My wife and I took a bike ride on the Virginia Creeper trail Saturday morning. We had read the report that the trail had been re-opened and both wanted to ride again and also to help the fine folks in that area with our business. This is a trip we have taken dozens of times. The part of the trail from Whitetop to Damascus is closed and will be for a very long time, perhaps years. The portion between Damascus and Abingdon is open, albeit with a few rough patches that make is a little more like single track than pleasant road. That’s fine with me.

Eighteen trestles were completely destroyed over the Whitetop Laurel River. That river is wide at parts and deep at parts, and both wide and deep at parts. Without the trestles there is no way to get down from the mountain, and also no way to get to the outside world (more on that later).

We began on Highway 321 but were soon diverted to other roads (we should have known that we couldn’t get there by the regular route). Highway 421 in the section crossing NC into Tennessee (to Mountain City) is closed. We were sent (by Waze) through West Jefferson, NC. We began to see the damage that had been done by the flooding as soon as we left West Jefferson.

Every few hundred yards was a new debris pile that will eventually have to be burned. I was astonished at the trash lining the river banks. The river banks were not what they used to be. A lot of escarpment had been washed away and in its place was debris, dead trees, mud, and as I said, trash. Miles and miles of trash that had washed down the river and deposited along the sides of the river. It looked like a scene from a war.

We were eventually routed on to a gravel road that was suitable only for a single vehicle, around winding turns, up hills and down, with washouts every few hundred yards. We were within feet or even inches of having a tire over the edge of some of the washed out areas (and then down the mountain with what I’m sure would have been several dozen rolls of our vehicle).

We didn’t know we would end up taking this route. We should have gone Highway 77 to Highway 81 to Highway 91 and it would have taken us into Damascus on clear roads. Anyway, this way I got to see the damage and destruction. People live up in these hills and believe me when I tell you that many of them are cut off from the rest of the world. That gravel road is currently only suitable for ATV traffic, at least safely, and then maybe not.

Asplundh trucks and workers are everywhere (before you get on this road). I wonder who is paying for all of this work? When you get on this gravel road, you’re literally on your own. You could have rolled off the side of the mountain and no one would have known it for weeks. Eventually though, we ended up in Taylors Valley, Virginia. I was shocked. We drove right up to the restaurant we always stopped at in Taylors Valley when biking from White Top. I looked to the right for the bridge / trestle and it was gone. In its place was an enormous amount of gravel on both sides of the river with a temporary bridge.

I was thankful for that bridge. On the other side of the Whitetop Laurel River, you need a bridge or trestle to get down to civilization. The folks there would be completely cut off without it, and I’m sure they were for some period of time before the temporary bridge was put up. The driver who took us to Abingdon talked some about what happened in Taylors Valley. He described the story of the couple who almost perished, although in greater detail that in this report (because up there, everybody knows everybody). He actually bound his life vest to a tree so that “his body could be found later.”

At Blue Blazes Bike Rental (where we hopped a ride to Abingdon with our own bikes) Rick told us that the mud inside the shop was two feet deep. They had to excavate before the shop could be reopened. Other businesses there were destroyed. It all made me very sad. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Rick for very long, but I’ve written him and told him that I’d like to volunteer my time for any manual labor they or anyone else in the area needs.

I do have a few closing thoughts. Our driver told us about a visit to Damascus from OSHA soon after the flooding. The OSHA inspector had a big problem with a receptable that had no plate – in a city without power. He made other problems for them too, until the chief of police told him to get out of the town.

FEMA came up there too, but sat in offices (or tents) and hooked up to the internet (I guess via uplinks and battery power) and after they were told of a isolated couple that needed help, the response was “Tell them to come down here and fill out some forms.” He was told that the couple was isolated, had no power, and didn’t know how to use a computer anyway. Eventually they were able to talk him into hopping a ride with someone to actually go see them.

The National Guardsmen who were manning the station at Ashe County to supply emergency resources to the people were doing mostly nothing as far as I could tell. They should have been on the train up to where we were with backpacks on. We went further in car than they did by any means at all. Asplundh made it further up into the NC mountains than the NC national guard did.

If the NG actually wants to train its men to do this sort of thing, they need to look for hunters, survivalists and backpackers. What better training for the NG than to put on backpacks and head into the mountains of NC and Virginia with no power, only the weight on their backs, and maybe a Milstar uplink?

FEMA should look for the same type of people if they are serious about their mission. But they apparently aren’t, and so it’s a waste of taxpayer money. No one I talked to said anything good about any government entity at all after the flood (except for city or county rescue), although the helicopter that picked up the survivor in Taylors Valley was a Black Hawk, so thankfully the NC NG did something right.

The NC legislature will have to make it so that all of these piles of debris can be burned without interference from NC DHEC. I have no confidence that the governor will do anything about this, but hopefully the legislature can get a veto-proof vote on helping these folks out. Most of the work I saw happening was being done by the people of Ashe County, not any government entity.

I do have a few pictures I may share later.