Western NC disaster update (10-17-2024--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalinershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] The email is pete at thepetekalinershow.com. But the most important thing today is a text line number. It's only five digits. It's very simple to remember. It's 44-834. 44-834. 44-834.

[00:00:46] You know, if you say something over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, it starts to sound musical. So I'm going to try it right now for the next 10 minutes. No, I'm kidding.

[00:00:54] 44-834. You want to text the word help and the number one, all one word, help1 to 44-834. And that's going to make the donation to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina. And I'll tell you what they're going to do with the money and the supplies.

[00:01:12] They are also doing an in-person supply drive until 5 o'clock tonight at 500-B Spratt Street.

[00:01:21] So if you want to go and drop stuff off, you can do that. It's at Second Harvest Food Bank.

[00:01:25] And so we here at WBT, along with all of the sister stations here in the Charlotte market for Radio 1, we are doing the Radiothon.

[00:01:36] And so all of the stations are all trying to raise money. We're over $6,000 so far today.

[00:01:41] So if you could make a donation, that would be awesome. I mean, it's not a contest, but if it was a contest, I'd like to win it of all the hosts.

[00:01:49] So if you would like to help me beat all of the hosts. And look, we're all at a disadvantage.

[00:01:54] Like Winterbull's got four hours. He does a four-hour show. So I'm just kidding.

[00:01:59] All right. I want to welcome to the studio Jim Puckett. He is a resident of Spruce Pine, North Carolina, but he's also a former Mecklenburg County commissioner.

[00:02:09] And that's how I knew him. And then he fled Mecklenburg County, a.k.a. retired.

[00:02:16] And so you chose to move up to Spruce Pine. How long were you up there? How long have you been up there now?

[00:02:22] Moved up there in December of 2021. So I'll keep going on three years.

[00:02:29] All right. So, yeah. So you got there just like right around the time that I got let go from the radio station, sounds like, working up there.

[00:02:39] So and then I came down here. I'm not avoiding you, I promise. But nor are you.

[00:02:44] Right. OK. Well, it seems like you're following me. That's what it. All right.

[00:02:48] So you're in but you're in town. You're doing some work, as all retirees do.

[00:02:52] And that brought you back down to to the Charlotte area, as coincidence would have it today.

[00:02:58] So I said, well, why don't you come on in, see the same old studio and and hang out for a while.

[00:03:03] So he's going to hang out. We're going to talk to Corey Valancourt from Smoky Mountain News as well at 1230.

[00:03:08] And yes, I will get to the audio from the Kamala Harris interview last night or as I've seen people refer to it now as the Kamala Kazi for her Black Knight interview.

[00:03:23] I've heard the Black Knight from Princess Bride.

[00:03:26] Oh, yes, I think. No. Right. No, no.

[00:03:28] Right. Not Princess Bride.

[00:03:31] Monty Python. Monty Python. Right. Right.

[00:03:34] Right. The Black Knight. It was merely a flesh wound. Yeah.

[00:03:36] Sorry. I don't know why I thought Princess Bride.

[00:03:38] Anyway. So. All right.

[00:03:40] So tell us, were you you were not at home.

[00:03:44] You were not in Spruce Pine when the storm hit.

[00:03:47] Right. You were on you were traveling on business, I think.

[00:03:50] And so how how did you get back to Spruce Pine and what did you see trying to get back in?

[00:03:58] It was interesting. I actually was ironically on the Atlantic coast as in Myrtle Beach.

[00:04:02] At a conference and I had a you know, we saw that was coming towards the mountains and I'd survive Hugo.

[00:04:09] And I thought, how bad can it be?

[00:04:12] My wife called me Friday morning and really was kind of terrified.

[00:04:18] I mean, we live on the side of a mountain.

[00:04:22] We have massive trees around us.

[00:04:25] And she said the trees are just snapping.

[00:04:28] Fortunately for us, none of them fell in the house.

[00:04:31] We didn't have any damage.

[00:04:33] Oddly enough, my mountain view is now much better because it took out a lot of trees that I was probably going to take out anyway.

[00:04:39] So God is good.

[00:04:40] Yeah. Well, all that nature gets in the way of seeing all of the nature.

[00:04:44] Seeing the rest of nature.

[00:04:44] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:45] But then so I left Friday, drove in, got in that evening, could not get anywhere close to Spruce Pine.

[00:04:54] Highway Patrol shut everything down.

[00:04:56] You could get to Marion, which is just right off I-40.

[00:04:59] That was it.

[00:05:00] Turned around, came back to Charlotte area, spent the night and then spent.

[00:05:04] It took me about eight hours Saturday to kind of weave my way through back roads, going up through Morganton, little two-lane roads, GPS, Google Maps.

[00:05:16] And those apps worked for you going through those areas?

[00:05:20] Well, they showed you where the roads were.

[00:05:24] They didn't.

[00:05:24] You go down and, you know, if you hit a dead end, then you turn around.

[00:05:28] I spent probably an hour and a half, all told, on the side of the road with people cutting trees up to make a passage.

[00:05:36] But then did finally get in and could not get to my house because the trees were all down in our development.

[00:05:44] We have probably the only development in Spruce Pine.

[00:05:47] Like a neighborhood community.

[00:05:48] Like a neighborhood community.

[00:05:49] It's a golf course community.

[00:05:51] And so I had to park at the bottom and walk, literally climb through downed trees to get to my house and hope that my wife, it's, you know, 10 o'clock at night and that she wouldn't shoot me when I knocked on the door.

[00:06:06] It would be a very helpful, handy excuse.

[00:06:09] Yeah.

[00:06:09] You know, I had like my phone flashlight, you know, shining on my face as I walked, you know, hoping the dogs would bark and she would notice who I was.

[00:06:17] So you said it took you eight hours to get from what you said, Marion?

[00:06:23] From Charlotte.

[00:06:24] From Charlotte.

[00:06:25] From Charlotte up.

[00:06:25] And that was just kind of.

[00:06:26] Normally, how long of a trip is that?

[00:06:28] About two hours.

[00:06:29] Yeah.

[00:06:29] Yeah.

[00:06:29] And so it's a whole lot of stop, turn around, go back, just find your way.

[00:06:33] What did you see on the way up?

[00:06:37] Just, no pun intended, mountains of trees down.

[00:06:42] I suspect there was actually more damage from spinoff tornadoes probably than anything else because it's interesting.

[00:06:50] You'll go through areas where there's not a lot of trees and then you'll go through, you know, 300 yards of everything's down.

[00:06:59] And so it really did look a lot like path of tornadoes.

[00:07:02] And I'm sure it is.

[00:07:03] As the hurricane winds hit and they hit the mountains, I'm sure it spins off.

[00:07:07] That's the case in a lot of places, but they were just massive trees.

[00:07:12] It had rained for three days prior to Helene showing up.

[00:07:17] Yeah, I saw it was seven to 11 inches of rain prior to the landfall.

[00:07:21] Right.

[00:07:21] So, and the trees in the mountains, the trees in Memphis, they are constantly under 60 and 70 mile per hour gust.

[00:07:30] But they're all, it comes from the north and the west, not from the south and the east, which is what happens when a hurricane.

[00:07:37] And so these massive trees that, you know, I've been in thunderstorms where I was like, oh my word, these things are, you know, it's four foot oak trees should not be swaying around in the breeze.

[00:07:48] Yeah.

[00:07:49] But, you know, the wind shifted and they just came down and they came down.

[00:07:56] I don't know, you know, if people can remember Hugo and the piles of debris and limbs and stuff are on the side of the road.

[00:08:03] It's, that's just a fraction of what's up there.

[00:08:07] And this is, you know, the mountains don't have a whole lot of shoulder.

[00:08:11] On the sides of the road.

[00:08:13] On the side of the road.

[00:08:13] So it's literally just on the side of the road.

[00:08:16] And I can't fathom how, what's going to happen with all of that.

[00:08:19] Yeah.

[00:08:20] Yeah.

[00:08:20] It's the amount of, of debris that needs to be pulled out and disposed of.

[00:08:27] I'm, you know, I've seen people complaining now because all, all the burning and now it's, you know, it's making people's allergies and asthma worse and all of this stuff.

[00:08:36] Um, so you mentioned though, I want to go back real quick because you had mentioned the tornadoes.

[00:08:42] Um, that was one of the things I was not aware of when I got up there, uh, to Asheville back in 2012.

[00:08:49] Um, and started doing news coverage and stuff was the, was the tornadic activity.

[00:08:54] I thought tornadoes don't happen in the mountains.

[00:08:56] Right.

[00:08:56] I thought they only, you know, went after Kansas.

[00:09:00] In the plains.

[00:09:00] Yeah.

[00:09:00] And, um, but no, it's, and in fact, the mountains, um, they affect the weather patterns and the clouds and the wind movements and all that stuff.

[00:09:09] And so, yeah, you're like, you're living in this inside of these valleys where the wind direction changes, uh, because of the topography.

[00:09:18] Um, so I have no doubt there were spinoffs.

[00:09:20] And that was like the dirty side, right?

[00:09:21] Of the, of the hurricane.

[00:09:23] I think they call it too.

[00:09:24] Um, Jim Puckett, former Mecklenburg County commissioner, now a resident of Spruce Pine is in studio with us.

[00:09:30] We are talking about, um, the devastation out in Western North Carolina and asking you to help out.

[00:09:35] Um, we're, uh, raising money and helping the second harvest food bank of Metrolina.

[00:09:40] Uh, they do currently serve not really the, this total affected area.

[00:09:46] Um, they're generally in our area.

[00:09:48] So why are we supporting them?

[00:09:50] Well, they are actually, um, they're helping out with manna food bank because manna food bank.

[00:09:58] Um, and I did a lot of work with manna when I was up in Asheville.

[00:10:01] Also, um, they were, they lost everything.

[00:10:05] They were right on the Swan and Noah river and, uh, their entire warehouse, a massive warehouse of food is gone.

[00:10:12] And so, uh, second harvest is, uh, sending trucks every day to assist manna.

[00:10:20] So, uh, that's what, that's what this is going to be used for.

[00:10:23] That's what we're helping them to do today.

[00:10:25] So if you can text help one, all one word, and it's the new, the number one, help one.

[00:10:31] And send that text to 44, 834, or you can go to the website, um, and make a donation there.

[00:10:38] Uh, but, uh, that's the whole, uh, that's the whole mission today as part of our, uh, urban one radio one or, uh, telethon.

[00:10:46] Telethon.

[00:10:46] We're not taking phone calls on this.

[00:10:48] We're not Jerry Lewis.

[00:10:49] Radiothon.

[00:10:50] Sorry.

[00:10:50] The radiothon.

[00:10:52] I don't want to say telethon.

[00:10:53] We're not NPR.

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[00:11:58] We are raising money for Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina as part of our Radio 1 Radiothon all day.

[00:12:05] All of the stations here with the Radio 1 cluster of stations.

[00:12:08] We got 105.3, 107.9, Praise 100, WFNZ, 1025 The Block, and us.

[00:12:18] And we're all trying to raise money.

[00:12:20] You can make a donation.

[00:12:21] Help 1.

[00:12:22] Text HELP1, the number 1, HELP1, to 44834.

[00:12:28] And that'll help Second Harvest in their efforts to support the food distribution and helping the Manna Food Bank in Asheville.

[00:12:39] Manna Food Bank had a huge warehouse filled with food.

[00:12:43] And this was like a bipartisan thing.

[00:12:46] Everybody loved Manna.

[00:12:48] Everybody helped them out.

[00:12:49] Like, Pat McCrory showed up at one of their fundraisers one year.

[00:12:54] And so that was interesting.

[00:12:56] And Pat showed up in Asheville, and somebody started demanding answers about HB2 or something.

[00:13:03] But no, but everybody supports Manna up there.

[00:13:07] And so they got devastated, and they provided a lot of food for hungry people in the area.

[00:13:13] So we're helping them help those people.

[00:13:15] So if you can help us, that would be fantastic.

[00:13:17] We're trying to raise a billion dollars, let's call it.

[00:13:22] Why not?

[00:13:23] Jim Puckett, former Mecklenburg County Commissioner, he is in studio with me.

[00:13:27] He happened to be in town.

[00:13:28] So I said, hey, why don't you come on in and hang out for a while?

[00:13:31] And he agreed to because he lives in Spruce Pine now.

[00:13:35] And as I understand it, you know the mayor now of Spruce Pine.

[00:13:40] Well, everybody knows everybody in Spruce Pine.

[00:13:44] It's not very hard to actually in a Bible study with the mayor of Spruce Pine.

[00:13:49] All right.

[00:13:49] So let's talk a little bit, because we were talking about how you tried to get back up to your house and took you eight hours to drive up there,

[00:13:58] which is normally a two-hour trip after the storm.

[00:14:00] And so are the roads still there in Spruce Pine?

[00:14:06] Some.

[00:14:07] Some.

[00:14:07] There are a lot of roads.

[00:14:10] And ironically, if you go online and just look at you, you will see roads that literally the yellow line is there.

[00:14:19] And half to the left, it's gone.

[00:14:22] And to the right, it's there.

[00:14:23] I don't know how.

[00:14:25] Maybe it's because of the way they crest the roads.

[00:14:27] Yeah.

[00:14:27] But when the roads washed away, they literally take a lane.

[00:14:30] There are an awful lot that are just completely gone.

[00:14:33] I have a road in my neighborhood that the old city reservoir was above it.

[00:14:38] I didn't even know it was there.

[00:14:39] It's way up in the woods.

[00:14:41] And so there was a little creek just for overflow when that happened.

[00:14:45] And when I say a creek, it's just a little bitty stream.

[00:14:48] Right.

[00:14:49] I was over there the other day.

[00:14:51] It washed out 40 feet across and 20 feet deep, the road and everything under it, just from what was, I mean, I don't know.

[00:15:03] Two foot wide?

[00:15:04] Oh, yeah.

[00:15:04] Two foot wide and six inches deep type of a deal.

[00:15:07] The amount of water is just unbelievable.

[00:15:11] Spruce Pine itself is on the Toe River downtown.

[00:15:15] The Toe River, people trout fish, fly fishing it all the time.

[00:15:20] So it's about four feet deep, probably 40, 50 feet wide.

[00:15:26] It took out a bridge that was 40 feet above the river.

[00:15:30] It went from four feet to somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 feet deep because they got, we got two to two and a half feet of rain.

[00:15:41] And in the mountains, it all goes down to the river.

[00:15:45] Right.

[00:15:46] And so it's just, it's, the devastation along the river is just unbelievable.

[00:15:51] You could, there are places when you ride between Spruce Pine.

[00:15:54] Spruce Pine is, by the way, almost exactly halfway between Boone and Asheville.

[00:15:59] If you go towards Asheville on 19E, which is kind of a new four-lane road,

[00:16:05] the river was off to the right, but you never saw it.

[00:16:07] Unless you crossed a bridge when it crossed under, it now looks as though the Catawba,

[00:16:15] about half again the size of the Catawba River was there and is not there anymore.

[00:16:20] It's just mud and a huge ditch that it took all the trees out and everything along and then went back.

[00:16:30] It's unbelievable.

[00:16:31] The damage, the damage to Spruce Pine, for example, I was talking with the mayor.

[00:16:35] Well, all right.

[00:16:36] We'll pick up with the mayor's talk.

[00:16:38] We're going to talk with also Corey Valancourt from Smoky Mountain News.

[00:16:41] My guest is Jim Puckett.

[00:16:42] He's in with us for the rest of the hour.

[00:16:44] So when I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's.

[00:16:47] And before he died, my mom and my dad and all of us really helped take care of him as he got progressively worse.

[00:16:52] 40 years ago, there were no treatments and not much support for caregivers and family.

[00:16:57] Things are different today because of the work of so many people, including the Alzheimer's Association of Western North Carolina.

[00:17:03] It's a great organization with awesome people.

[00:17:07] They've got huge hearts.

[00:17:08] I've been a supporter for like 25 years.

[00:17:10] This cause means a lot to me.

[00:17:12] I participate in the annual walk to end Alzheimer's and I am leading a Charlotte team this year.

[00:17:18] It's called Pete's Pack.

[00:17:19] You can sign up and join the team and walk with me.

[00:17:21] It's on October 19th at Truist Field in Uptown.

[00:17:25] Sign up at ALZ.org slash walk and then just look for my team, Pete's Pack.

[00:17:30] And there's also a link in the podcast description here.

[00:17:33] Also, I'm going to be emceeing the Gastonia Walk on October 5th.

[00:17:37] So make a team and join us or make a donation to help me hit my goal.

[00:17:40] I would really appreciate it.

[00:17:42] There are a bunch of other walks around the Carolinas and you can go to ALZ.org for all of the dates and locations.

[00:17:49] We are closer than ever to stopping Alzheimer's.

[00:17:53] And if you can help us get there, we would really appreciate it.

[00:17:56] Will you come walk with me for a different future, for families, for more time, for treatments?

[00:18:02] This is why I walk.

[00:18:03] We are raising money for Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina.

[00:18:07] Again, they've been helping with the Mana Food Bank resupply and keep people fed up in the Asheville area.

[00:18:13] And so that's who we are partnering with, along with all of our five other radio stations here in the Radio 1 cluster in Charlotte.

[00:18:20] So if you could text HELP1, that's the number one, HELP1, to 44-834.

[00:18:27] And that'll make a donation.

[00:18:29] You can make a donation that way.

[00:18:30] You can check out their websites as well.

[00:18:32] But the texting is the easiest way to do it.

[00:18:35] And we appreciate everybody's help in helping others.

[00:18:38] I want to welcome back to the program Corey Valancourt.

[00:18:41] He's with the Smoky Mountain News.

[00:18:43] Smokymountainnews.com is the website.

[00:18:44] Corey, how are you, sir?

[00:18:47] Hey, Pete.

[00:18:47] I'm doing well.

[00:18:48] Hope you all are.

[00:18:49] I am doing all right.

[00:18:51] And I got in studio with me.

[00:18:52] He's Jim Puckett.

[00:18:53] He's a former Mecklenburg County Commissioner.

[00:18:55] But he retired up to Spruce Pine.

[00:18:56] So he happened to be in town as well.

[00:19:00] So first off, are you doing okay?

[00:19:03] How are you getting by?

[00:19:05] Just fine, Pete.

[00:19:06] I was a lot more fortunate than most people.

[00:19:08] I didn't really suffer any damage to my home.

[00:19:10] Didn't really lose power or water for any extended period of time.

[00:19:14] So that's just enabled me to continue to do my job without undue hardship personally.

[00:19:19] Yeah.

[00:19:21] So, all right.

[00:19:22] What have you been seeing?

[00:19:22] I think we talked with you about, I don't know, a week, 10 days ago or so.

[00:19:26] Yeah.

[00:19:27] So what is your day?

[00:19:29] Like, what's a normal day for Corey Valancourt look like now?

[00:19:33] Well, you know, we moved past the immediate triage stage of this storm here in Haywood County.

[00:19:38] Of course, there's still great need in some isolated pockets.

[00:19:41] And, of course, Buncombe County has fared far worse.

[00:19:43] So we keep those people in our thoughts and prayers as we go through our days.

[00:19:48] But for us, generally now, it's all about being responsive to government communications.

[00:19:54] We're getting stuff from Governor Cooper, you know, regularly.

[00:19:57] He just increased the unemployment benefits.

[00:20:01] Other agencies are taking actions.

[00:20:03] And as I told you yesterday, we're currently awaiting Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg,

[00:20:09] who I understand is in the River Arts District at the moment and will be making his way to

[00:20:14] Canton and then holding a media availability somewhere out on the destroyed stretch of

[00:20:19] I-40 near the Tennessee line.

[00:20:22] So, Canton, if people think that name sounds familiar, it's not for the Football Hall of Fame.

[00:20:27] But there was the big paper mill that was there that closed down.

[00:20:33] Has it been over a year ago now?

[00:20:35] Yeah, man.

[00:20:36] It finally closed in early June of 23.

[00:20:39] Oh, wow.

[00:20:40] Okay.

[00:20:40] Yeah, man.

[00:20:42] Time is flying.

[00:20:43] I hear that happens as you get older.

[00:20:45] Yeah.

[00:20:46] All right.

[00:20:46] So have you been able to chat with, was it Zeb Mathers, I think, is the mayor over there,

[00:20:52] right, of Canton?

[00:20:53] Mayor Zeb Smathers.

[00:20:55] Smathers.

[00:20:55] He's been in the parking lot of his law office as we speak.

[00:20:59] So, you know, Mayor Smathers has had to take this town through unprecedented challenges

[00:21:03] over the last four or five years.

[00:21:05] You know, we had COVID just as Canton was kind of coming back.

[00:21:09] Then we had deadly flooding in 2021, still under the shroud of COVID.

[00:21:17] 2022 was an unusually quiet year for us.

[00:21:20] But then 2023, the shock closing of the mill.

[00:21:24] Now 2024, flood damage that is far in excess of 2021.

[00:21:28] And regional in nature, which means our neighbors aren't coming to help us as much as they did

[00:21:35] in 21 because they have to help themselves.

[00:21:37] Right.

[00:21:38] If they can even get there.

[00:21:39] How does the infrastructure look in Haywood County and around your parts?

[00:21:43] Well, just like 2021, lots of private bridges have been washed out.

[00:21:48] You've seen these creekside communities where there's a rickety little bridge going across.

[00:21:52] And it's the only way in or out for most of these people.

[00:21:55] So that's going to be an ongoing concern as it was in 2021.

[00:21:59] Other than that, the rest of the infrastructure is fine.

[00:22:04] 276, 215 going down into some of the more remote parts.

[00:22:07] That's open.

[00:22:08] I-40 is open all the way through the Canton exit.

[00:22:14] So you can get to Clyde or whatever's left of it.

[00:22:17] You can get to Waynesville.

[00:22:19] You can get to Maggie Valley and, you know, then go on to Cherokee.

[00:22:23] So by and large, other than that huge break up near the Tennessee line, you know, our infrastructure,

[00:22:30] at least road-wise, is doing very well.

[00:22:32] And no concerns about the drinking water or sewerage treatment?

[00:22:37] So that's a complicated question.

[00:22:41] Municipalities here have, by and large, escaped the kind of widespread municipal water disruption

[00:22:47] that Asheville has been, you know, slaving under for these last several weeks.

[00:22:52] Canton does have some breaks here and there and boil water orders here and there.

[00:22:56] But, you know, mostly water service in Haywood County is just fine.

[00:23:00] The sewage treatment, most everybody is fine except for Canton.

[00:23:06] I mean, they're fine.

[00:23:08] But as you might recall, Pact of Evergreen, that owns the paper mill that closed, they have a water treatment facility on site,

[00:23:15] and they treat the town's municipal wastewater at almost no cost.

[00:23:19] Well, that wastewater treatment center was damaged pretty severely.

[00:23:23] And since the storm, since Friday morning at 7 a.m., I believe, untreated waste from the town of Canton has been flowing directly into the Pigeon River.

[00:23:33] And I'm guessing, is Pact of, aren't they an Australian company or something, if I recall correctly?

[00:23:39] Yeah, they're a huge, huge company, but they are based in Australia.

[00:23:43] Yeah. So they're not on site, I'm assuming.

[00:23:47] Well, they are.

[00:23:48] Oh, okay.

[00:23:49] They're under contract to treat this wastewater with the town since the mid-60s.

[00:23:55] And, you know, I don't know exactly how the EPA is going to look at this,

[00:23:59] but certainly fecal coliform is something that is tested and you can be fined if the levels are too high.

[00:24:05] Now, is there an exception for a thousand-year storm?

[00:24:08] I don't know the answer to that, but town officials have told me that Pact of is working very hard to get this back online.

[00:24:15] So you're going to go and join the Transportation Secretary, I take it, if you get a chance to ask him any questions.

[00:24:23] You got anything that's top of mind that you want to ask him about?

[00:24:26] You know, my news editor, Kyle Perotti, is working on that side of the story,

[00:24:30] and I suspect his questions are going to be related to I-40.

[00:24:34] When? How soon? How quickly?

[00:24:36] Also, something that's overlooked, it's not really part of transportation infrastructure,

[00:24:40] but it's part of tourism infrastructure.

[00:24:43] That's the Blue Ridge Parkway.

[00:24:45] I just wrote a story a couple of months ago that the parkway experienced its highest visitation ever.

[00:24:51] They attributed a $1.4 billion economic impact to small communities all along the Blue Ridge Parkway,

[00:24:59] Virginia and North Carolina.

[00:25:00] And so as tourists are prevented from getting here on I-40, Blue Ridge Parkway is no longer an option for them.

[00:25:09] We're very concerned about the impact on tourism, on the hospitality industry,

[00:25:14] and on municipal governments that, to a certain extent, rely on the sales tax revenue that's collected and redistributed to them.

[00:25:22] So we're very concerned, being a tourist-driven economy, about how these infrastructure challenges are going to affect folks.

[00:25:30] Yeah.

[00:25:31] Corey Valancourt from the Smoky Mountain News.

[00:25:33] Anything else you want to add before we let you go?

[00:25:36] I just want to thank you all for not forgetting about us.

[00:25:39] There's still a lot of need out here, and what you guys are doing, trying to raise money,

[00:25:43] especially for MANA, which was wiped out, it's crucial.

[00:25:46] And, you know, on behalf of folks out here, I just want to thank everybody listening and everybody donating.

[00:25:51] Well, it's our pleasure to help out any way we can.

[00:25:54] Corey, I appreciate your time.

[00:25:55] We'll have you back on soon.

[00:25:56] Stay safe.

[00:25:57] Thank you, Pete.

[00:25:57] Take care.

[00:25:58] You too.

[00:25:58] That's Corey Valancourt.

[00:26:00] Joining me in studio is former Mecklenburg County Commissioner Jim Puckett,

[00:26:04] who is now a retiree and resident of Spruce Pine, North Carolina.

[00:26:10] And we were talking a little bit about the challenges that Spruce Pine has had,

[00:26:13] and these are representative of a lot of these smaller communities all around Western North Carolina.

[00:26:20] The road situation is bad.

[00:26:23] Crews are working to get them repaired as best as they can, at least temporarily,

[00:26:28] open up as many roads as possible.

[00:26:29] And then the other big problem is the water and sewer.

[00:26:32] So I think the last time we talked, Jim, you had said something that the,

[00:26:35] was it the water treatment facility or the sewer treatment,

[00:26:41] that one of them was severely damaged, if not wiped out?

[00:26:47] It's sewage treatment.

[00:26:48] The water is back, about 50% of the water is back online.

[00:26:52] Now it's all obviously boil to use, but it's the easy 50%.

[00:26:57] The next 50% will be extraordinarily hard to get to.

[00:27:00] I'll give you a great example.

[00:27:02] I was talking with the mayor who used to be the head of the water department.

[00:27:06] And he talked about they found when they pressurized the system near me,

[00:27:11] people called in and said, I still don't have water.

[00:27:13] They took a five-minute walk back through the woods

[00:27:17] and found that the pipes were vertical and water was spreading out of it.

[00:27:21] And it's where the tree roots, these massive trees,

[00:27:24] the roots had grown under the pipes,

[00:27:27] turned over and pulled the pipes out of the ground.

[00:27:30] And they have no way to get to the pipes.

[00:27:32] They're going to have to cut a road to get to the pipes to replace them.

[00:27:36] It's like that everywhere.

[00:27:37] The trees have pulled this up everywhere.

[00:27:39] What's also interesting is the maintenance facility for the water plant washed away.

[00:27:46] They lost their tools.

[00:27:48] They lost two trucks.

[00:27:49] They lost a $200,000 piece of equipment, went down the river.

[00:27:53] They lost the maps telling them where the pipes are in spruce pine.

[00:27:59] Phil Heiss, the mayor, is the guy who has most of it in his mind.

[00:28:03] Is he related to Ralph?

[00:28:04] He is.

[00:28:05] He's actually his uncle.

[00:28:06] Okay.

[00:28:06] And so he's having people calling him every day saying,

[00:28:11] do you remember where this connection is?

[00:28:14] The wastewater treatment is gone for, he says, probably two years.

[00:28:18] It will probably take two years before they're able to handle solid waste,

[00:28:25] sewage in spruce pine.

[00:28:26] They're bringing in a couple of temporary units that they think will handle about 60%.

[00:28:31] And then beyond that, they're going to have guys, anybody who has a septic tank,

[00:28:36] realizes from time to time somebody has to come and pump out the material.

[00:28:40] They'll have companies like that having to pump out in collector areas around the town.

[00:28:47] Their biggest concern is like everybody else's is FEMA.

[00:28:51] FEMA is basically saying, you know,

[00:28:53] whatever you can contract for in the next 180 days, we'll cover.

[00:28:56] But nobody really has great faith.

[00:28:59] There's a lot of rumors of how much money FEMA actually has.

[00:29:03] And a town like spruce pine, which again, the entire county only has 15,000 people.

[00:29:08] It's not a huge tax base.

[00:29:09] They can't go three, four, five million dollars in the hole on a loan on the hope

[00:29:15] that somebody is going to pay that bill as soon as they start contracting out

[00:29:20] because they just don't have it.

[00:29:21] Businesses are shut down.

[00:29:22] So the tax base is devastated.

[00:29:25] That's the real problem when you get to the small towns.

[00:29:28] Asheville is a big problem, but Asheville has big assets.

[00:29:32] When you go to the old fort and Black Mountain and spruce pine and these small,

[00:29:37] small little towns, they just are not prepared.

[00:29:40] They barely are able to maintain their infrastructure off their tax base as it is.

[00:29:45] There's no industry by and large there.

[00:29:47] Yeah, I mean, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District has a bigger budget than probably

[00:29:52] all of the towns in Buncombe County combined.

[00:29:56] Oh, yeah, probably.

[00:29:57] Yeah.

[00:29:57] I mean, it's over.

[00:29:58] And Buncombe is Asheville, by the way.

[00:29:59] Yeah, right.

[00:30:00] Right.

[00:30:01] Yeah, I mean, Asheville's budget, I remember seeing the budget for the first time when I

[00:30:04] was there, you know, 10 years ago and I was like, wait, that's it?

[00:30:07] It's not a lot.

[00:30:08] I think, and I'm probably going to be wrong, I think the spruce pine budget is in the single

[00:30:14] digit millions.

[00:30:15] Yeah.

[00:30:16] And the last budget I voted on for Mecklenburg County was $1.5 billion.

[00:30:22] So, yeah, I mean, we literally had office supplies cost more than the entire maintenance

[00:30:28] facilities for these towns.

[00:30:30] And that's where they need to, so this is great.

[00:30:32] What's happening with Radiothon is great.

[00:30:34] I will tell you, they've kind of moved into phase two.

[00:30:37] There's an awful lot of food and water that's starting to show up.

[00:30:41] But now the things that these people are needing are like hazmat suits and building supplies

[00:30:46] and rubber boots and shovels and disposable gloves, five-gallon buckets.

[00:30:53] It's the things that you literally have to go and get the mud out of the building and start

[00:30:59] to clean it.

[00:31:00] Disinfectment, hard hats, shop vacs.

[00:31:03] There are a lot of people there that live, that stay, you know, they heat with kerosene

[00:31:08] heaters.

[00:31:09] Yeah.

[00:31:09] That's their main source.

[00:31:10] So, kerosene.

[00:31:12] There are things called buddy heaters that they're looking for, the propane kits, the sleeping

[00:31:18] bags, blankets, coats, that kind of stuff.

[00:31:20] That's it.

[00:31:20] To give you an idea, so the maintenance facility for the water system washed away in the river.

[00:31:27] On the other side of the river was the oil company.

[00:31:30] Guess what?

[00:31:31] The river took out both sides.

[00:31:33] So, the people who are doing fuel oil, by and large, it's gone.

[00:31:37] So, those are the things that's really now, if people, you know, can contact sources or

[00:31:43] the towns or whatever, it's starting to be the cleanup materials that are vital and the

[00:31:48] heating supplies.

[00:31:49] Yeah.

[00:31:49] It was 30 degrees, I think, this morning.

[00:31:51] Yeah.

[00:31:53] So, if you can help, text HELP1, that's the number one, HELP1, to 44834, HELP1, 44834.

[00:32:03] We appreciate anybody that can help us out.

[00:32:07] Every little bit helps.

[00:32:08] We're, I think, at over like $6,400 raised so far with the radio stations here in Charlotte,

[00:32:14] all six of our stations under the Urban One flag, under the Radio One flag.

[00:32:19] And so, if you would like to help us help them, we would greatly appreciate it.

[00:32:22] Jim Puckett, good to see you, sir.

[00:32:24] Stay safe.

[00:32:24] We'll touch base with you again in a couple weeks or so.

[00:32:26] Thanks.

[00:32:27] Absolutely.

[00:32:27] Love it.

[00:32:28] Missed you guys.

[00:32:29] If you gave me money for a campaign, just match that today.

[00:32:33] All right.

[00:32:34] Jim Puckett, everybody.

[00:32:35] All right.

[00:32:36] That'll do it for this episode.

[00:32:37] Thank you so much for listening.

[00:32:39] I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise

[00:32:43] on the podcast.

[00:32:44] So, if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here.

[00:32:47] You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalendershow.com.

[00:32:53] Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.