travelinggramma

We are a generation of doers. We were brought up helping anyone and everyone we could. I spent later years with the ARC helping on the disasters.(and since we could bring our RV we had cookouts for all the volunteers after the 12 hour shifts)
Now - i physically can not do any hard labor! And we are so far from the area too. So I pray that those who are able step up and do it. I follow Samaritan's Purse and all they are doing. I look at the pile of quilts I have sitting here and figure that sometime in the future we can figure a way to give them out. And I give a listening ear to those who need to talk.
And I sew!
All2 pieces - your birds were flying all over so I built a house but only one would go inside! I just saw that the one corner looks askew - but it is the bird matching the blue!
Hav 4 - your patriotic fabric is always a favorite to work on

sewbizgirl

Great blocks, Terri and TG. Love seeing them.

Well my email nightmare is over... I abandoned that email address (that I have had for 25 yrs.) and started another one. If you already had my email addy, just change the ending to @yahoo.com and you'll have my new email addy! Goodbye, Juno! Won't miss ya!

Janice, your generator must have gotten it's bad part repaired. Glad to hear from you. Hope all your power and water is back on soon.

travelinggramma

SewBiz, 25 years is a long time. Probably about like mine. I have my original email. I do have an additional yahoo email I use for every online sign-up etc. and I keep an email for my quilt labels. I put a label on the donation quilts with my email(no name) and every now and then I am blessed with a story and thank you. One was from a boy who got one and was so excited because “Jesus loves match cars 🚗 like me”
DH had his entire FB account stolen. We couldn’t get in to change password either and it took months for FB to finally close it down. But all the information and memories were lost.

Janice McC

Good morning. Turns out I cannot update the gallery. Internet is too weak. Oh, well. And power is not on. The damage is just too extensive so Duke Electric just couldn’t make their timeline of midnight last night. We understand completely, it’s just disappointing. No generator either as the faulty part didn’t come in. Uggg. On a happy note, DH bought a new car to replace the one that was submerged in muddy water at the dealership. It was in for service when the storm hit and we couldn’t get it out. The water came halfway up the dashboard as you can see in the pic so it’s totaled. Those seats are black underneath the drying mud. The new one is the same red color and model as the old, just newer.

SBG, got your email changed. Terriamn, hope you’re feeling better. That eye must be all shades of the rainbow by now. And thank you for my beautiful red block! It’ll be perfect with the rest.

I’m off to pour hot water through some coffee grounds to make something resembling coffee.

ibex94

Janice, that car is awful! I am glad you were able to get it replaced so quickly. The news is all over the place regarding the response of the federal government as compared to the usefulness of the local populations. It was like that during Katrina as well. The locals came from everywhere with their boats to assist with the rescues because the logistics of getting enough government types in place (including national guard from everywhere) can be a long time coming.

I am curious as to the federal response where you are just because it is a more accessible area than right up the road to Ashville right now. Are you disappointed with the federal response in any way? We quilters can start writing letters to our congress people to shore up the parts that aren't working right.

For instance, I keep hearing that FEMA used their money for the immigrants but the reality is that Congress tells them what to do with the money that they get. Housing money to reimburse the cities is not part of the natural hazard reserve money. They cannot just shift money around without Congress telling them to do it. I am sure the FEMA officials are waiting for Congress to come back online to appropriate more funds for more natural disasters. They claim they have enough for the Helene disaster but I haven't tracked down their budget.

Another ugly rumor I heard was that flood insurance will not be paid out to Helene victims. The reality is that only 2% of the affected population had paid flood insurance. Those with the insurance should have no problem getting their funds from their policies. The question is whether or not their home owners policies will be able to pay out for reasons besides flooding. So what can the government do at this point to help the victims besides making low interest loans available to those who are credit worthy? What happens to those who are not credit worthy?

We need new legislation and new thinking on how to handle natural disasters in this country. We are supposed to be a country filled with innovators and entrepreneurs. We need them to step up to public service to help with enacting compassionate legislation and finding creative ways to fund such support. It is time for lots of cohesion between our public leaders.

I hate that this has happened to anyone but especially you, Janice. Your attitude is wonderful through this crisis and will keep everyone around you safe and sound. How are your kids in Ashville doing?

terriamn

Oh Janice your poor car, lucky you could purchase a new one to replace it that quickly.

Boy do I remember those few days of pouring the water over the coffee grounds while in the Texas freeze. And it tasted darn good. Sorry the generator part didn’t arrive.

My youngest dd thinks I should make a collage of pictures of the changing colors of my face. The color of my eye is no long so shocking but lots more new colors on that side. Last night I realized how lucky I was, I could have been knocked out and landed face first in the lake

Two weeks and we leave for Texas as long as mammogram follow up is AOk

ibex94

Terriamn, I like the idea of daily pictures of your changing bruise. You are very lucky, indeed. I hope your mammogram results are clear and indicate there is nothing to worry about.

Janice McC

Terriamn, your daughter has a wicked sense of humor! lol. But I’d be interested in seeing that collage. Tee hee.

Ibex, honestly, our neighborhood is very lucky indeed. Only one house with minor tree damage and a couple of damaged cars. Nearly miraculous if you could see all the trees around. No flooding. We are all mostly out of the loop as far as requiring assistance other than for power. That response is overwhelming, workers from all over the US and Canada. We don’t really have internet so what we hear is rumor and absolutely cannot be trusted. I don’t know how the government is doing. I do understand you are pretty well f$@@(:d if you’ve got flooding and no home flood insurance though. Our car is covered by our personal auto policy, not the dealership’s. Beyond that, I have no idea what’s happening.

mjpEncinitas

I’ve been following the relief efforts through the newspapers. It sounds like we are going to see more and more of these natural disasters. I’m glad your neighborhood is coming together Janice. I wish we could do more to help! I’m thinking about what we would do. I think we’d load up the van with everything we need to camp and head out.

We’ve been slightly impacted by weather. We were headed to Joshua Tree but they are having unseasonably warm weather over 100 and we can’t camp or hike in that, so we’ve postponed our trip. Our friends there say They’ve never had so many continuous days of very hot weather. This summer was brutal for them with 6 or 7 weeks of weather close to 110.

Thank you IBEX for dispelling the falsehoods that have been circulating. The governors of the states affected have been very complimentary about the federal response. It’s good to see the feds and states working well together but its clear the US is going to have ramp up its funding for disasters like this. Stay safe everyone!

sewbizgirl

TG, that's a great idea to have a separate email acct to put on labels. You always wonder who ends up with your quilts.... So sorry to hear your DH's lost his facebook acct to a thief!

Janice, pretty sad looking car. Glad you were able to get a new one.