Complete and Utter Devastation

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Complete and utter devastation are the only words I can think of to describe the aftermath of hurricane Helene here in western NC, where I live. I can't imagine what it like in Florida where it made landfall. Our weather last week was messy. It rained every day, and we had a tornado spotted near our church Thursday but thankfully it didn't touch down. This was our lead up to Friday when Helene wreaked havoc on our area. Up to its arrival we had almost 3 inches of rain, after she came through, we had not quite 16 inches of rain. Our lake, rivers all overflowed their banks. Roads collapsed, internet and cell phone service stopped, for some power too (somehow, we managed to keep ours own through it). Tonight there are still some in our county without power. But almost everyone has the internet and cell phone service restored. We have 17 roads closed, one of which is a major connector to the county next to us. It has a dam at it and boats were going over the dam, into and under the bridge. The engineers won't know the extent of the damage until the water recedes. Some have said the road needs to be repaired on both sides going onto the bridge. When the internet first came back on, first thing I did was contact family out of state because we had no way of telling them we are okay. Then I began to see the devastation in areas next to us, places we visited often. There are places we love to go to, especially in the fall to see the colors, and some of those towns are gone. I can't wrap my mind around it, the pictures. Harder yet is to read about all the missing and all the dead, especially in the Ashville area which is about 40 or so minutes from us. We had some water in our basement, nothing unexpected with the amount of rain we got. Our home is still standing, we have the essentials that we need, we were able to go to Mike's Mom on Saturday to check on her, and to church yesterday. And we celebrated Mike's birthday today. So, though life is completely different than it was this time last week, we are still blessed. To our friends in Florida, I hope that you fared well through it. Our pastor friend didn't. The church he pastors and the home he lived in, both of which were just finished being repaired from hurricane Ida a little over a year ago, were completely destroyed again. Pray for them. For those in Georgia and S Carolina and here in my part of the world.