The Confessionals - Helene Submerges Towns | Weird Wednesday Wake Up

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

What's going on in Tennessee and North Carolina post Helene? Where are the relief efforts and how The Confessionals audience can help? Let's talk about it.Where to mail goods and supplies:Hope Center314 Tusculum Blvd,Greeneville, TN  37745(423) 638-5433**This list will grow and will be posted to theconfessionalspodcast.com**

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before that we get them. Wake up, it's Wednesday, feel the morning light. For world's a bit different, something feels just right. Coffee's brewing strong and the day's brand new. Weird Wednesday. you.

From the dawns, early rise to the evening's glow. Let your spirit show. Weird Wednesday, wake up, start your day with a smile, stone and let your heart take flight. Weird Wednesday, wake up, everything's all right. Welcome to Weird Wednesday, friends. I am your host, Tony Merkel. Thanks for being here on your hump day,

trying to get through your week. You're not the only one. We're all in the same bow, friends. so thank you very much for being here on weird Wednesday. And today's a little bit of different of a weird Wednesday because, well, craziness ensued last week and we're still trying to grapple with what exactly happened here in East Tennessee and in North Carolina. Friends, I will tell you, we are actively trying to help these people in North Carolina and

in East Tennessee. Communities were decimated. I don't think anybody truly knows the extent of how bad this really is. We're getting word from locals as to what they're seeing and experiencing, but for the most part, we are trying to piece it together as we go. So what I want to do today is just focus in on this hurricane that came through and talk about what I know. I'm going to be joined by my buddy Brian here in a little bit. He and I took a trip out east a little bit. This, well, actually just yesterday, to see what was going on out there. And it wasn't pretty. It wasn't pretty at all. Last week on Friday, I had to cancel the live. dark because of the storm that was coming through. And it actually didn't hit our part of East

Tennessee nearly as bad. We got wind and rain. Trees went down, but trees always go down here in East Tennessee whenever it storms. I think it's a combination of an old area with a lot of hills and when it storms and the ground gets saturated, these trees tend to fall over. Just from my experience of living here for the last almost three years now, I noticed that here in East Tennessee, whenever there's a storm to go through, there's always down trees more than I've experienced up north in Pennsylvania. But I thought we were dodging a bullet because, you know, as the day unfolded, I was thinking, oh, this actually isn't bad as it was earlier and it's clearing up.

And we're going to be good. We're going to be good. I saw on the radar that it seemed like the storm split at one point and not into two separate storms. But there was like a wing of the rain and storm that kind of went out towards Nashville area. And then there was like a wing and edge of the storm that cut out to the east to eastern Tennessee. North Carolina. And we were right in that fork where the Knoxville area. And so we actually were not hit terribly at all. And I thank you for everybody who has been emailing, commenting, DMing, asking if I'm okay, commenting saying, thank God, I saw you post,

that I know you're okay. That is something that was not expected, much appreciated. I am okay. And it also was sobering and put things in perspective. I am somebody who tends to feel like if I were to disappear off the map, you guys wouldn't miss me a whole lot. You might miss the show for a little bit, but I think at the end of the day, you'd find new shows and I would be a distant memory.

So the fact that you guys hit me up so much asking if we're okay, my wife told me that the, the confessionals members app was jammed with a lot of people asking, you know, am I okay? So I am okay. I'm here live. This is not a hologram. We definitely did not get hit as bad where I'm at. And we heard rumblings of what was going on out east. And we knew it was bad.

We didn't really know how bad. And you start getting some videos and pictures coming in. Over the weekend, you're getting information. And for me, personally, it wasn't until, I'd say midday to late afternoon Monday is when I really started getting a scope. I'm like, okay, this is bad, bad. Like, this is not good. The videos that were coming in, the one that has, that hit me. the most that really kind of is like, yo, this is not good. I remember, and I don't know if this was

Tennessee or North Carolina, but I remember seeing a video of somebody standing like on their, on their porch, and you see the grass. There's no, there's no flooding anywhere. And all of a sudden, they must have been filming because they heard the water coming. And all of a sudden, you see this, it's not a trickle. It wasn't like, oh, this thing. is moving pretty quickly. It was a rushing, raging river shooting at them. And I started thinking how many people out there didn't survive to upload their videos. And that's when it started hit me. I was like, this is not good. And I was actually, I was actually planning to go out there on Tuesday alone. and then my buddy Brian texts me in the morning and he said, well, actually it was off topic because Brian found a, I'll say he may not want to say it like this, but I'll say he found a dogman print on Monday, I think it was, or Sunday. He was live and the print was larger than what we uncovered late last year, which that print was probably like the size of my hand. So he was live and he found that print.

print and he sent me a text about it on Tuesday morning and we connected and we started talking and he was he was actually going out there too to check things out and I said well let's go together so I drove out there I met up with him and we brought our e-bikes which I'll tell you friends the e-bike thing is huge in in these kind of situations you can really get around so for people who are in the minds of prepping, consider the purchase of an e-bike and just have it charged and ready to rock in case you need it in case of emergencies. I would suggest also getting some kind of solar generator. That way you're mobile and you have a way to stay mobile. But it is something that I saw while we were out in Newport, Tennessee as something that was very beneficial and handy.

and I'm going to be bringing Brian on here in a few minutes to talk about this with me. We're going to go through some pictures here on X that I want to show you all before I bring Brian on. And before we do that, I want to let you guys know that I am working on organizing a way to inform the public that listens to the show on a weekly basis on how they can help. we're going to talk about the response by the government today. They are, they have responded. I found out that they have responded, at least a state government. But it is still a very underwhelming response. And some of that I don't believe is their fault in the sense that this is such a widespread event.

This is something that has, I believe, surpassed. past Katrina. In Katrina, we had a city that was underwater. Think Katrina, but spread out over a much greater area, many more towns, and possibly a lot more deaths. I don't think we quite understand how many people might have died from this. So that said, I want to do what I can with what I can with helping people And so what I plan on doing, and maybe this will have a better way to do this later, but what I plan on doing is creating a page on my website that will list churches and organizations that are bringing or allowing people to send them goods and supplies to distribute to the communities. I mentioned Newport earlier. There's Greenville. There's Hampton, Hampton, Tennessee was divisive.

just demolished, just demolished. I think Hampton, Tennessee is right there where the dam broke, I think. I'm not sure exactly where the dam is located, but when I was looking at Hampton on the map, there is a huge lake right there. And if that's the dam that broke, Hampton was just demolished. And I saw a government response in Hampton today. I think it was state because the governor was there as well. but what I'm going to do in is going to be created this web page, and I'm just going to start listing places. I have one place that is confirmed.

It's scrolling on the bottom of the screen now. This is a place that my pastor knows the operator of it, and they have confirmed to him today to relay to me that, yes, they are. In fact, I'll read this to you. He says, yes, I just heard from Pam, the executive director at New Hope Center, and they can handle the donations. They are centrally located and have relationships with many churches in the area,

and she will distribute through those churches as donations are received. So this Hope Center, Hope Center is well connected with several churches in the area, and there's a lot of churches in the area that are setting themselves up as distribution centers. I called several churches today and left voicemails or voice memos with them,

I didn't expect them to answer because they are distributing goods right now, so their hands are full. But I left them a voicemail. Hopefully they call back and I can kind of start just adding to the list. And so as I get more places that you can send goods and supplies to, I will post it on the website so that you guys can have a running list. That link will be in descriptions of episodes. This is something that is going to take weeks, months, and probably years for some of these communities to bounce back. some of them I don't believe will. I think some towns quite literally were wiped off the map and these were not the, you know, Beverly Hills of Tennessee. These are the hills of Tennessee that don't have

a ton of income to begin with. And so something like this is just devastating. Let's, I'm going to do a share screen here. Like I said, on the bottom of the screen is a just, it's one location right now. Please, if you feel inclined to donate to help, that is where you want to send goods to. So if you want to go on Amazon or a food service website or something and put an order in and have a ship there, I greatly encourage you to do that. The phone number there as well. So if you want further clarification, you can call them yourself and get that clarification that you desire so that you know where to send things, how to address it.

things like that. But it is scrolling here, one location, hopefully many more to come. And now, so I'm going to share my screen here. And we're going to do, we're going to do this one first. And let me refresh it here to see if there's updated images. There are. Okay. So my goal right now is not to have anything prepared for entertainment purposes, but rather just to discuss and go over what we are seeing. I'm going to show you videos

and we're going to show you pictures. So if anybody who has not had any great picture as to what's going on, you'll get a drift here. These are, this is Newport, Tennessee. This post here, it says, East Tennessee is being pounded by flooding. This was on the 27th. Dam broke in Newport, Tennessee, churches and homes in three counties, two bridges in Green County and the interstate across the mountain in North Carolina.

Pray for these people. So this is an old post, but we're going to play some of these videos right now for you. This is Irwin, Tennessee. Water just rushing through. As you can see, it's pouring out the windows of the church. Elizabeth Town, Tennessee. This is a sky view. This is a bridge being taken out. There's lots of bridges and roads taken out. People are literally, there are people literally stranded on this. And so here's another video.

Going down the river, buildings were literally upended. There was a post earlier that I saw that I wanted. to share and I'm not seeing it now, but it gave a real good image as to how bad this was. Here's a, I believe this is I-40. I believe this is I-40, but yeah, I'm pretty sure this is I-40. This is the road, I-40 is the road that you're going to be taken from Knoxville to Charlotte, if you're going to Charlotte or something. Literally, you can't drive parts of I-40 because it was washed away. And I don't know how long it's going to take for that to get built back. I'm not saying it's impossible. Clearly, engineers are a real thing and it's going to get fixed. But I don't know how long

it's going to take because there's so much widespread destruction and devastation that you're going to fix roads. And I think that's probably going to be the first thing you're going to be looking to fix so you can get the infrastructure built up so that you can fix and how it gets supplies in. Hopefully this strike doesn't affect this too much that we're having with the ports because that's something I was thinking about as well. But you can see here how this river was just taken out the highway. And like I said earlier, this is such a widespread event. Here's a video that I was talking about earlier.

This is the video that shows just the river coming in. Look how fast that's coming in. I mean, when I was watching this video, I was stunned at how fast it came in. You literally see a grass and then it's just a raging river. How many people, how many people didn't survive that? How many people were out there not knowing what was about to happen and were swept away? There was, I've seen video, here's a video right here, people being, being swept away in Irwin, Tennessee. and they were throwing, looks like,

ratchet straps out to them to bring them into the water. These people were just swimming in the water trying to find their way back to the land. How many people didn't survive that? I mean, we have here in East Tennessee and Newport, we were told yesterday, I'm going to bring Brian on here in a second.

We were told that on the other side of the Pigeon River, the houses on that side were covered in water. It wasn't just the first floor flooded. the houses were covered in water. How many people didn't know that was coming that fast, what you just saw, and they didn't make it out of their home? They didn't get to their car to drive to safety. There are people who listen to the show

who are deeply entrenched in the Bigfoot research community. There's a young man who has been making himself very known and aware to the world because he has been jumping into research. 24 years old. And he's uncovered some really interesting things. I had him in the studio a few weeks ago. His name's Harley Owens. Harley Owens is from Newport, Tennessee. That's where him, his wife, and his kids live. I will tell you, just so you know, Harley Owens is alive and well. They got out fast enough. They were in Middle Tennessee. And I believe tomorrow, him and his wife are coming back to Newport to start the rebuilding process. But they got word that their house survived, the flood.

and so I believe they're leaving their kids with her parents, and they're going to come back to Newport to help rebuild. So this is something that's going to be taking a long, long, long time. Look at this. This is a tractor-trailer driver in his truck. Listen, there have been tractor-trailers swept away in this. This is how powerful this story. I'm going to mute the audio on that so that you can just watch this.

but to give you perspective, I've said this before on the show, I think I have. I'll tell you a story of something that I experienced in my truck to kind of give you perspective with that tractor trailer and these tractor trailers

being swept away. I was sitting in a tractor trailer. I was on my lunch break and I was talking to my wife on the phone and we were just talking about whatever and there was a storm that was coming through. And so, you know, I just loaded up a load of nickel on my trailer. And I had about, I want to say it was like 40, I'll just put this way. It was like 40 to 70,000 pounds of of metal on my truck. Very, very, very heavy.

And I was sitting outside the place I picked up on my lunch break and I was talking to my wife. And the storm starts getting heavier and heavier. And it gets to the point where, I'm sitting in my tractor trailer with all that weight, and my truck starts doing this. I'm waving, I'm weaving side to size. I literally feel myself shaking. And I told my wife,

I think I got to hang up. And I buckled up while I was just sitting there still because I didn't know what was going on. I found out later that I sat through a tornado that came through. Now, that is with all that weight. This truck that you saw sitting there, I don't know what happened to it, but we saw other trucks getting swept away by the,

rivers. This was something that came through to different buildings that had tractor trailers sitting in their lots and everything stacked up on top of each other. Just not a good situation at all. So, all right, I stopped sharing. I'm going to play this one other video and then we're going to bring on Brian and this will be a video to prime any kind of open discussion. Brian, I have. Friends, if you want to pop in and contribute to the conversation, you can. The link on is in the description for Rumble, YouTube, and Facebook. The link is in the description for all those locations. So if you're watching on any of those platforms, you can hit the link and contribute to the conversation. We can talk about whatever you'd like with this. We're going to keep it on topic. And you can

venture your own thoughts and opinions. I've heard people talk about the idea that this was manufactured. I've seen the same satellite images that you've seen and the idea that this was intentional for the properties that were out there and soon to be mining. Feel free to discuss that if you'd like. I'm not looking to diminish what actually happened. There are people who actually lost their lives, lost their homes, lost family members. And, I'm I don't, I'm not looking to turn this into a discussion about what could have happened when we know what did happen. But you can feel free to bring it up if you'd like. Let's share this screen one more time.

Nope, that's the wrong one. There we go. All right. So this lady here has a video talking about the lack of response. And now I told you, I have seen now that they have been responding. But there is something here that even if there are responses now, I don't like. So let's listen to this. Well, you're going to have to just excuse my appearance because we have no power.

We have no running water. But I'm just so pissed off that I've got to make this clear. We got a notification from TEMA. I'm guessing that's FEMA for Tennessee. I'm not exactly sure. I think it's supposed to be the disaster relief people. but they were like, do not donate your time. We don't want you to donate time unless we ask for you.

And we don't want you to donate stuff to other people. You need to just donate money and stuff to us and get your instructions from us and listen to us. What? And then they said yesterday, we don't go into areas that the roads are not easily accessible. What? You are the dead disaster relief people. Like that is your job to go into the areas that are hit by disaster and provide relief. Not to just go to the easy area and sit and wait for the people that are in the disaster area to be able to come to you.

The roads that we do have were cleared by the locals and you have to have trucks and stuff to be able to get through there. Like it's just beyond me. So, and you have us all messed up. If you think you're going to come here and bark orders at us, and then expect the people just to give you the money and us trust that you're going to try to take care of us when you're not, you don't go into areas that are not easily accessible. What? Cod County, girl.

So donate to our local churches because they will make sure that the people that are needed will get it. and you need to just, while we appreciate what help you're trying to provide, I don't think you understood the assignment because it's not to just go to one location in hopes that the people in the disaster area can make it to you. So just sit back and watch and we'll show you how it's done, but we're not going to stop. So please and thank you. So I think that what you're seeing there is a lot of frustration, obviously, and you're going to see more of that if things don't shape up real quick. It's only a matter of time. Like right now, Brian and I were out there and we'll discuss what we experienced yesterday. But people are coming together. The community is coming together, working together. That's a great story. But when supplies get low, and desperation sits in, people's attitudes change.

That's why it's very important that you can donate. If you can donate, that you do donate. Like I said, the Hope Center is scrolling on the bottom of the screen, and it's in the description of this episode. Please donate if you can. I will tell you the address right now for any audio listeners who want to contribute Hope Center 314, Tusculum, T-U-S-C-C-E-S-C-C-E-S-C-C. C-U-L-U-M Boulevard, Greenville, Tennessee, 37-745 is the zip code.

And their phone number is 423-638-5-433. And they have said that they will take your donations and distribute them to churches they're already working with throughout the area. This is a place that's not going to be specific to one town like Greenville. It will be spread throughout from what I understand. but if you have questions, feel free to call them. I'm making a list as time goes on. But these communities are hurting.

There are, from where I hear, hundreds of towns that are hurting. And, yeah, yeah, their spirits are high right now, but what you saw with her at the end of that video is something that I think you'll see in mass if things don't change soon. And we're just getting a little bit of a taste as to how bad things can get and how quick things can turn if we're not expecting something. So take this event and project the idea of an EMP, societal collapse, not just in a region,

but not globally, nationally. How fast will people turn on each other? It's very important that you take these lessons and learn from them and prepare as much as you can so that you're not caught at the end of the day with your. proverbial pants down. So with that said, I want to bring on Brian and have a chat with him so you guys can hear from Brian who is a local to this community. And he's been born and raised in East Tennessee. He's been on the show a couple times. And Brian, man, how you doing, dude? Doing good, man. How are you doing? Well, I'm struggling a little bit, but, you know.

What are you struggling with? My stomach and been nauseous all day and, you know, I don't know what's going on. Tell the people about that. I mean, it might be from something you ate yesterday in Newport. Yeah, so obviously yesterday we spent the majority of the day out in Newport kind of cruising around town. And this is something that I didn't really think about at the time. but we had gone into this shop and I love apples. It's like one of my favorite foods.

There was a lady in there selling some apples. And I had picked one up and ate it. As we were walking outside, I think this is where it may have happened. I don't think that she was selling tainted apples. But as we were walking outside, I dropped my apple on the ground as I was getting on the bike. You remember this? Tony? Yep.

And we were like, oh, five second rule. So, you know, I reached down, grabbed the apple, picked it up, ate the apple. At the time, felt totally fine. But now looking back, there was a water truck just outside spraying down the roads that were covered in who knows what, mud. probably sewage. It was something that I just didn't think about at the time. And I'm kind of paying for it today.

I woke up and I just like stream brain fog. Like my stomach's been cramping. So it really kind of puts things into perspective, you know, how devastating this really could be for the locals there. Because there's no getting around that. I mean, this material that was on the ground is every, on the walls of all the buildings throughout that you know we went to that one place that where the guy said that underneath the basically the entire building where he kept all his

tools were flooded so you know i i would imagine there's going to be a lot of contamination in the area but for some reason the the news is not getting this information out to the to the people you know, even to the locals there. I don't even, I don't understand what's really happening there because, you know, I've lived in Tennessee on my life. Like, when tragedies like this happen, and I, you know, I honestly can't remember of a situation this bad that has happened in Tennessee. You know, it's probably about a decade ago.

We did have a really bad hailstorm that came through that was pretty, pretty devastating. The majority of vehicles, people's roofs, there was just so much devastation from this hailstorm. But overall, the community and the government and the insurance companies, they all came together really quickly and really resolved the problem. They were putting out the information about things to avoid with this situation. But we're just not seeing that for some reason with these storms. And I don't, I don't know if it's a local government problem, but for me, as being a Republican, you know, this in my mind is the purpose of the federal government. In situations like this, this is where the federal government steps in and make sure that

everybody is provided for. And things are taken out, you know, taken care of immediately. week. But, you know, it's kind of where I'm at. Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, it does feel like they're not really worried about the rednecks in East Tennessee. You know, like it's. It makes you feel like that. I did see, like I said earlier, I did see, there was pictures of Governor Bill Lee in Hampton. I think it's called Hampton. I keep wanting to say Hamilton, but I think it's Hampton. Tennessee. And man, like the images from that, like the roads, the roads were just like caked in feet of mud. And so like the dig out from that is going to be extensive and long. And then once you dig that out, like it's not like snow plowing. They're going to wind up jacking up the roads and having to repave roads and all of that. I mean, like I don't know how long this is going to take to

recover from. But for them, like the lady said in that video, for them to tell people if they're not part of an official, like, rescue and help operation to be hands off, I think that, I get the sense that they're like, that you might just get in our way kind of thing, but you're not doing anything. Like, like, she, like, she was like, where I'm at least, like, they're not doing anything. So you just want us to sit here and waste away? Like, it doesn't make sense. Like, I think that, No, it doesn't sense at all. And that's not the culture of Tennessee either. I mean, we're literally the volunteer state.

Like, that's what we are known for. Like, and for some sort of public official to come on and say something like that to me is just... It's suspicious. Yeah, it's suspicious. It's un-Tennessee in. And, you know, I understand to a, like, a small amount. Like where they're talking about who, be careful about who you are donating to. And this is a conversation that me and you had, you know, we were very concerned about, you know, the possibility of fraud coming up and people opening up these accounts that, you know, are just looking to take advantage of the situation.

You know, so, you know, I kind of understand that part of it. But now I'm seeing, I saw this this morning, they're starting to have a major issue with looting. The sheriff had come out and said that, you know, if you are going outside to, you know, make sure that, you know, you've got your side arm and your safety is off, which is, you know, pretty wild. So I would imagine. The sheriff said that? yeah the sheriff said that and well that was in north carolina but yeah just different side of the hill yeah yeah so i i know that there was uh eight guys that were illegal immigrants that um were looting and got arrested um and i i think that you're going to see more of that if things don't get like you're

not going to fix this thing right now like it's it's going to take time but there needs to be a structure that's put in place. And it needs, like, like, I don't want to say it needs to, but like, it really should be coming from a higher structured organization that can come in and just provide the structure. Okay, guys, here's what we're going to do. This, and here's the plan. And that will help prevent people from looting because I really think that people, when people get desperate, that's when looting happens. When you got babies to feed, when you got children to feed and you have no other options, like you're going to take from somebody who, has so you can provide for years. That's what...

Absolutely. It's one of the things that took me here to Tennessee is because when I was living up in the Philly area, I wanted to get chickens and I wanted to start growing my food, but I had a half an acre in an old neighborhood right outside of Philadelphia. I was like, if things hit the fan ever, like, all this is gone. People are just going to take it from me. And I was just like, I want to be somewhere where people are all kind of on the same page, seeing what's going on, you know, out here, it was really encouraging to see people, you know, have the reaction they did, the people we were talking to at the storefront. You know, they, they were like, we're coming

together, we're helping each other. They're giving a lot of honor and glory to God for their survival. But they themselves were like, we didn't, we haven't seen any, any help come in outside of what we're doing ourselves. No, dude, that was really kind of shocking to me. You know, we were on the Z bikes and we covered some ground. I didn't see one FEMA truck. I didn't see one uniform. I saw some state troopers directing traffic, you know, to the community-based, like, supply areas. You know, and those were all, like, locals running that, that were, you know, distributing water.

in Knoxville, you know, I had to go to the VA again this morning, and I saw a group of locals again. Everybody had their trucks and trailers filled up. You know, they had all met in one place and they were heading somewhere, but it was all the people of Tennessee. no government intervention at all. And what really scares me and something that a lot of people

may not be aware of this, but Tennessee is essentially all like limestone. The ground here is clay. It's all clay. And when clay is broken down, it goes into this really, really, really fine silt. And when we have a situation like this with this massive flooding, there are caves all throughout, you know, East Tennessee that now, I think,

have been exposed to this water. So now I think we are going to start having issues with sinkholes, with this silt that was pushed through, you know, the majority of all of these buildings, I think it's going to cause major foundation issues. You know, once you get that stuff in there, it's really hard to get out and it's really hard to manage. You know, my family, we had a condo that was up on this hill.

And after that hailstorm, when there was a lot of rain, the foundation of the condo shifted. And it was almost, it was pretty much unrepairable. Like there was no way to make the adjustments needed because of the way that the ground is here in Tennessee. So, you know, this is another issue that, you know, I don't see anybody talking about. You know, I think that we need to be having some engineers coming out to these areas to, you know, to, to examine. examine the standing buildings that, you know, they were hit, yes, and survived, you know, luckily the flood, but I think that we're going to have some catastrophic problems moving

forward. That's just not even being mentioned. Yeah, no, that's a great point. I was looking at the houses that were still standing and stuff. I was like, even though they're still standing, I mean, who's living in them? I mean, water was going up to the second floor. Like, the mold issues you're going to have. And I just, you know, I just, I don't think any of us can really have a good scope as to how long and how bad this is going to be. But I didn't even think about the hollow land that we live on and how that can play a role into this. You know, I, I think we have an example of government response to this kind of stuff. in recent history because it wasn't that long ago that Hawaii burned to the ground essentially.

And the response from that was abysmal. And so it doesn't surprise me. Yeah, to this day. One second. Come here, Jemma. My daughter's here. I'm watching my daughter. And so I hope she's okay. Give me one second. Brian, hold it down for me. Yeah. All right, cool. All right, y'all. So, you know, The overall, like, the response that we're seeing, I think from the federal government, and really, even with the Tennessee government, is disappointing. You know, whether or not they are bringing in supplies or not, there needs to be a presence there.

In my opinion, the National Guard should have been deployed. We should have been seeing these, you know, we should be seeing these trucks, these uniforms, in these areas, you know, it's a, even if they're not doing anything at that current moment, their presence there is what makes a huge difference in the communities, whether, you know, them feeling like they have either been left to fend for themselves or be confident in, you know, the government that's supposed to be helping them. Yeah. No, I agree. So Greenville, we talked to the people in Newport, and they said that they turned the water off out there because of the toxic levels.

Yeah. But, and this may not be, again, friends, you have to understand that there is, my daughter's being loud, but you have to understand that there is a, there is information we have, but we don't know how accurate it is on certain. levels. And so, but from what I heard as of yesterday, I believe it was Greenville, their water station, uh, the valves didn't get turned off as much as the station was wiped out. Like it was just gone, uh, washed away or demolished to the point that it's unreparable. And so I, we don't know how long is going to be till Greenville gets water and how many other towns, of all these towns in the mountains that have the same story or similar stories. And again, that's why I want to bring up to the audience and the listeners right now.

If you feel inclined to help, please send goods and supplies to Hope Center in Greenville, Tennessee. The link, the address and their phone number is in the description of this episode. In the video, it's scrolling right now at the bottom of your screen. If you feel inclined to help, please call them, ask them, Don't take my word for it. Just give them a call and ask them, are you taking supplies? How can I help you?

How can I send stuff? Do you prefer, I don't know if they're taking donations monetarily. I think they prefer just supplies right now. Yeah. Water is a huge thing. The more water, the better at this point. Also, baby supplies.

Diapers, wipes, baby formula. These are all things that these people need. And there are, there is track. Okay, so people have to understand, like, when I went up there, I wasn't sure if we were going to get into Newport, how things were looking. But we were able to get into Newport. There was traffic. We saw tractor trailers going through Newport. So they are shipping. They just can't hit certain areas because the roads are washed away. But if I'm promoting a place to send supplies to, it's because it's been verified that they are taking supplies and they are able to distribute those supplies. And so these are, this is thousands. I mean, like what we were hearing yesterday, Brian, I think, I don't know if it was you that told me, but somebody told me that there, there's rumors at least. Like I said, we don't have tons of information at this point, but there are rumors that there could be up to 10,000 people missing right now or dead.

Yeah. I mean, like that's, that's insane. That's insane. And so there's a lot of rescue efforts that are going to be coming from this alongside of the buildback. Oh my gosh, I'm almost I'd build back better. I did now. But there's going to be a lot of that kind of stuff going on. And I had this like ominous feeling yesterday when we were out there. You know, with, you know, you and I, you more than me right now, hopefully that changes in the future.

But like we go out in the woods, right? And we're hunting monsters and doing crazy stuff. people up there, how many people up there are going to go into the woods two years from now and still be coming across dead bodies? I mean, that's the level that we're concerned about right now. Yeah. Yeah, because we're seeing, I found it pretty damning.

You know, initially, like the day before yesterday, they were reporting the deaths at like six people. Today, I heard on the news that it's jumped to 166 people. They are just these, the news is slowly getting there, but for some reason, I don't understand it. I don't understand it, like, at all. You know, the fact that, you know, we didn't, the overall presence of the media, you know, there should have been media there in Newport. You know, Newport's a pretty well-known city.

We got in. East Tennessee. Yeah. And there's just no presence there. It's like the locals have just been left to fend for themselves. And, you know, if governor leaves the one that needs to be held accountable, then he needs to be held accountable. I mean, all of these public officials.

in my opinion, need to be boots on the ground there, you know, going to each community every single day, you know, talking to people, figuring out what they need, you know,

because I felt like I did have some reassurance there. When we spoke to those people from po-boys, you know, they're very, they were very inspirational with the, way that they were carrying themselves. They understood that there was complete devastation, but they were still very, they weren't turning away from God in that moment.

For me, that was very inspiring. I think that that's what the community needs is that stability there. And we were lucky enough to be able to see that. as opposed to just people with their hearts broken and, you know, and complete loss of what to do. Yeah. Well, I'm planning on making this a long-term effort on my end. I don't think this is the last time people are going to hear me promoting helping the area.

This is something that I plan on having, like I said, a running page on my website where people can send supplies to. and the support is going to change over time. Right now, they need supplies. They need the formulas, the baby supplies, the water. They need that right now. Two years from now, I think the communities are still going to be reeling, but maybe the support will change.

We won't be sending water. But maybe I'll be posting a link to sign up to be part of a building effort. I was talking to my pastor this morning about it. I said, you know, once the things simmer down, the structures put in place and the rebuilding starts, we should be probably doing some kind of missions work in our own community right here, you know, getting people together and volunteering to go up and,

you know, put nails and buildings and put up walls and roofs and just whatever we can find our hands to do, we need to do it. And I think that we're going to see that not just from churches in that area, you know, because we live about 45 minutes to an hour west of the devastation. But the people out here, this is, I mean, that's our community too. We love those people just the same. Oh, yeah. And so, you know, I think that I'll probably be, you know, posting things like that for people to help, you know. And it'd be really cool. And this is way too early to even plan or really talk about as a factual thing to be done. But it might be. It's not past the possibility that maybe I find a way to have, there's some kind of rebuilding effort, you know, six months from now or a year.

from now that I'm able to put out and do the signups and we, as a community from the confessionals, get together to go and help rebuild an area. I don't know, but I'm going to be keeping my ear to the ground as options come up to the surface and do what I can to help rebuild. I think right now it's just to talk about it, you know, because nobody else is apparently. It's crazy, man. Yeah, I don't understand it. I don't understand it because, I mean, just look at like, and this is what is a big concern for me as based on what's happened in the past. But like, look at Flint, Michigan.

To this day, they don't have drinking water. Like, what? Like, and now we have these mountain communities in East Tennessee. Yes, you know, they do have wells, you know, they have springs that they would be able to tap. And I think maybe that's just kind of gave me an idea. What? Maybe we would. Well, the one good thing about East Tennessee is we do have a lot of natural springs there.

You know, the probably existing ones, they may still be fun. functioning or they may be damaged, but maybe an effort could be led to either repair those wells that they already have or create new ones to be able to provide more water to that. It's like safe drinking water because coming out of the ground, it would be safe. but I don't know just kind of an idea it just popped in my head yeah so no well I mean there's gonna be a lot of ideas banged around and stuff and I think this is gonna be it could be a bonding experience for a lot of people in this area yeah it's gonna have to be and the more the more we can help on the front end the more they can they the people who have been directly affected can bond on the

back end. So if we're not helping and we're not helping supply them with things, the bonding doesn't happen because now everybody's eating at each other. And so we want to prevent that as much as possible. At least that's my experience, just from where I hail from, you know, before I moved here, I don't want to get to a point where people are faced with the decisions to, you know, turn on their neighbor for the benefit of their own tribe of their family. Because, I mean, what do you? I can't say I would do any different, to be honest with you. If I was in a situation where it was either, you know, you have food and my kids starve to death or I take what you have, I don't know. That's, that's humanitarian things that we hope we never have to cross. But let's help East Tennessee,

North Carolina, and help them prevent getting to that point by helping to share what you have, goods and services. Like I said, I'll say it again, New Hope in Greenville. Tennessee is taking supplies and goods, and they're distributing them to churches in the area. They have a network that they're able to utilize. And so they are sending it out to different churches. They have given me specifically the green light to announce to the world that they will take your donations. And so hopefully there's more places than just that.

But it is a start. Greenville was affected greatly. I told you a little bit ago about their water station. So you send water supplies to Greenville. It will go to Greenville people and people in surrounding areas because they're all in the same boat. They all need water. They all need it. Yeah.

Sure. I'm planning. I'm trying to get out. I wanted to go out today to Del Rio, but I just wasn't feeling that great. I might still go later today. But there's another community called Del Rio, just outside of Newport, where a lot of people don't. don't realize like how important that that community is. For example, like the show moonshiner's.

That is where those guys are from. So, you know, for people to kind of make a connection to be able to see what that community was like prior to this devastation. I mean, they talked about that a lot on the show on how the community would come together to help each other. And here this community is now that is completely devastated and they need our help. So it's important for us to get involved in these situations, I think. You know, if nothing else, talk about as much as we can.

And, you know. I agree. I agree, man. I will be accompanying you as much as I can on these trips. I will be doing what I can to move my schedule around to do it and also juggle everything else and keep everything afloat. You know, the people need their episodes. So, but I know you shot footage yesterday of our trip out there.

If maybe, I'm not saying it's going to happen, but maybe we can do some kind of joint collaboration on the broadcast of that so that people can see it. and it's just another opportunity to maximize the reach and point people in the direction to help. So, yeah, I'm really trying to get, I'm trying to get that edited and put together and out as soon as I can. Yeah. You know, I think, I think it's more important to get that, those images out there first, you know. And then we can, you know, as soon as I get it done, I might have it done a little bit later today.

You know, I'll talk to you off camera and we'll try to figure out the best way to do it. you know. Yeah. Sounds good, man. Sounds good. Well, listen, I'm going to let you go and I'm going to start bringing this in for a landing. Cool. I think this went well because I didn't want to get all ragey.

I was getting kind of grumpy about a lot of this stuff as I was getting more information. And I didn't want to come on here and yell and be all attitude. So I think we did a good job. Yeah, I think we did a good job just kind of talking about it. and just being honest and real with people, hopefully they have a clear picture. So Brian, thanks so much for joining me. Absolutely.

All right, man. See you. See you. That was Brian from Black Masked paranormal. You can go ahead and follow him on YouTube. He is going to be going out to these areas. He definitely will be doing it more than I will be in the sense that his job is to YouTube

and create videos. So he'll probably shelf a lot of his exploring the woods for portals and dogmen and Bigfoot and probably shift into a lot of this kind of stuff, putting out this kind of content. So I highly recommend you guys go ahead and follow Black Masked Paranormal on YouTube. So when he puts out videos showing what he's uncovering, you can be in the loop. And you can expect to see me in some of those videos as well when I get. chance to go out with them and and all that stuff. But guys, this is, this is one of the wildest things I've lived through and I don't even know the scope of it yet. When I was, when Lindsay and I

had just started dating, I think it was our first summer dating. So we were probably 18 years old, is. There was a dam that broke open in Pennsylvania and flooded right where my parents' house is. houses were destroyed. The river rose up to my parents' house, but it came up within feet on my parents' house. My parents' house was spared. Other people weren't so lucky, and I remember seeing that. But the difference was it was a slow thing. The dam didn't actually break open. I think they opened up the dam so that it wouldn't break open. So they did a control release of it. So it wasn't the water just came rushing in. It rose gradually. I remember I was working third shift at a factory that night and I drove home and I drove through this really big puddle at a spot that I've never

drove through a puddle before. I didn't I couldn't see though. It was dark and that was the next morning I realized okay that was the river raising because holy crap were blocked in we couldn't get out. This what I'm seeing is a million times worse than that a million times worse and I just hope people listening right now watching this on YouTube. We're live on YouTube, Brumble X, Instagram, and Facebook for these weird Wednesday wakeups. I hope you people listening and watching maybe get a scope as to what's going on, more information to come. I will talk about this moving forward in the future if there's something to talk about. I want to refrain from the taking the attention.

off the people who are victims of this right now into other areas. I will just say quickly, I am aware of the thought that of the mining, I think it was lithium batteries and the idea that the government destroyed this area to cheapen the land. I've heard of it. And I don't want to say I have an opinion on it because I don't have an opinion on it. My main thing is raising awareness of what we do know actually having, which is there's a lot of life lost, a lot of homes, lost, a lot of people displaced, a lot of people in need, they need water, they need food, they need supplies. And so please, if you're somebody who has the ability to help and you feel inclined to help, don't help just because Tony said so, I want you to help because your heart

says you should help. And if that fits your description, New Hope in Greenville. The address is on the screen right now. It's in the description of this episode. Please donate to New Hope. call them if you want, get verification as to what exactly they need, where you should send it to, attention to whoever, whatever you'd like. But if you were to just write new hope and the address, I believe it will show up there. And they have told me that they're taking donations. So they will be expecting hopefully a flood of supplies. I hope everybody that listens right now is able to buy a case of water and have it shipped there. Logistically, I don't know how to organize that side of it.

Okay. So maybe if I have, if I figured that out, I can set links up that. You can just hit the link. It takes you to a page where you can purchase water that will get shipped to these locations. I don't know how to do that yet. So the best I have been able to come up with so far for you is New Hope, their address, their phone number.

Give them a call if you're unsure about how to go about it, but you want to help. Give them a call. and see about how you can help them. I called other churches in the area, left voicemails, and I'm trusting that they'll call me back with information. But again, East Tennessee, North Carolina, devastated by the storm last week, and we're still trying to figure out how bad it is.

And the more we find out, the more I'll share with y'all. And yeah. Weird Wednesday wake up wasn't that energetic and hype. And I apologize if you tuned in for an entertaining show. But yeah, that's what I have for you today, friends. Looking at the chat right now, there's gratitude in there. So thank you very much for those who tuned in and are appreciative of what we were able to do for you for the last hour.

Hang on a second. I've got to pull this one up. This crazy backyard chicken man says, remember, your government sucks. It said, we the people. I like it. I like it. Thank you guys for tuning in. And my phone, my watch just heard me say that.

And it added, I have a reminder on my watch now that says, let me see if I can show you. It says, your government sucks. That's crazy. My phone heard me and made it a reminder for me just to remind me that your government sucks. If that's not how you end a show, I don't know how you end the show, right? My phone or my watch just heard me and made a reminder for me just to remind me when I'm feeling down, when I feel like I suck. Just remember, Tony. Your government sucks.

All right, guys. Listen, next Wednesday, I hope to be back with you, God willing. and bringing you another episode of Weird Wednesday Wake Up. Not sure where we're going to go with it. Like always, I'll figure out along the way. Hopefully you show up to hang out with me next Wednesday sometime on the calendar scheduled for Wednesday because I don't know when I'm going to be here. But I'll be here next Wednesday, hopefully.

All right, guys, until then, stay safe. Take care. Oh, wait, that's the wrong one. That's the old one. What's the new one? Oh, that's right. The elites don't want you to know this. but you can convert to Christianity and live forever.

I'll talk to you later. Bye. Let your heart take flight. Weird Wednesday, wake up, everything's all right. Wake up, it's winds, they feel the morning light. The world's a big difference, something feels just right. Coffee's brewing strong, and the day's brand new. Weird Wednesday, wake up, here's a song for you.

From the dawn's early rise to we dance, let's enjoy for, and let your heart take flight. Weird Wednesday, wake up, everything's all right. We've assaulted Macdonals of all the world to bring here his best products. Proubalos all before to get us.