slowly she turned

Before I blog our trip to Scotland, let me take a few moments to process some of what has happened in North Carolina while I was gone.

Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage to a huge area of one of my favorite places on Earth – the mountains of North Carolina. I have friends and family who still don’t have power after nine days, and many people are trapped in places where the roads and bridges have been destroyed or made impassable. A huge loss will be felt in commerce, food production, the arts, and technology. Many lives have been lost and we still don’t know the extent of it. Entire small towns have been wiped away by floods, landslides, and mudslides. I-40, one of the main east-west roads through the mountains, is predicted to re-open a year from now.

I feel fortunate that we were not touched by this massive storm in Greensboro while we were gone on our Scotland trip.

I will be grieving for my beloved Appalachian mountains. They will eventually rebuild and recover, but it will take billions of dollars and much time. Some places will never recover.

And climate change means that this >1000 year event could happen again.

I treasure the time I spent at Wildacres Retreat near Little Switzerland and Spruce Pine less than one month ago, and viewing the lovely scenery along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

If you’d like to help in the recovery, I believe that the best way is to research reputable charities and organizations and give money, rather than buying supplies to send to them. They don’t need old clothes. I have a friend who is concentrating on helping farms and livestock producers now, but she has delivered supplies and found that her big truckload could only go so far, at which point the supplies were loaded on smaller trucks, and eventually on ATVs or mules to get to the most remote places. Helicopters have been doing much rescue and supply drops as well. Army and National Guard troops from several states have been deployed.

Be ultra careful about what you read about on the Internet. Much disinformation is out there and the usual bad actors are lying their asses off for political gain. Con men will con – sociopaths have no shame.

Now I plan to work on my blog posts about Scotland, probably a day or two at a time and back dating them to the date when it happened. I’ll share them on my Slow Turn Studio Facebook page. I also have a group art show coming up in a week that I can now continue to get ready for, although I’m mostly ready. As you will read in the travel posts, I am also a caregiver now until my husband recovers from a bad injury, so I have housecleaning and driving to do. It’s all doable. We both feel lucky in comparison to others right now.