The devastation of Helene

Better times: Undated Color-King Natural Color Card postcard with a view from Thousand Pines Inn 

in Tryon, North Carolina. The inn is now a private residence.

Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane on Sept. 26, has devastated the southeastern United States and Appalachia with its rain, wind and tidal surge. Very preliminary estimates are that there is about $100 billion in damage and economic loss. Some of the worst impacts have been in western North Carolina, in areas that I'm somewhat familiar with from my time living in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Other significant impacts occurred in Pinellas County, Florida, where I lived for a few years as a teenager.

The Washington Post reported this afternoon: 

"Even as response teams worked to reach those struggling amid the wreckage, mountain communities in Tennessee and North Carolina were bracing Saturday for more flooding as Helene continued its destructive path, pushing dams to the brink, forcing residents to flee to higher ground and leaving some towns entirely cut off from communication. Officials were still waiting to get a complete assessment of the damage in isolated areas."

In Appalachia, which includes far western North Carolina, almost all of the communities are isolated. There are also cities of 90,000-plus, such as Asheville, North Carolina, but Helene didn't discriminate in dumping about 30 inches of rain across wide swaths of the region.

Some of the heartbreak, the full extent to which may takes days or weeks to determine, has been documented in real time on Twitter (X) and Facebook. But that's only from folks who are able to pick up a cell signal sufficient to communicate with the outside world. Every voice deserves to be documented for the historical record.

Here are just a few of the Twitter posts I've seen:

Ginny Barker: "Please pray for my community of Swannanoa, NC. We have had complete devastation from Hurricane Helene. No power for several counties over. No water. Spotty cell service. This is to us what Katrina was to New Orleans."

Andrew Price: "I made it out of Asheville. The entire area has no cell service, no power, no water, no sewer. I tried several times to make it  off campus, but neighborhoods are blocked by power lines, trees, and flood waters. UNC Asheville has not been communicating well with students."

Brad Panovich (Charlotte meteorologist): "Our station received this email from Banner Elk in Avery county. 'I am hoping to open a line of communication with the "outside world".  Residents of Elk River in Banner Elk are completely stranded.  Attached is a picture of what used to be the bridge which is the only way in or out of the community.  We have no power, water, cell service....  We do have a generator and wifi at the clubhouse, which  is how we are sending this.  Most of the residents are elderly, and there is no way to get out if there is an emergency.  If nothing else, maybe you guys can help us communicate information to/from the outside. Scott'"

Ash (West Virginia resident): "National media hasn't grasped the severity of the flooding in Appalachia. Entire downtowns and highways are gone, homes washed away, many without power, cell service, or escape routes. We are one of the poorest regions in the U.S. and many won’t recover. Our region needs help."

YourQueerAuntie: "Appalachia already didn’t have much. You’ll see footage from Asheville and Boone the bigger mountain towns. Please don’t forget the smaller rural communities that are entirely decimated and were already lacking recourses. Every single road in my family’s community is gone."

Katsumi27: "Tryon is NOT FINE. I’m sitting here without power and damage. Power lines and huge tress all over the road. 9 has huge down tress and power lines."

Bill Hangley Jr.: "so much story still to come. the Appalachians are incredibly rugged, steep and thickly forested, full of creeks & small rivers; almost no flatlands. towns cluster in valleys on narrow floodplains. once a road is out, you’re stuck until they rebuild that road"

Fred McCormick (Swannanoa Valley resident, journalist and business owner): "I’m exhausted. There isn’t a lot of new information to report from Black Mountain, where power and water remain out. Local officials do not have an ETA for repairing the water service, which is out due to the electrical outage. Many roads are still impassable."

Ashley (Charleston, South Carolina, resident): "One of my best friends is the social media manager for Chimney Rock State Park in NC. I haven’t heard from her since 10:30 this morning, 9/27/24. If anyone knows Maddy or knows someone who may know Maddy, please let us know she’s okay. I’m terrified."

About 13 long hours later, Ashley posted this update:

1920s postcard from Bruges

This postcard of of Saint John's Hospital in Bruges, Belgium, was mailed to Moylan/Rose Valley, Pennsylvania, in August 1928, if I'm reading the year on the postmark correctly.

Saint John's opened as a hospital in the 12th century and was still in operation when this postcard was sent. It didn't close as a hospital until 1977 — not a bad run! — and is now a museum.

The cursive message from Louise to Alfred is a bit hard for me to fully decipher. My eyes and ability to suss out the handwriting of a century ago aren't what they were when I started this blog in 2010. (I may be getting a second cataract surgery this fall, so maybe those skills will bounce back.) The gist of the letter, however, is a rave about Bruges and its old brick buildings and beautifully decorated churches. 

It's still a destination worthy of raves. English actor James Frain described Bruges thusly in an interview with the BBC:

"Bruges is a beautiful medieval city almost untouched by time. If you like jazz you will be well catered for. If you like chocolate and beer you will be in heaven."

Related post

• 1920s postcards: A walkable street and an adventurous path

Hans Holzer's "The Witchcraft Report"

I haven't had an installment of the Hans Holzer series since February and The Psychic World of Plants, so today — the day we mark the autumnal equinox — seems like a great day to delve into this 1970s book about spookiness, weirdness and incantations.

• Title: The Witchcraft Report
• Additional cover text: "An up-to-the-minute report on Pagan groups in America by the author GHOST HUNTER, ESP AND YOU and CHARISMATICS."
• Back cover excerpt: "What makes a person of sound mind and body turn to Witchcraft and the 'Old Religion' as opposed to the traditional, orthodox forms of worship?"
• Author: Hans Holzer (1920-2009)
• Publication date: October 1973
• Publisher: Ace Books 
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 222
• Cover price: $1.25
• Epigraph: "Ye shall dance, make music, sing, feast, and make love — all in my praise." (The Gospel of Aradia)
• What's the Gospel of Aradia? Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is an 1899 book by Pennsylvanian Charles Godfrey Leland comprising his translation of a religious text believed to be used by pagan witches in Italy. Though there are many questions about whether the religious text was genuine, Leland's book had a major influence on Wicca's development in the 20th century.
• First sentences: Ever since I wrote THE TRUTH ABOUT WITCHCRAFT and THE NEW PAGANS people from all over have been writing to me in the hope of becoming witches. Some of these are twelve and thirteen year olds whose chances of being introduced to a coven or even a solitary practitioner of "The Old Religion" are practically nil until they reach the age of reason, or what passes as the legal age.
• Last sentence: Finally, if you who seek the ways of Witchcraft find that it is a philosophy that goes deeper than surface, a religion that is more than skin deep, don't be ashamed to get involved: body, mind, and spirit are the true trinity of life.
• Random excerpt #1: Individual witches may still practice in Cincinnati but there is, to the best of my knowledge, no organized coven now in operation. 
• Random excerpt #2: A pert, dark-haired lady who goes by the craft name of Cassandra Salem, or Sandy Salem for short, rides her jolly broom around Anaheim, California. 
• What was Sandy Salem's real name: Judy Malis, according to Holzer. And she lived in Huntington Beach.
• Random excerpt #3: If anything, it proves that Pagans have the same basic problems Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans have and, for that matter, all religions all over the world: sometimes they can't get along with each other, sometimes they exaggerate things out of proportion because they are so close to their problems, they cannot see how really insignificant these problems are to someone taking a long range view of things.
• Online reviews: This specific book doesn't have any reviews of note on Goodreads, Amazon or elsewhere online. And a search of Newspapers.com also came up empty. In 2002, Holzer published Witches: True Encounters with Wicca, Wizards, Covens, Cults and Magick, a hefty tome that incorporates some witch-themed material from his 1960s and 1970s books. Of that 2002 book, Green Stone wrote this review on Amazon in 2011: "The main problem I have with this book is that it seems to have been primarily written in the 1970's, and then updated to include a LITTLE 21st century (year 2000 and later) culture and Witchcraft information. ... If you want details on some of the goings on in Witchcraft in the 1960's or 1970's, or a taste of what some of the covens were like then, this book may give you some help with that. The many highly imaginative prayers, invocations and rites by Lady Svetlana of Feraferia which are included will give a good taste of the 'loose' 1970's when if what you said was beautiful and poetic, you weren't expected to make any sense." [Feraferia is mentioned extensively in The Witchcraft Report.] 

I thought it would be appropriate for black cat Stubby to pose with today's paperback.