[jyl]

Someday I want to ask my BIL if he still plans to retire to his house in the mountains outside of Ashville. I mean, he might be an old man before the town is back to what he loves. But not the time now.

After a major disaster, it always takes longer than you'd like for relief to come flooding (!) in. Think Katrina, Lahainai, Paradise. The obstacles now are huge. I'm sure heavy-lift helicopters, bulldozers, Guard vehicles are being/have been called up. In under a week I think/hope the people will all have food, clean water, communications, ability to leave. I hope the NC governor/legislature is quickly working on emergency laws/edicts to protect people from foreclosure and rapacious developers and get them funds to survive, recover, and rebuild. EDIT: looks like US military logistics is being deployed.

I am pretty convinced the great majority of that destruction is not covered by insurance. Look at the property insurance and re-insurance stocks, totally non-plussed. And many people there have lost their employment as well as their homes. Which means that, absent the state and federal govts stepping in with lots of money, they are doomed to at best a lifetime of debt and at worst starting over elsewhere with nothing. Which happens - again, think past catastrophes. I have friends who moved to Portland after Katrina - lost everything, had to leave their home and friends and start all over. Better to do that than live in FEMA trailers - but they had the option.