have no knowledge of the specific situation in Spruce Pine. I couldn’t find anything apart from a sentence saying 24" of rain. Like the rest of the region, they are still busy with search and rescue, bringing in water, and restoring power. Hopefully the workers and single road, factory, and mine are all OK. But I wonder how long the high-purity quartz stockpile can last if production is interrupted?
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Would you like to take the edge off that cynicism?
We know several people in Asheville, NC. It’s 2,000 feet above sea level and 300 miles from the nearest shore, yet one of our friends of them has several feet of water in his living room, another has 12 trees down on her property, one other couple we haven’t heard from yet.
That’s because cell service and electrical service is out over wide parts of the area (cell companies have just enabled “roaming” for customers who are not their customers but whose carrier(s) have towers destroyed because of the hurricane. Both I-40 and I-26 have been closed due to landslides and mudslides, and dozens, perhaps hundreds of people have been rescued by boat because roads are impassible. Gas stations are inoperative, water supplies under “boil” orders in some areas, and stores wiped out, even if they survived.
On the Tennessee side of the border a hospital was overwhelmed by the water, patients and doctors were on the roof, but our Governor suggested “thoughts and prayers” (true) rather than call out the National Guard or take any other measures. Luckily his advisors talked some sense into him before those people died, either of drowning or starvation or dehydration. (It always takes a long time for “thoughts and prayers” to be realized.)
Here in Knoxville we had 3 days of rain occasionally biblical, and some amazing wind gusts which remarkably only brought down one tree in our neighborhood. And we never lost power for more than a minute or two.
So yeah, I’d say “the hysteria” was well deserved, as we now know that the death toll is approaching 100. But, of course, you may disagree and think it was all overblown, as usual.
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A friend who used to post on the RELE board before the banishment shared this on the Facebook incarnation of RELE.
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Except it doesn’t. As it turns out, you can purity dirty quartz but it is more expensive. So that single road could contribute to inflation but not destroy the modern economy.
DB2
I agree, the macroeconomy will adapt if necessary. It will take time and dollars. The entire infrastructure and supply chain depends on Spruce Pine. How long would it take and how much would it cost to build the factories and rejigger the industry? You post a lot about the practical challenges and costs of moving to green energy. The same is probably true here, with the additional challenge of it being a sudden disruption.
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Agreed. Any idea of available stockpiles of the cheaper stuff?
DB2
So we’re about four days after landfall, and I think it’s safe to say that the reality matched the media hype. This was one of the deadliest hurricanes to hit the U.S. in a century.
The confirmed death toll from Helene is already at around 140 people killed. That already makes it the seventh deadliest hurricane in the U.S. since the 1920’s. But there are still hundreds that are missing or unaccounted for, and authorities expect the death toll to rise materially. It’s pretty likely to pass Hurricane Diane (1955 - 184 people killed) and become one of the top 5 deadliest storms in modern times. Possibly top 3.
It appears that the majority of those deaths will be from massive flash flooding far from coastal areas, as warned about in the OP.
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I will agree that some areas appear to be heavily impacted…and the media milks the ghoul show day, after day, after day.
Ever see “Ace In The Hole”? First time I saw it, in the 60s, it was known as “The Big Carnival”.
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I think I’ll stick with His Girl Friday, Citizen Kane, Broadcast News and Ground Hog Day for my media movies.
Are you implying that the media is actively working to prolong the rescue and recovery efforts in the wake of Helene?
Look, I’m always down to criticize the “if it bleeds, it leads” aspect of sensationalist journalism. But in this case, I don’t know how fair a jab that is.
This really was a very dangerous storm. It really was dangerous to people in places that don’t have a lot of familiarity or experience with the effects of tropical systems. It really did end up killing a lot of people, and has left a lot of people in very dire straits indeed.
It’s the kind of news story that does warrant a lot of focus. The heavy focus before the storm probably provided a lot of useful information - or at least awareness - to a lot of folks who needed it (even if they didn’t all heed it, whether by choice or constraint). And the heavy focus after the storm is appropriate - that’s an area that’s heavily stricken and dependent on outside help for the near term, and warrants the close attention of the news media.
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They make it seem that way. Ever notice, the one time in ten, where the daily “severe weather” hype pays off, they show the same video, day after day, while they exploit people’s personal grief for profit?