[jyl]

Curious what is going on in the areas hardest hit by Helene and if/when they will recover.

I was talking to my brother in law. He grew up in the mountains of NC, bought a second house there, where he plans to retire, hunt, and fish. His family have homes in the area. In Helene, a slide took out a relative's house, killed the husband, the wife was eventually rescued by helicopter. His two neighbors both have $500K+ damage to their houses which are uninhabitable. His 50 yard driveway suffered a slide that will require a $100K retaining wall to repair. The roads have huge damage all over, repairing just one spot near his house took 40 double semi loads of rock. The town or hamlet nearest his house is basically gone. The nearest real town is partly gone. Most alarming, he told me that so much soil has been washed away that, next time, it won't take 30 inches of rain to trigger similar slides. No-one had insurance for flood or earth movement. He says that the people he knows are all unsure whether to stay. He's unsure himself. He's looking at retirement places in Europe.

Is that representative of what's going on there?