The Crisis In Western North Carolina Will Force Us To Find Creative Solutions

This might be one of them.

As the entire country knows, Western North Carolina, along with East Tennessee and parts of Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia, have been hit with devastating floods generated by Hurricane Helene.

The images have been devastating and the accounts searing and sometimes difficult to read or listen to: grandparents swept away or dying in bed as a tree crushed their house, parents watching their children drown and helpless to stop it. There are accounts of small children who have come up to rescuers to ask where their mommy and daddy are.

The power system has been destroyed and some of the estimates are that it could take months or even years to repair the damage. And keep in mind that in some areas, they may have to rebuild roads before they can fix lines and substations.

The challenges are going to be profound and people will have to be creative to solve overcome such daunting problems.

Brandon Hoe asked us if we would mention the coalition that he and several others are putting together called Connect Carolina.

It’s made up of several business leaders who have built successful companies and would like to help those who have been devastated by the storm.

While we don’t know a great deal about it, it does look like a very useful way to help people get in touch with the world, something so simple for the rest of us that that right now is profoundly difficult for our friends and loved ones in the mountains.

Their Web site suggests that their technology can connect up to 10,000 families, that it sets up in “hours, not days” and runs around the clock.

It does sound like something that could be deeply useful right now. Given the massive problems we’re facing, it’s possible that services like Carolina Connect and Starlink could help find entirely different solutions.

They’re trying to raise money to set up these services which would be a huge boon to the displaced and devastated people in Western North Carolina. Please look over their Web site and consider helping them.