Huricane Helene devastation

[Suff]

I'm seeing huge volumes of information about it on X but very little on UK news. I had to search the UK news to find it. There are articles but not a lot.

The devastation in North Carolina has been horrific, they are talking way more than 1,000 dead, people have been 5 days now without clean water or food and people from across the US are flying in private planes, helicopters and drones to get aid to the stranded people.

Needless to say Starlink kits are being pushed out and SpaceX has given 30 days free connectivity for anyone in the affected zones because the people who had bought them were having problems getting them registered fast enough. Support groups literally stripped Costco and other stores in neighbouring states and flew them in to try and get any comms up at all. Landline, internet and cell services are all down.

Then there comes the somewhat more sinister side of things. Fema was late and by the time they arrived people were already organising themselves. It is reported that they are literally taking donations which support groups were using for fuel and supplies to get out to the community, they are forcing self help groups to disband and stop supplying the community but have not organised themselves to replace the service they are forcing to stand down. This is not fully certified but I suspect after this is all over a lot of depositions are going to be made.

Elon has his teams on the ground, they have set up powered areas from which they are operating helicopters and sending out starlink kits and generators to run them. There is a current thread going with the secretary of transportation claiming that Elon is lying that they have not shut the airspace down and asking Elon to call him. Elon followed him on X then asked him to DM Elon with the phone number to call. No number is forthcoming so far.

I can see why the airspace can be shut down, they are trying to avoid crashes with so many people in such a small area without effective air traffic control. But people are literally dying and you can't take away their means of survival then replace it with nothing.

I can see that so close to an election there will be a large amount of disinformation but right now the huge volume of information flooding in from non aligned people who were visibly pushing to help 5 days ago tends to lead to the conclusion that things are not going as well as they should be and it is likely that Fema is using a heavy hand which is not helping in the slightest.

This is the deep south, they take their second amendment rights very seriously. Someone is going to get shot.

I hope nobody has relatives/friends in this mess. By all accounts it's pretty horrific.

[Suff]

Update, the sectrans called they are going to work to sort it out.

[Workingman]

Way more than 1,000 dead eh?

Any links to that total, other than St Elon's X (formally known as Twitcrap)?

Any official proof of the other claims made or is your rant just another Starlink advert?

I have my suspicions and I need proof / official links to the claims made otherwise I call BS / conspiracy theories. The world's media has not yet fallen for these conspiracy theories, nor have I. There are loads of articles on Helene and they are not hard to find. Try a search engine.

How are your Musk shares doing? Do they need a boost given that Tesla shares and sales are falling?

[cromwell]

NBC is talking about 200 dead so far, which is pretty bad.
I've more or less stopped watching the BBC and Sky news because all it ever seems to be is News at Gaza.
FEMA = Federal Emergency Management Agency; never knew that before.
The trouble is when you assume responsibility for managing emergencies then you have to deliver. Shutting down people who are trying to help themselves s a bad look if you can't do that.

[Workingman]

Just like Robert Palmer... I'm "Looking for Clues".

[Kaz]

I have a few FB friends in the States, it does seem pretty bad out there

[Workingman]

This is true, Kaz, it is the worst landfall hurricane since Katrina in 2005.

However. it you trawl through the reputable US media such as the NYT, Wash Post, Atlanta Journal, Charlotte Observer (both local) you will find rebuttals from FEMA, the FAA, the DoD, National Guard and the Red Cross to the claims made in the conspiracy echo chambers such as X.

Comms are partly down, obviously, airspace is not closed to registered flights, people are being sheltered and fed, Costco's in nearby States are not being raided for supplies of generators nor are people prevented from delivering them or other help, and so on and so forth. Some roads are closed because they are dangerous from landslides and floods or to allow emergency vehicles and teams free access. Self-help groups have not been banned but they have been required to register with the emergency services so that all help can be coordinated.

I have made a donation towards the relief effort and I will not be dissuaded by false claims.

[Suff]

Way more than 1,000 dead eh?

Any links to that total, other than St Elon's X (formally known as Twitcrap)?

Any official proof of the other claims made or is your rant just another Starlink advert?

I have my suspicions and I need proof / official links to the claims made otherwise I call BS / conspiracy theories. The world's media has not yet fallen for these conspiracy theories, nor have I. There are loads of articles on Helene and they are not hard to find. Try a search engine.

How are your Musk shares doing? Do they need a boost given that Tesla shares and sales are falling?

No this isn't a Starlink ad. Even though it's the only solution which is going to help people communicate and it is having to be flown in via helicopter due to roads being washed out. There is a raging debate going on about regulations and AST SpaceMobile and Starlink right now but there was some news that just came out about Starlink which I'm sure you totally missed as it won't be broadcast on general news. It should increase the news coming out even more.

Proof? They've found 200 bodies so far and FEMA is still bogged down in the city/town areas. They haven't even got anywhere near the remote areas and the devastation was really dramatic. The estimates are from people on the ground in the more remote areas, they had Zero warning that whole valleys were going to get hit with a decades water and wash entire homes away down the river.

FYI, SpaceX is a privately owned company, it doesn't increase in value when things like this happen because traders and speculators can't bid on it. No matter what SpaceX do in this disaster it won't affect their value at all. That only increases when they sell more shares for a specific value which revalues the stock.

[Suff]

I have a few FB friends in the States, it does seem pretty bad out there

The literal flood of information coming in on X is hard to process. The people on the ground there are talking about finding children with broken pieces of wood tied to them, no parents, clearly the parents tied them up high and went down with the flood. People were caught in cars, homes went downriver, complete communities were inundated. There are cars all over the place with bodies in them as people tried to flee realising it was all going too bad and got caught in it.

Needless to say the dead hand of an unguided government is initially making things worse.

What is currently enraging people is that FEMA have taken over entire hotels and are blocking people with children who have lost their homes from getting a roof over their heads. FEMA is offering a LOAN of $750, repayable when the insurance pays up, to "help" them. Accommodation is charging up to $1,000 a night because everyone is full and they are making the most of it.

The situation is so much worse than any of the press and media are making of it. Mainly because it will look REALLY bad for Harris and they are all shoulder to shoulder trying to keep Trump out. BTW so is Facebook and all the other social media.

[Suff]

Meanwhile a Cat 3 is forming up in the Gulf, it is going to hit Cat4 and then landfall over Florida as a Cat 3. Because it will be so large and Florida is a peninsular it will go right over as a hurricane and still be a Cat 1 when it gets out over the other side.

This is new for me. Hurricanes are a heat engine. Literally they transfer immense amounts of ocean heat energy to the upper atmosphere creating devastation on the way. Mere days after a Cat 5 hurricane has swept over the Gulf another Cat4 is going to track over almost exactly the same waters. It takes a certain temperature of Ocean to sustain a Cat1 hurricane, about 26C, it is why they die as they move North.

If this makes a Cat 4 then lands as a Cat 3 running over the same water as Helene, it will be a significant stand out.