The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Preppers LIVE: Help NC and Prepper Camp Wrap Up

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/weather/severe-weather/ways-to-help-donate-support-western-north-carolina-asheville-boone-hurricane-helene-relief/83-0830dd9c-6675-4737-bc3e-097fff5eb436

You're listening to PBN. You're playing back the stability here. Welcome in, PBN family. We are live with Preppers Live. Dave Jones, Phil Rabelais, Jay Ferg is with us. And we got a bunch to talk about. Little Prepper Camp recap. And a big chunk of how you can help, how we can help, how everyone can help the people who are completely just stranded. The news is more and more dire by the hour.

I just watched a little clip of the mayor talking about the situation in Nashville. It's absolutely bonkers. So Dave Jones is on borrowed time. So without further ado, let's get him in here to tell us all about, I guess, the sights and the sounds on the ride through the disaster zone. Yeah. I mean, you can't really effectively do it with text. You know, I was texting people and sometimes I'd share a picture or video or something like that, but just everything. So the campground was kind of like a microcosm. And it was like, of course, we lost power, you know, and the Internet went out when we lost

power. And then some people got satellite you know elon musk satellite stuff in there so we were able to get internet but we didn't know how bad it was because we're we're at prepper camp you know and of course we had rain before so we didn't think anything of it so friday morning after the craziness and everything's flooded, I go get my cousin and I said, hey, let's go to Walmart. I need some hooks and some things and we can get whatever we need. We could not get out of the campground. There were three roads you could take. All three roads had massive trees over them.

And I came back reported and of course that's when i was sending you the videos james about uh rule number uh you know a good standing rule of thumb is don't enter the disaster area yeah that's a good one yeah and uh uh it was unbelievable that we actually had Prepper Camp anyways. And it was the tents, the stakes pulled out. The one tent had all the light bulbs broken in it, but one. And that was the only light we had for Saturday night. It was, but we went off with about, I would say, 30% of the attendees on Saturday and probably 50 to 30% of the vendors. That's just the way it was. I was surprised it was that many, to be honest, from what I saw and what I was seeing. I was very surprised when you said 30%. To be honest, from what I saw and what I was seeing, I was very surprised when you said 30%. Yeah. Even some people showed up Friday thinking we were going to do it.

And Friday, the lake was still out of the banks. And to say that that thing never floods, no. It floods. So my cousin was there. He was in an RV spot. And there was a river between us. Wow. And I couldn't was there. He was in an RV spot and there was a river between us and I couldn't get there. I drove with the car and I said, well on a road, a hardtop road, and then came down through Tent City. And it was devastated. That was the group I was most concerned about was the Tent City group.

It was devastated. And of course, the good thing, the generator that they had was powering the well pumps. So you had all the water you want. It was just ice cold. I thought the heat was propane over there. No. I always thought the heated water was propane. I had no idea it was electric.

Yeah. So that's the first day of prepper camp. And then that night, Rick said, hey, we're getting out of here at noon on Sunday. He says, I don't know what everybody's going to face, but I know it's going to be a challenge because we didn't really get a lot of good information. And people were asking me, and I said, well, when you're in the class, just make an announcement before the class because everybody came in from everywhere else. And that's the way they did it back in the 1800s. Someone new came into town. You'd say, what was the news? What did you see?

What about that? That's funny. And you could get real time. Yeah, it's this. It's that. Well. Now I'm ready to leave and I already. trees, you know, and we were able to get out. OK, so I go into Asheville and there's three roads going into Asheville. One has a tree just laying over the power lines. Power lines are all over the place. There's more power lines on the ground than there are still hanging. OK, and then the third way, one lane is cut off by a mudslide.

And that's the one that's going to the interstate. So I drive all the way out to the interstate. Now, I don't have cell coverage. I don't have Internet service, nothing. And of course, the whole town is black. Yeah, there's no shops open. Yeah. People are walking around like zombies

like they don't know what to do they have no air conditioning no you know nothing's working so they just walk around on the streets and uh i got a little video of that that was kind of crazy well then i go to yeah i go to uh, South Carolina because that's the way Walmart is. So I'm going down through there. I get off the exit. It is pandemonium people. Yeah. People are trying to get gas. Okay. At gas pumps that aren't working. So they just pull up and think it's going to work. And they have no hope. A sheer desperation. Yeah, they pull away.

Another person pulls up. It's like you see the lights are all off. These people are not pumping gas. Why do you pull in behind them? So I turn around because I figure if Walmart's even there, I can't get anything anyway so I I turn around a four-way stop and I guess people forgot their how you stop at a four-way stop because the lights aren't working and I'm I'm driving back now I did get cell coverage and I called home and I said look listen to what I'm saying. Of course, Maria wants to tell me everything about what's going on here. And she wants me to come back. And I said, I'm not coming back. I have food, water and shelter where I am. I could get stranded on the road because I don't know what's out there. So Sunday we have prepper camp and it's cutting off at noon. And

this lady's in my class, she's standing in the back. She would not sit down. And, uh, I said, it's, it's pretty crazy out there. This, this lady starts recounting her two day trip to prepper camp. Oh no. And yes, she, she came to tears. She says, I was along the street with my child begging for food. Get out of here. Honest to God, honest to God. And, and then I said, I told her about pork chop and she said, Oh, pork chop already fixed us up. We're good to go now. Now, but she said, uh, come fixed us up we're good to go now now but she said uh

coming here she didn't you know only had a limited amount of cash on her of course you know we go to the prepper camp with cash right and i also have the emergency you know c notes in my wallet if I have to. Sure. So now I'm loaded up and I'm ready to come out. I take my map because I got Starlink, okay? Google it, download it, and set out. Now, I'm on 26, okay? 26 is closed. Interstate 26. I don't know why it was closed, but as soon as that snafu hit, my GPS was useless. Okay. Because I have no coverage. And 26 takes you out to the highway that brings you up to the mountains, right?

Yeah. 81. Like it will bring you down the mountain, basically. right yeah like 81 bring you down the mountain basically yeah it was just past ashville and they're they're directing yeah they're directing you off 26 road closed no you know no one in tennessee blah blah blah so i get off on this unknown road, 19, and I start out, I have 150 miles on my indicator. That's how much gas I got. And I'm like, holy crap, I have to find someplace that has gas. And then I'm going down this road. I'm not even sure if I'm going the right way. Oh, goodness. Yeah. I passed this place where I saw that there was water, obviously, across the road because there was about an inch of mud all the way across the road.

And to the right, there's a mangled mess of metal that I can identify as a car. It once was a car. I don't even recall if it had a roof. But it was definitely a car. This thing went through the mudslide, basically. And what was left of it you saw. Yes. And it was just like I remember the the hood up and twisted.

I don't remember a roof on it. And then there's people getting out of their cars because they're running out of gas and they're just walking. And one guy has a gun tucked in his belt. I can see him walking with his gun and his girlfriend. Gun tucked in his belt. I can see him walking with his gun and his girlfriend. And now I'm down to like 130 miles because I used up that much gas. And I'm going.

There's a one lane traffic. And this guy, he says, there's no gas here in this town. But if you make it to Johnson City, I'm pretty sure there's gas in that town and and and i said well i can go like a hundred miles and he says oh i don't know if you'll make that jesus yeah but he he tells me how to get to this Johnson City. But before I met him, I met some other people. They ran out of gas at a 7-Eleven. And their plan was just to wait there until that 7-Eleven opened up. Whenever that was going to be, like in days. And I'm like, okay.

There's a – I pass a Piggly Wiggly or Ingles, a grocery store. And there's a line of people at this grocery store going out the length of the grocery store, down the parking lot, and then down again to the entrance. Okay, just a line of people. I don't know if they were waiting for the store to open or the store was giving free food out. I don't know. Because the refrigeration is down. They might as well say, here, take a turkey. You know, it's going to go bad anyways.

you know, it's going to go bad anyways. So, uh, but then how do you take it home and cook? Unless you have a way to do all this. And of course I have an Atlas. It wasn't in the car. Not that I could find because I had all my prepper shit, uh, you know, on top of where I keep the stuff. It was underneath where the spare tire was. I should have offloaded everything. And then, so I'm driving along. I see this barn that was washed away in a flood and it was stopped by a bridge. And the bridge is unpassable.

The water had washed the road out, and the only thing left was asphalt. So you only had like one lane, and you were taking your life in your own hands just going down that lane. Yeah. One time I turned a corner, and there's this hillside with nothing but pine trees,

and they're all snapped off like half of them are across the road they cut enough that one lane could get through and then um i'm coming out my my engine indicator my fuel indicator light comes on. Now I know it's really getting serious. And I say to myself, well, of course, all this time I'm praying my butt off. I can only imagine what you're actually thinking. The curse. Yeah, I'm making deals with God. Okay.

You know how. And I said, please, God, let me get home tonight to my family let me find a gas station please god and um the indicator light comes on so i know i have like two gallons left you know and it says 30 miles that's it more miles. After all this destruction and just constant, I mean, it's a wasteland. It's apocalyptic. You can't describe it. I felt worse than I did when I was in Baghdad. That's how bad it was. You know, I get up to this intersection and there's two state troopers.

They help this truck back up and then pull out. And they're just standing there talking. I put the window down and I said, guys, can you tell me if there's any gas station right around here? I'm almost out of gas. And the guy says, right there turn right quarter mile up the road there's a shell station it's pumping gas i'm like oh my god thank you evil police yeah i i make a right go up there there's like a hundred people getting gas one guy has a home depot bucket a five-gallon bucket.

Oh, it was that thing all over again. It was the colonial pipeline when they were putting them in plastic bags. Yep. So it's like that. I get into the line there, and it's pumping really slow because everybody's draining this tank. And they have internet, Wi-Fi. I'm able to get on. I fill the car up.

And then I'm able to get on 26 and go to 81 and head up. But the trip that normally takes around seven hours took over 10 wow yeah yeah i'm telling you they're not the news media is not covering it because it's a it's a black eye for biden and they i'm hundreds of people are going to die. There were towns, towns, I'm saying that were wiped off the face of the earth. I don't know if they'll ever recover this place. This place will ever recover. Everything looks like a billion dollar job to me. Every section I look at.

Yeah, it's not going to be days. It's going to be weeks until they get power back. I saw the side of this one mountain just slid off. And I don't know, you know, what was underneath it. It's gone. It's gone now. Yeah. It's gone it's gone now yeah it's gone it's it was the destruction was just

and i don't know you know when katrina happened uh the hurricane the national weather service who are always wishy-washy three to five two to two to four, you know, that kind of stuff. They said in the Katrina one, there will be death. There will be destruction, you know. And if you Google it, you can find it, the National Weather Service warning on Katrina. And it was too scary to read. NBC News said that's too scary to read. It will cause panic. Nothing, nothing like this was out there. Yeah, you got rain. Yeah, it's going to be rain. But they've had rain before. It just the ground became soup and everything slid it was just unbelievable it is uh it's monumental it's absolutely insane looking from above and i've been watching it for days and days and days

i felt like i felt like my kids were there. Yeah. That's what it felt like with you guys there. It was like, oh, shit. And what you just said about mountaintops sliding off, that's all I thought about. That's all I was thinking about was something's going to slip, slop down the damn Orchard Lake campground

and just disappear someone from the PBN ranks for good it was that hill that we drive down and you make the left to go into where the vendor area is and yeah and the tents right well uh there there must have been like a gully you can't see it because of the foliage, but the water was coming out of there like a hose. And it dug a three foot divot in the road. Oh my. Yeah. And it was still running on Saturday, just running, just pouring.

Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right about hundreds dead because we're yeah we're already over a hundred dead and yeah the reports on missing in north carolina are epic like i'm talking nearing a thousand and i have to imagine that's only going to get more crazy. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. I mean, even after, you know, even after, because of the stuff that's happening right now, more people are going to die.

They're going to die from not having good water. They're going to die not having good water oh they're gonna die not yeah not having food or shelter and i guess they're getting more rain now i mean it's just i hope they got some kind of catchment that's what they really need to figure out some kind of massive catchment situation i heard three weeks i heard three weeks today for water. I don't think anyone's prepared for three weeks without water if we don't get water to these people. Yep. And that's tremendous. I mean, that's an undertaking that's crazy.

You know what I mean? To imagine over the next three weeks with things looking the way they look that we're going to be able to get water to everybody who needs water for three weeks. And people pulling up and not, hey, it's no electricity, nothing's working, but they just continue to pull up thinking that hope beyond hope, my card will work and my card will will get me gas. And it's just it was crazy. It was like some kind of mindset. Yeah, it was panic and desperation. Yeah, I'm shocked that I didn't see people just busting in windows and taking stuff. I'm shocked. But I't see people just busting in windows and taking stuff. I'm shocked.

Oh, give it time. Yeah. I'm sure it's happening right now because it went down on Friday, and this is Monday. You know, it's all fun and games until you run out of food and water. That's it. Yeah, that's the deal. Wowee. Changing Earth, Sarah H, that's the deal. Wowee. Changing Earth, Sarah Hathaway in the chat said,

Are you heading out, Dave Jones? Yes, I'm heading out. Thanks, James. Well, thank you for that compelling story, man. That's, yeah, that's wild. Changing Earth. See ya. Sarah Hathaway in chat says,

South Carolina mess too, landslides everywhere. Yep. Wild. Absolutely wild, folks. So, yeah, man. This is the situation. This probably seems all too familiar to one Phil Rabelais who lived through Katrina, right you did your thing

you were in the cajun navy or helping in that in that right yeah well gillian and i are sitting here listening to everything that dave is laying out for us and not like i just you know typed into the chat like maybe i'm just maybe we're just super jaded at this point, but, like, none of this is a surprise. Like, this is hurricanes. They dump one to two feet of water. You know, a Cat 4 hurricane has the same wind speed as an F2 tornado, but it covers three states. That's hurricanes. This is what you get.

three states that's that's hurricanes this is what you get so you know like lakes jump lakes jumping their banks rivers jumping their banks landslides massive devastation that wipes out a dozen zip codes um and all the downstream effects of that being like lack of power lack of fuel lack of water lack of food lack of emergency services looting probably won't start on day one but probably by about day three. I mean, I don't. Once the roads clear up and they can carry things. Yeah. Yeah, that's the problem.

And I don't say any of that to sound like a know-it-all, but like, Gillian and I both lived through Hurricane Katrina. You know, at the time I was in the Louisiana National Guard. So I was between Baton Rouge and Belchase, Louisiana, running flight ops, trying to get people off the rooftops. Like that's what I did during Katrina. And more recently, we had our butts handed to us by Hurricane Ida, which, you know, we, I will say I misjudged when we saw Ida coming in, I kind of read the tea leaves. We'd been watching hurricanes our entire lives, and I was convinced this thing was going west of Baton Rouge, Cat 2, Cat 3 max.

We'd have had about 40-mile-an-hour winds, and we wouldn't have anything to worry about. And then that storm strengthened to almost a Cat 5 and turned hard east. And at that point, once ida made that turn like we were locked in we we would have been in danger to get on the road ida also had the brown ocean effect which has never happened in the u.s where it came over land and strengthened using its own rainwater uh and that's why we had such a bad time with that. But Katrina was awful. And watching everything that I'm seeing on social media and watching the buildup for this storm. I mean, man, James, there were so many triggers. It was just like, oh, my God, I wanted to get out.

Like I wanted to evacuate and I'm not even in Florida. And it was just so many just bad memories of, um, of what happened during Katrina. And Dave is right. They, they certainly don't talk about hurricanes, uh, or write up, you know, things like they used to when Katrina hit because it does scare people. Well, hell they need to scare people. They need to get people out of there. And now we're seeing such. I don't think the death toll is what we're going to see. I think we're going to see in the thousands. There are thousands missing.

And they don't know where they are. I've got a headline here. Listen to this headline real quick in terms of death toll. Death toll triples in Asheville. and there's a quote that says, there were bodies in the trees. There were bodies in the tree for Katrina. Really? There were bodies floating down the road.

There were bodies everywhere for Katrina. And I think that's why Phil and I have been so passionate about this one is because like I put in one of the chats I said guys were reading the tea leaves it doesn't look good and we're that's why we decided not to go one because I get I get um stressed out and anxiety just hearing the wind blow through trees since Ida. I didn't want to do that in a tent. Even if it took a turn and it lost its strength and everything like that, it was still too scary for me to want to be in that. Katrina and Ida have done it for me.

Plus, we've had all these little ones in the meantime. Piper was six months old when Isaac rolled through through and that wasn't a fun one either um that was only cat one cat two it was a one or two it was i mean compared to ida it was a pipsqueak but it was still enough so what was what was recovery like in time frame water resources that kind of stuff after ida for ida yeah it depends it really depends on where you were um south louisiana well i say south louisiana so further south further south um south of lake plancha train it was weeks yeah um up here it was about a week to two weeks i mean we we had we had some power restoration within four days. So four days after Ida, we were starting to see the areas closer to the center of town were coming back to power, which meant you could actually get gas finally. But full power restoration across our entire area was about eight days.

We were out for eight days. But Gillian's right. If you go – like we're north of New Orleans. We're north of Lake Pontchartrain. If you go south of New Orleans, like down into true Cajun country where they're like way, way up against the Gulf, I mean eight weeks. Eight weeks. There are still – it's been two years, two and a half years, almost three. There are still cities on the Gulf Coast that haven't rebuilt, which they just haven't rebuilt from Ida.

Which is very similar to what I saw after Katrina, because after Hurricane Katrina, I was I worked one of my jobs through college was work for an HVAC company down in Chalmette, Louisiana. And there were some houses that were rebuilding and we were putting, you know, part of that rebuild process. They gutted these houses down to bare bones. We were putting brand-new air conditioning units in them. But you would have a street, and half the houses have been rebuilt, and the other half looked like the day after Hurricane Katrina. And this is 2000 – It was 2005. 2005 is when Katrina hit.

I'm talking about when I was working for B boucher that had to have been about 2008. So we're talking about three years later. And people took their insurance checks and walked away from the city and never came home. And those houses just sat with the debris line five feet off the ground. So I guess that's what I'm saying. Like, you know, to, to, to me, when Gillian and I had this, the conversation started very early in the week, cause I was looking at this storm and I was looking at spaghetti malls as early as Sunday and, you know, Gillian and I were initially concerned. And then every, it seemed like every eight hours

concern turned to worry and then worry turned to, Oh my God. Yeah. And, every, it seemed like every eight hours concern turned to worry and then worry turned to, Oh my God. Yeah. And, and, you know, finally, James, like when I told you I'm pulling the plug, my family's not going to this, you know, that was a difficult decision for us because like, I, I look forward to prepper camp for 11 and a half months. Like as soon as I get done unpacking, as soon as I get through unpacking and cleaning everything and putting everything away, I'm ready to go do it again. I love this event. I love spending the time with everybody. But the potential for catastrophe was written all over this from the word go.

And it was like I told you before you even made the decision to pull out yourself yourself i'm like it it doesn't matter if a tree lands here or there it doesn't matter if that river jumps its banks or this river jumps its banks it doesn't matter if orchard lake is left standing when this is over or orchard lake is wiped off the map the potential is there because hurricanes you know get in front of a hurricane is like playing Russian roulette with five loaded cylinders. You don't get to pick, you don't get to pick what gets torn up and what doesn't. You don't get to pick which mountainside gets flattened. You're just there for the ride at that point. So it was one of those situations where it was like, you know, if trouble had come to our front door and we had a hurricane bearing down on us,

we would have made a decision on, do we ride it out here where we have months worth of preps, where we have our local network, where we have all the things we need, where the deck is stacked in our favor? Do we ride it out here or do we evacuate? But there was no scenario in reality where I was going to attempt to ride this thing out 700 miles away from home. Didn't matter if it was a tent, a house, or a bomb shelter. Didn't matter. The juice was not worth the squeeze. I have to say, too, after Katrina, and I'm not so sure with Ida because we weren't as involved on the South Shore for Ida, it was probably two months before emergency officials opened the roads for even people who lived there to come

into their homes and start cleaning up. Like we weren't even allowed to come in. I can remember walking into a friend's trailer house, trailer house or whatever. And they had gotten 10 feet of water on the bayou and the smell was awful and nothing was left. Like there was nothing. I don't know what door or window it washed out of, but nothing was there. And that's what these people are dealing with. They have, their lives have been washed away if they even have their life. Yeah. And to me, the people that have lost everything is heartbreaking. ones that i i feel the worst for though like we have we have a friend of ours who has a family who has a very close friend in that area he knows that the his home is in the damage path he knows his friend is likely impacted

he cannot get a hold of him and that yeah he texted us today and said he thinks he's dead yeah and i'm just going to tell you like like, I agree with you all that the death toll from this is going to be in the thousands. But the problem is, is that even once you get through counting the people who died in the floods and the landslides and the trees falling, the officials will not count the people who get a case of dysentery because they drank bad water. They will not count the people that eat spoiled food and therefore they get some case of dysentery because they drink bad water. They will not count the people that eat spoiled food, and therefore they get some kind of stomach bug. The problem with a situation like this is something that, like I saw in Iraq,

it's not always the event that causes the death. It's everything that happens after the event. And that very often causes even more casualties. So, like, you know, James, I know you and I have talked about talked about like if there's anything we can do to fundraise for this area, if there's any way we can get help to these people. But I'm just going to tell you that any resource that can be spared to help get these people out of harm's way and keep them safe, we should absolutely make every attempt to provide to them. make every attempt to provide to them because having having lived through a couple of major natural disasters i can tell you that like you know the first one i lived through katrina i had a flag on my shoulder i was with the dod so i wasn't eating great but we had plenty of memories and water and the second one being hurricane ida like you know we were we we had everything

stacked in our favor we had trees down in the front yard. We had power out. We had a power outage for eight days, but we had all the food and water we needed for months. We were, Gillian and I and my daughter were very well taken care of because we had prepared ahead of time. But there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people scattered across the, that area who are not in that situation and who desperately

need help. No doubt about it. In the chat room, we've got operation-airdrop.com. This is a organization that is basically flying helicopters in and out of a few places. If you go to the website, you can see where they're dropping the helicopters into. One of them is a Walmart parking lot. And basically delivering goods, the only way I think that goods are going to get delivered

for a little while there. The reason I say that is because Mercury One and Tim Kennedy are both doing similar operations. So those guys are doing helicopter stuff only. And I guess that, you know, to me that says, hey, this is either the most efficient way or probably the only way to get things where they need to go. So that's kind of where I've opted to send my money, Disaster Coffee, with the help of Phil Rabelais and Bobo.

We're also sending those guys some coffee to keep their eyes open because I don't know how to fly a helicopter, but I'm sure coffee helps after about days and days of doing it. So in the show description, we also have a list from a local news network in North Carolina of a number of different charities that you can send your money to. American Red Cross is on the top. I wouldn't recommend American Red Cross. I'd look for something with North Carolina in the name. And, you know, my only concern with the local donations, and you guys could probably speak to this, or the local donors is I don't know how operable they are, you know? So in other words, we send money to a North Carolina food bank. I don't know if they have a food bank. You know, they might have a warehouse that's underwater. And I don't know if they're going to be able to take full advantage of that. That's why we've opted for the Operation Airdrop because they're already doing missions.

They've been at it for a couple days now. So, yeah, whatever you can do. I mean, it's going to be ugly. I think, in all honesty, because of the terrain, it's going to be longer than we can even imagine that these people are going to suffer. Because, I mean, hurricanes hit places that are flat. Correct me if I'm wrong, right? But primarily, I mean, traditionally, you know, your coastal areas are very flat and very close to, you know, very close to sea level. But I mean, that's kind of the double edged sword is that close to like even even here on the North Shore Lake Pontchartrain, when we get a good hurricane, we'll get six feet of storm surge about a mile and a half south of us.

But it's got to go up, you know, 20 plus feet above of elevation to get from where they are to where we are. So we usually don't see anything worse than about street flooding. But the the hard part about this getting so far up into the mountains and the reason I think it's going to be such an awful storm. This storm was awful in Florida. It's but it's it's just as bad that far up there, because, you know, if you get the rainfall estimates I saw before the storm and I haven't seen the official rain gauge was something like 30 inches over over 48 hours in the Asheville area. And 30 inches of water is, you know, do the math, almost three feet.

But the problem is when you have mountains involved, you don't get three feet of water on the peak of a mountain goes downhill. So you wind up with 10, 12, 15 feet down in the valleys, and that's just – that is a level of rainfall that cannot by definition evacuate fast enough, and it has to go someplace. And I mean the devastation I've seen in terms of broken dams, mudslides, catastrophic flooding. It's I don't know. I don't know how to put it into terms. Like I tried my best to try to like try to get you to let you all know ahead of time. Like this is going to absolutely decimate that area. And I think it comes back.

I mean, there's part of me that wonders if it ever comes back. The area, it won't come back like it normally does, like it was. We still have blighted communities in New Orleans. Some of the wards are blighted still. At one point there were celebrities that were coming in to clear the blighted areas and build homes and things like that. But unless this area, which is three states, four states, five if you count Tennessee, unless there is not only just FEMA that has to come in, which hasn't come in yet. From what I understand, it was only declared a state of emergency yesterday.

And so now FEMA is rolling in. Well, FEMA is FEMA is not going, they're going to do good, don't get me wrong, but they're not going to rebuild it like it was. And you could get some celebrities that come in there and rebuild or whatever, but some of these places are not going to rebuild. And I think you'll start to see too, well, maybe not so much. You see down here as hurricanes come in and out every summer from June 1st till November 31st, November 30th, whatever the end of hurricane season is. People just get tired of dealing with the stress and anxiety and they move. I can't tell you how many times I've told Phil every summer, I'm ready to go. I don't want to live down here anymore.

Let's move to the mountains where this doesn't happen. And unfortunately, I'm eating my own crow with Phil. And yeah. Well, but this has been the thing that I've said over and over and over for the eight years that, you know, Andrew and I podcasted together seven years before my wife and I started podcasting it together. There's a disaster to be had everywhere on the globe. You're going to get something somewhere to me the the thing that the lessons that have to be learned is first of all like to to find good intel sources and to be meant to make proactive decisions so like i would say for the people who

for the like some jane dave mentioned orchard lake saying oh it never floods here take take that word always and never and throw both of those in the ocean like i don't even want to hear them again because everything can flood so i would just say that like everyone needs to find intel sources that they they believe are credible and make proactive decisions about do we stand our ground or do we leave and if you're in a low-lying area, standing your ground is dangerous. It's a decision that Gillian and I make every time we talk about hurricane season because where we live, we're like three feet away. We're three feet above sea level away from the highest point in this entire town. So if our house floods, we have serious mega problems all across this area. It's not impossible, but it's unlikely. So we're very

comfortable standing our ground where we are. Part of that's because before I signed my name on the mortgage, I looked up the GRS data to find out what's the elevation point of this house, what's the elevation of everything around us. Like that's an old school, my dad would never call it a prepper trick, but that's an old school prepper trick my dad taught me, was know what your elevation is if you have if you're you have to worry about flooding. So, I mean, the only thing I know to tell people is like if you're watching this and you're not in that area, then consider this a very sobering warning that Mother Nature does not take. She does not play favorites. She doesn't take prisoners and she does not play F.A doesn't take prisoners, and she does not play FAFO very well.

If you get in front of a hurricane, you're going to get the full fury of Mother Nature, and even if you survive it, it's going to suck in ways that you probably would have been better off going someplace else. Yeah. But if you're going to stand your ground, the only thing I can tell people is like if you're going to stand your ground in front of a hurricane, don't plan on being rescued for a few days and stack the deck in your favor every which way humanly possible. And even that may not be enough, as is evidenced by what's going on up there now. How do you guys think Joe Biden feels having to call up Elon Musk for Starlink help with FEMA. I don't think that Joe Biden is running the country, and I'm sure his puppeteers told him to do it, and I don't think he thinks much. But, I mean, at this point, the real lesson here is that when you're in a situation like this,

wherever you can get resources is a good place to get them because the situation in North Carolina and Tennessee and South Carolina and Georgia and Florida is so catastrophic right now that anyone that can lend any assistance has to be welcomed

because those people are literally lives hanging in balance. Do you guys know that Jasmine is currently, Jasmine Biondi one of our listeners is currently lives hanging in balance and the ugly truth that jasmine is uh currently jasmine beyondy our one of our listeners is currently in north carolina and uh i mean doing her damnedest get home no i mean definitely that but she's also i think she said she was providing people with starlink also while she's up there oh If you want, we can add her on. She's up for jumping on. Oh, does she want to

come on? Yeah, why not? Yeah, do you want me to add her in? I mean, she's probably bored out of her mind. I gotta imagine. If you want to, for sure, yeah, bring her on. Definitely. Because she had a hell of a ride getting there.

She had cars break down. I don't want to spoil it. She probably would like to tell it the way it was. I was following along with her adventure. It was a war story. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, I don't want to monopolize the whole show, man. I just, I mean, yeah, everything Dave has talked about in relation to hurricanes is all well within bounds.

I mean, yeah, everything Dave has talked about in relation to hurricanes is all well within bounds. It's things Gillian and I and everyone on the Gulf Coast has lived through many, many times. I feel like, you know, we try to give some heartfelt warnings to everybody to say, hey, like, this will suck in ways that cannot be avoided. And it sounds to me like everybody, because I've talked to Sarah, I've heard from Dave, it sounds like everybody kind of ran into exactly what I was afraid they were going to. One thing I know to tell you is at this point, the focus has to be right now on saving lives.

So whatever we can do to get help in that area, it needs to be done. You know, it's a weird sacrificial thing, what's happening in North Carolina, because there's potential for, I mean, if this thing doesn't get buried, which it probably will get buried because people get bored too fast

to even care about a catastrophe like this by the news. But, you know, this could be a moment in 2024, like a true American moment, where we set aside this stupid-ass election for five minutes and go, all right, all hands on deck, let's really help out the citizens of this country. It doesn't matter which political party we're jockeying for in November, because these people are doomed without our help. And I mean, you know, I don't know if that's something that could happen, but it certainly

feels like it could be a moment for America, which we haven't had a moment for America in some time. You know, America as a whole to sort of respond and do the things that we used to do a lot more often. You know what I mean? that we used to do a lot more often. You know what I mean? And let me add one more thing because after Katrina,

I worked with a bunch of school-aged children whose lives were uprooted. And while, yes, food and water is necessity, we need people to stay alive with food and water. Think of donating to some charities where you can donate games and puzzles and books and things that are going to keep children from the trauma that they just went through, helping them to deal with that trauma that they just went through. Maybe they've lost a loved one. Maybe their house is gone.

You know, the other thing that they'll find is school probably won't resume until after Christmas. I would be shocked if it resumed in some of these places after Christmas because all of those places are gone. And so we we want to make sure that everyone's physical needs are met, but also think of places that you can donate to for people's spiritual well-being and keeping them uplifted in in this time yeah try not to cry no it's i mean it's real it's real man it's uh it's as real as it gets for those people i just you know i can't say that i've ever even been touched by a situation close to what it is those people are going through right now you know so it's for me it's very foreign i and you know we're uber conservative with this kind of stuff that's why i do what i do that's why i'm the guy who owns the proper broadcasting network you know what i mean so well any go ahead oh no I didn't mean to cut you off, man.

No biggie, man. Well, no, I mean, but that's that's something you and I talked about, because, like, you know, I know you and I were texting back and forth a lot throughout all this, because I think both of us were frankly scared, scared as hell that we were going to hear some very bad things about our friends up on the mountain but like you and i both kind of echoed the same thing was like we got into the preparedness lifestyle above everything else out of an abundance of caution like where i'm very i i draw comparisons to like the concealed carry community where we tell people all the time if you're going to carry a gun every day that you need to you you know you need to be very risk averse you need to de-escalate you need to, you know, you need to be very risk averse. You need to deescalate. You need to walk away from danger. Like it's not worth pulling your gun if you can find a way to deal with problem without

your gun. Like that's that's that's pretty standard advice across the whole concealed carry community. And that's a lot of the reason why, you know, like you and I both kind of said, it seems it seems like it's safer to just go someplace else. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was – well, you didn't know. You may have known. I don't know if you'd known it, but you talked about reliable intel at the head of the show.

You were my reliable intel through this thing, Phil, because I said, all right, well, in my – I got a pretty hefty Rolodex after all these years, and there are people I go to when things are happening in my life or around me. And you're the hurricane dude. Like, under hurricane dude is Phil. That's where I go for expert advice. You know what I mean? I really don't want to be the hurricane dude. Well, you know what I'm saying. Like, I'm going to the guy who has the experience in the realm that I'm going to, and when you start going, I don't know about this shit, James, I'm going, okay, well, maybe I don't know about this either. And you played a big role in it for me.

Gillian and I both have our Hurricane Mary badges, and you don't get extra credit for getting it twice. You pretty much get it one time, then you you you can you can you can live the rest of your life quite comfortably never having to do it again roger that jay ferg any luck with jb or no yeah it's calling her now i guess if she probably you know god only knows what kind of reception she got going no i i tried it for whatever reason i couldn't find the actual ad people and it said add invite and so it sent her an invite now i'm getting her actually added in i know why did they do this that why did they mess with the ad button the ad button i just figured you were the the queen of the ad button for years and then i figured out how to do it and then they changed the shit on me i said what is going on it it's trying to car oh it's good it's fine it's okay to have silence in a podcast i know it's scary i saw everybody's get scary quiet holy god it's quiet so again folks uh oh yeah i forgot to

tell you well you know what listen to pbn news tomorrow i'm going to announce what i'm going to do to sort of uh excite the donation base on pbn i've got a little something special uh to see if we can motivate people to give some money to these folks and i'll tell you about that in detail tomorrow because i think we have uh jb with us jasmine with us i'm sorry that's my made-up nickname for you. I don't even know if anybody calls you that, Jasmine, but I don't know how it came to be. It just did.

How are you? I'm doing pretty good. We're in a hotel in Hendersonville where my rental car broke down on the way back home. What are you on, rental car five now or six? What is it? This is rental car three. Oh my goodness. Who are these companies? Fly-by-night rental company or what? Well, I got a Turo in South Dakota when I dropped off the U-Haul after my car broke down

and after having to return the U-Haul back to South Dakota. So it was like a lot of going back and forth, and it was definitely a trek. Yeah, you guys, I'll tell you what, you should all get writing. Yourself, Dave Jones, Sarah, Jay Ferg, you guys should all write this stuff down, type it up, whatever the situation is, because there's details in life that start to disappear, you know, moments, moments after

something like this happens. But it would be phenomenal to look back, I'm sure, for you and you from the start of the whole thing, Jasmine, because you were you were kind of like pressed immediately out the door, right? How many hours were you into your ride to Prepper Camp before it was? Oh, God. Like 44 hours into my trip to Prepper Camp. You said 44?

44 hours. Oh, you're currently 44 hours in. Oh no, that was total for getting there. Oh oh 44 hours total just to get to the campground yeah just to get to the campground and so like we pretty much traveled the length of the country twice going back to South Dakota oh my and you stayed you didn't stay in Orchard Lake right did you stay outside of what I couldn't tell exactly what your whole story was because I was just getting it in bits and pieces from video and chat. Were you staying at the campsite or were you? I was actually in Asheville at the Clarion Hotel at the night of the hurricane.

the hurricane and when I was I was looking out the window I was like oh this isn't that bad until I got out into the city and started seeing because like I'm used to seeing trees sway we get like 95 mile per hour galing winds where I'm at because we're off the coast so I'm used to seeing my trees bend so but until I like got out onto the road and started seeing I was like oh this infrastructure was not built to take on this much water the shallow root systems like the trees were literally just pulled up from the roots and it was I was just like wow this this is this is bad until like once I actually got to see the town and then getting there it took about four hours to get into Saluda because I had to take like five different routes kept getting one down tree to the next power lines that were cropped like it was it was pretty difficult to get there so and it was pretty

devastating and right now I'm just here and well I'm a sitting duck, just trying to add some morale boosters to the locals, giving them access because cellular services are down still in the intermittent. because the linemen have been working like 24-7 getting power lines and trees and making sure that they can get at least the main strips up and going. So what's your game plan? So are you currently at the Clarion? No, I'm currently at the Fairview by Marriott in Hendersonville. Okay, and you're still in it. Yeah, I'm still in it and like making the best of the situation. But I'm going to be leaving tomorrow with some family that are in Greenville.

They're going to come down and pick me up and get me on a plane. So you're headed to Charlotte to fly out? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you are the sole survivor left. You win the prize. You stayed the longest, if this were alone, right? You've been there.

I think everybody else has made it out and home. Anybody heard from Doug? I didn't hear from L. Douglas Hogan that he's back and everything i mean i'm sure he was doug didn't make it back okay yeah i was gonna say he's made it back and he's home and safe and um he actually i have to check one of the message he actually told me the route he took and how long it took him to get home i saw his video it's awesome he made a straight-up Survivorman video. It's pretty good. Yeah, it was really good.

I also saw that there are parts of Tennessee and Kentucky that got hit pretty bad on this hurricane as well. Took out some bridges and flooded some of it. I wonder how often hurricanes make it into the mountains like this, you know? So I'm from the Ozarks. And, you know, growing up in the Ozarks with family also in the Appalachians and all of those mountains, it typically, with these storms, they die down. We get a lot of wind and a lot of rain. Yeah.

So it's, I'm more familiar with the tornadoes. I mean, I've been through three up close and personally. So honestly, with the hurricane coming to hit, we weren't concerned only because being in the mountains, we're usually shielded up that high. And again, like last year, there was a hurricane that hit right at the same timeframe last year, right after prepper camp here on the East coast. It, you know, it had charged up, but didn't do much. And we seem to always have a hurricane right about this year, every year. So for us, it really, especially going up into the mountains, I really wasn't worried about it. I'd prayed on it. You know,

I felt great about it. Nothing told me it would be a problem for my family. So we went and we slept through that whole night in that tent with no problem. I mean, like I said from Tent City to Campsite 39. So it was me, it was my family. He was in a hammock up on the hill. Doug was on the hammock up on the hill. Our friends who had came was there with us. And then E.J. Snyder actually camped with us. So it was all of us clustered together for this duration, and we slept through the whole thing. That's wild. Yeah, I was wondering about that because I knew there was no camping where we camp. I could tell that pretty early on. We left when we did just to beat the rain we got in thursday morning we left wednesday night and we got there probably about four five ish in the morning five ish in the morning on thursday and we slept in our car till daybreak so we could try to figure out where we were setting up our tents and then ryan had said hey just come up camp over here and so we all try to figure out where we were setting up our tents. And then Ryan had said, hey, just camp over here. And so we all set up together.

And then that next day after the rain, it was just pouring. I had the idea of, you know what? No one likes to be hungry and wet. Makes for a terrible mood, terrible spirit. So I packed up the Coleman, the cooler. We went up to the pavilion. And I just started cooking breakfast for everybody. I mean, and just, we all hung out there, everybody who

showed up, everybody who hung out. And apparently there had been people up at that, you know, like there is every year. We have people who stay there for a week up to a week before camp and just enjoy the time there. So it, it was one of those things where there were people there already ready for this event i mean it and jericho was unfazed i mean you can ask jasmine and anyone else who attended he was just chill sitting there enjoying himself and eating yeah he won't that'll be one of those stories he'll either never believe or he'll probably like bring it up and make funny for it later. I know my kids would. Yeah, dad, remember that time you took me into the freaking hurricane to go hang out with your friends?

My kid would skewer me if I did that, I'm sure. One of those things, like I said, we had prayed about it. And that night when we laid down, I had said our prayers, you know, and I felt peace come over me. I was like, OK, we are going to be OK. We made it through with no problem. Yeah, it was definitely hairy. What was the most hairy? You know what? I think the most hairy part was seeing the amount of water that raised. But not at any point was I actually worried if that makes sense um i couldn't imagine that camp area i i never could have imagined like the lake being a threat as long

as you guys were up by the camp uh check-in area the catch and release like did get up quite high look like it could potentially roll over but the drainage on that lake or both those lakes are quite interesting or quite amazing because as soon as the rain eased up the water receded so quickly yeah so they got a thing in the back of it there's they've got like a drain in the back i'm pretty sure i remember staring at that back of that lake my first year when I was in a canoe fishing for bass and going like, what the hell is that? A canoe ended up on the grass where the vendor booth area was. It actually ended up where Forest Garvin's booth would have been. So we always laughed that we had new riverfront property with a boat on it. There you go. I saw the dam went for a swim

disappeared off into the into the lake but i can tell you this i spoke a local came up to attend prepper camp and then i actually ran into some locals on the way out who are going to come on my my show and want to speak about it but i had a local come up and say thank you for what pork chop and the guys and gals did because i know even sarah went back out with you know borrowed a chainsaw and sarah and her family crew went and cleared out more and morgan helped and um but they came up and said thank you because they had were talking to emergency services in the town and said the mountain was not going to be touched the until the earliest possible date might have been today but most likely tomorrow and he they said that

people on this mountain get stranded every time no power no way down and and it was just a huge thank you well when i went we went down the mountain as we were heading out. This couple, Nate and Betsy were, or two individuals were speaking. And he said, he said, I was wondering who cleared the roads. Cause we were talking, I was asking, you know, how was it going? He goes, well, someone had already cleared our roads. He goes, I'm on top of the mountain, just so many houses up further North than the lake. I mean, orchard lake. And he goes, you know, we had trees down. He goes, I figured I was going to be spending the next several days cutting my way out. He goes, whoever did that. And I was like, oh, well, it was a bunch of guys

from our group. He goes, well, thank you. He goes, because that had made it easier for us to get to the other people and the elderly people on the mountain to get them down. And then he could start helping emergency services. Now, he said power doesn't usually get restored right away. But it was nice to know that there were people out there who didn't know them, who were willing to put that effort out to help complete strangers. Yeah. Hey, that's huge. And the lake, the lake, as we were the Orchardard Lake people were thankful because the stuff that was sold there. I mean, it was one of those things where it was great to see people not who were were happy to have people like us there and people who were helping each other because there was issues. We had an issue of our tank was way lower than we meant to.

But again, that was because of how late we traveled. Nothing was open and the kindness of a new friend in Porkchop. We had more than enough gas to get past Columbia to be able to fill up because on the way out, we saw there was plenty of power in certain areas, but the gas station lines. And then we stopped at one point to adjust something. And we had a young woman walk up to us and ask us, do you know where a gas station is? I only have nine miles left. And unfortunately, we didn't have enough room to put her in the car. We would have just taken her down to the gas station or if we had a gas can.

But it was one of those things we were able to help her find people who knew the area to find the next gas station was three miles away. knew the area to find the next gas station was three miles away so i mean it was interesting to see um see the progression of it as we got away from the area now myrtle beach got winds we've got several trees down but nothing like the mountains nothing like the the center part of south carolina or georgia or any of the other places that get hit. Yeah. Yeah, it's, you know, like Dave always said, Dave's always said, if he was going to live out an apocalyptic situation, he'd want to do it with us. And, you know, the bigger us is, of course, the Prepper Camp group. And it was worrisome to have you guys out there,

but it was good knowing that people like Porkchop were going to be there and other people that we've known for years now because you just know they're going to work with everyone for everyone's best interest. It's sort of an unwritten rule at Prepper Camp. You know what I mean? It's an unwritten rule. It's sort of an unwritten rule at Prepper Camp.

You know what I mean? It's an unwritten rule. It's more of like almost an obscure family and friendship and community. But that's why as soon as, you know, little birdie was able to, you know, wink, wink, help us getting onto the whole Starlink, you know, Skynet going on. Every chance I got, I was given updates. Every chance I got, I was trying to make sure people were aware, people were following. And then a few people who were concerned, you know, I did lend out my phone so people could call and just let their spouses know or their parents or whomever know that they were safe and they would be okay on the way home. Yeah. And I guess now it's just time to focus in on the recovery, you know, see what we can help to get done. And maybe we figure out a way to keep this thing front and center for till 2025.

You know, the biggest struggle these people are going to have, I think, is going to be remaining relevant this day and age. Literally, with their lives and their livelihoods and their futures on the line, I think the biggest struggle for these people is going to be sadly remaining relevant in the news cycle with the election coming and everything else that's on the horizon. I think it's going to be real easy to forget all about Asheville, North Carolina and what's happened there. And that's probably what has got me most nervous right now, you know, now that everybody's home safe except JB. I hope, yeah, I guess it's smooth sailing. Get Jasmine back to the Charlotte airport and fly her back across the country. Telling you, write that story down, Jasmine.

That's going to be one for the record books for you. Let's hope you don't have another trip like this, right? Yeah. All right, folks. Well, I don't know about you, but I think we've done a pretty good job covering things. Again, there's a link in the show description and a multitude of ways you can help out.

So, you know, do what you can. Every little bit helps. There's going to be a lot of people helping. So, you know, even if you drop a $5 bill in, it's going to go into the greater good. And, you know, you just have no idea what a difference something like that can make to somebody who's got a corner of their house left.

And that's all. Phil, you've unmuted. Are you going to give us some words of encouragement on the way out i mean i'm not just just to kind of address what you were saying about you know the the national media cycle and how phenomenally short the attention span of that god-awful thing is yeah but i mean the one the one thing i will say that at a moment like this, like there, there's really two things that you can fall back on. One is community, the broader, you know, the entire area of the Appalachians and the entire country could really make an enormous difference in people's lives by throwing, you know, the cost of going out to eat with your

family one night would help out a family in need. But this is also a really good cautionary note for everybody to start considering your local area. You know, that's a big conversation Gillian and I've had for the last year is trying to build mutual assistance groups in the local area to try to decentralize things like disaster preparedness and disaster response. Because you're right, you know, like you may not be able to get FEMA to come in and fully commit to the recovery effort that you need. But if you have a group of friends spread out over an area, some of them may not have all been affected by the storm and may be able to render very quick, very targeted aid in a way that would be lifesaving. very quick, very targeted aid in a way that would be lifesaving.

So I would just say that like at a moment like this, if you're, if you're the person who is up to your eyeballs in trouble, like people are trying to get help to you as fast as humanly possible. And if you're the person who's not eyeball deep in trouble, please check on your friends, your family, your neighbors, your friends of friends and everybody else. Cause I promise you, if you know people in that area, somebody needs help. You just got to get it to them one way or the other. No doubt about it.

Well, PBN family, I am sat here with truly some of the most beautiful people on the planet. the planet and uh whenever i get the whole group together particularly in a situation like this where you get to see you know we're not just bitching about the way things are in the country tonight we're pulling from this level of expertise and this level of experience that is unique here at pbn and it's you know it really is my humble honor to be with you guys, you hosts here at Prepper Broadcasting Network. It's a wild thing. And when moments like this occur, I'm always reminded, like, look at these people who you're surrounded by, you know. And it is an honor. And I appreciate you all.

And JB, hope you get home safe. Do your part, PBN family. We have some work to do as a nation to help these people out. All right. I will talk to you soon. Thanks, everybody, for joining me tonight. And thank you, chat. Yeah.

Get on board, folks. We'll see you. Thank you for listening to the Prepper Broadcasting Network, where we promote self-reliance and independence. Tune in tomorrow for another great show and visit us at prepperbroadcasting.com.