My first update since Helene came through the southern part of the United States and basically bitchslapped everyone.

We're fine; no property damage, no loss of life for our family, but people have gone nuts around here!

Colquitt EMC outage numbers as of posting this episode (9/30/24):

• 45,491 Total Customers without Power
• 4,238 Moultrie
• 13,865 Tifton
• 27,388 Valdosta

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[music]

Good morning. It is September 30th. It's currently 7.53 in the morning.

Oh.

Past several days have been interesting.

So,

if you're not aware, there was a little storm called Helene,

Category 4 hurricane, that decided to bitch slap the southeast.

Just utter destruction in Florida. It came up through Georgia.

I live in Tifton, which is, we're kind of south central.

We're roughly about,

I don't know, 50-60 miles north of Adasta.

It takes about 45 minutes on I-75 to get down there. I've never really

looked at the distance. I just look at time.

And that storm came through Georgia Thursday evening, Friday morning.

It hit us around 2.30, 2-2.30 in the morning. We really started

seeing the high winds around one o'clock, I think, midnight,

at the earliest.

And we were fortunate because the original

projected path would have probably wound up with even more

devastation in this area for us. And that's not to say that we don't have

quite a lot. Trees down everywhere, homes destroyed or damaged, vehicles

destroyed or damaged, swaths of the entire area without power.

Last time I looked, and I've been mainly paying attention to the Colquitt EMC

numbers because, well, we're on Colquitt.

And last time I looked, of all of their customers, and they have

about 66,000, as they say, 66,000 meters,

there's still a little over 44,000 that are without power.

And then it's divided up between

Moultrie, Tifton, and Valdosta. If I remember correctly, I think Tifton

is down to in the 13,000 range.

Moultrie's in the 40,000 range, 4,400. Valdosta's still up in the like 26,000,

27,000 range.

Valdosta got hit hard. And it's not the first time.

It's not the first time at all.

So we were fortunate in that when our power went out at

about 2 30 a.m. Friday morning, it came back on around 10 o'clock Friday

morning. So we were that lucky handful of folks

who not only did not have a very long to be

without power, but have power now where there's still

over 13,000 folks here in Tifton and Tift County

that do not have power. Part of the problem,

of course, you can imagine, you've got you've got trees that are down that have

taken down power lines. So they've got to get the trees removed.

We've got obstacles as far as road closures because of the

fact that trees are down in the road. So you got to get those

cleared up so that they can get to the areas where they can actually

start working on the power poles and the power lines.

And a much larger issue too is the transmission lines.

The transmission lines are what supply power to the substations. And then, of

course, the substations branch out and supply power to the neighborhoods.

I think they said something like 13 of the substations were without

power right now. Don't quote me on that number. I've been

looking at a lot of numbers over the past couple of days.

And the way it was explained, the CEO of Colquitt EMC explained, their crews do

not work on the transmission lines. There's actually

there's actually a company called Georgia Transmission

because it requires certain knowledge, certain certifications, certain

levels of education, expertise, etc. So all transmission lines, and I learned

this, all transmission lines in Georgia are

handled by Georgia Transmission. I don't know if that means they're an

offshoot of Georgia Power. I don't know. Because down here that's also the other

other big power provider is Georgia Power.

Over in Fitzgerald in that area you have Irwin EMC. And I think all of these

EMCs, I'm not entirely sure if they get all of

their power from say like Georgia Power or they source it from multiple places. I

do not know. That's beyond my area of expertise.

But you would think the way

people have been acting, and this is based on nothing that I have

personally seen, because I have made it every effort

to stay my ass at home. Because I don't want to contribute to the problem

of congestion. We were getting reports and we were seeing on Facebook

that Saturday '82 was basically gridlocked.

You know people trying to get to Walmart, trying to get to Publix,

trying to get the gas stations are overrun. People trying to eat,

a lot of people just trying to get gasoline for their generators.

And I get that. I saw a short little video from

the Tifton Grapevine. They're kind of a friendly competitor of mine to the

Tifton Talks Facebook page and the newsletter and all of that.

But they were down in Waycross and they were showing this one particular

gas station. And I mean there had to have been a

hundred plus cars in the right lane waiting to get into the gas station.

They had people directing traffic in and out of the gas station.

You had people walking up to the gas station

with gas cans. And they zoomed in and there was a line of people,

a line of people. If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say

easily 50, 75, 100 folks standing in line

with their gas cans trying to get gas.

It's almost like we're operating in a third world country now.

This was an unprecedented storm.

Some of the weather folks are saying this is the most devastating storm this

area has ever seen. And I'm starting to believe it.

I remember when Michael came through here and I mean that was bad.

But damn.

Damn. You know there's fear mongering and there's

disinformation and misinformation now because

something potentially is brewing, and I say brewing in quotes,

in the Gulf again. And I get it. The meteorologists and all the people

that really pay attention to the weather. And I follow this one guy,

Ryan Hall on YouTube. He's from Kentucky.

There's only about three things that are good about Kentucky.

And that's the three people that I know that live in Kentucky.

But he goes ahead and I mean they're doing

their due diligence. They're saying, "Hey, there is a possibility something may

form down here. But so far, and we're early into this,

all of the modeling says that this could be weaker. It could be nothing.

We just don't know." And now we've got people sharing

on Facebook that another major hurricane has headed this way.

And that you better go and start stocking up now.

So you know anybody that looks at that it's going to freak the fuck out.

We're going to have this mass run on supplies again. We're already

having supply issues down here. Not just in Georgia, but in Florida,

Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina. It literally kicked the shit out of the

southeastern section of the United States. I'm not kidding.

And that's the last thing we need is more fear-mongering.

I took, Ryan did a video and I took it and I put it on the Tifton Talks

Facebook page and I simply said, "Look, stay vigilant,

but don't panic." This is the type of information

that we need to pay attention to. You see posts on Facebook of people

talking about the end times are near because there's another major storm

heading this way. You need to fucking ignore these people.

You need to go to reputable sources. Maybe that's your

maybe that's your local weather person. You know, WALB is out of Albany.

They're trustworthy. Watch the Weather Channel.

Jim Cantore and all those folks. Find people. There's a guy called Mike's

Weather Page. Look it up. He seems to be credible. I don't know that

much about him, so I'm not going to put my

my reputation on the line and say he's the deal.

But I started following him when this when Helene started being a thing and

he seems to be knowledgeable. I think he's located down in northern Florida

somewhere in there. Follow Ryan Hall. Not only is he a

meteorologist, but he does good things with with the Y'all Squad

where they they take up donations and then they go into areas and they try to

help with supplies and money and what have you.

But this area took a hell of a beating. A hell of a beating.

And I mean we're fortunate. We really are.

I said something to my wife the other day and she told me it it was kind of a

positive thing, but then you know she I go to the extremes on

certain things and I said you know what in my older age I think I'm

I think I'm gonna start adopting the prepper

attitude. And she's like it's about time. I said yeah but I'm getting a

standby generator put in. I've already put in to request a quote.

I already know that it's gonna cost me probably close to ten thousand dollars.

Fortunately they say they've got financing and I think I can swing that

as long as my sources of income don't dry up or

or get stunted because of this storm.

And I mean if I could swing it I'd not only have a standby generator

but I'd have a solar panels and backup batteries.

Because even with a standby generator you gotta have propane or natural

gas if that's the type you're gonna get and

that's the type I'm looking at is going to be propane.

So I'm gonna have to have a propane tank minimum 200 gallon.

I've been running over these numbers with Tyler he looked up some stuff it

looks like it at about a half load of what a 14

kilowatt unit would be we could probably run 100 hours almost

five days I guess before we ran out of propane. And as long

as we could keep that tank filled up you know every three days

you know at that point I don't give a shit what it costs.

I'll just have to go in debt and then pay it off.

I have no idea what propane costs now. I haven't I haven't had anything that is

that is gas fed for well practically

Lee and I've been married 34 going on 35 years she does not like gas appliances.

So we got our double wide in 96.

So I haven't had gas appliances since 1996.

Everything's been electric electric heater

well heat pump electric stove electric water heater

electric dryer.

So no need to have any kind of propane around here.

If you lived in the city you'd have access to natural gas

but anyway so that's my prepper mentality is

first and foremost is getting a generator. Then I'm going to start

looking at how to stockpile

other supplies maybe a little bit of gasoline with some stabilizer in it

because I was looking that up this morning and you can get stabilizer that

will keep gas good for up to

24 months. So you know if your vehicles run out of gas and

or get low and you can't get to a gas station or the gas stations aren't

aren't available because that was another problem too is you could get gas

at a lot of these places you could get supplies at a lot of

these places they were cash only because they didn't have internet.

Every single every single place that does business should have a backup method

of being able to process credit cards and debit cards

because people don't fucking carry cash. I think I got forty

dollars that I just carry in my wallet for emergencies that's it that is it

and as much as I have advocated for a cashless society

I realize that in times like these that's dumb.

So I'm having to rejigger and rethink my my my ideas about this stuff.

So yeah I'm coming up on 55 in in a handful of months roughly four

months actually three months. Lee's birthday is next week she'll be

54 and then roughly three months later I'll be 55.

But coming up on that I'm really starting to

I'm backing away from all of the tech stuff a little bit.

I mean don't don't get me wrong it's still my core business I still love tech

I still love technology but I'm gonna have to look at going a

little bit more quote analog because I don't think these storms are

gonna let up.

Whether you're a believer or not you cannot deny that these storms have

gotten worse over the last 20 to 30 years and that

is due to climate change. Again you can believe me or not if you

don't believe me you're wrong. All the data indicates that you're wrong

but I'm not going to have that argument with you because I don't care enough.

You don't want to believe it that's fine.

I'll be the guy with the generator that still has lights on in his house

has adequate food for several weeks and gasoline stores

and maybe even possibly solar panel and batteries.

I don't know I can't swing both of those.

A good solar system solar system not not like where the planet's but

a solar powered system for your house for a whole house

would be like two times the cost of having a generator installed.

So anyway that is the update here on the 30th.

Schools are still closed around here until Wednesday.

Like I said still a lot of people without power

and their place is down in Valdosta. Valdosta may not have power for a couple

of weeks if not longer. And that that's the other big issue is

is folks are coming up from Valdosta. I mean it's

it's bad enough and look I'm not knocking these folks I'd do the same

thing if if I had the need and I'm not saying that I won't get to

that point at some point in my life. But we've got people right now that are

trying to get food and trying to get gas and just trying to

trying to get some semblance of normalcy

in their lives for the next several days while

all these these men and women these these line crews at the power company

and and all the crews that are cleaning up

and all you know tip of the hat to them. We we need this area needs

access to all of those resources but we got folks coming up from Valdosta and

probably even north northern part of Florida

coming up in through here and I'm not going to say ransacking but

they are draining the resources. And I get it. Love your brother right? I

get that. I'm you can't say no.

But it's it's putting a tremendous strain on the area

to not only have to deal with the folks who live here but to deal with the folks

who don't.

They may have to divert and go go southwest to other areas where they can

get food and and gasoline if they can get there. Go

to Columbus. I don't think Columbus was hit. Go go into Alabama

if you can make it. Otherwise be cordial to everybody. Everybody's

stressed. Everybody's burned the fuck out. Everybody's tired.

Everybody's aggravated. Everybody's in fear.

It's not a good time. It's not a good time and we're coming in

into what is supposed to be one of the happier times of the year.

The last three months. October, November, and December.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. This is supposed to be our coasting

quarter where we look back on all of the trials

and tribulations of the first nine months of the year and

go holy crap. I think that's all I can say. I'll end it

right there. Holy crap.

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