October 7, 2024
A huge tree 30 feet from our backyard fence fell in the darkness early in the morning of Friday, September 27th. The crackling noise it made while falling woke us up. It missed our house by 20 feet. If the tree fell straight onto our roof instead of to the left, who knows what would have happened to my wife, me, and our three senior rescue dogs. At the very least our one year-old house would have sustained major damage.
We live in the mountains of Western North Carolina. We moved from Tucson two years ago to a suburb 10 miles north of Asheville. A week ago last Thursday and Friday we got more rain in our little Buncombe County town than we had in a typical year in Tucson. The Arizona desert city averages less than 11 inches of rainfall per year. We got 15 inches in two days.
After I saw the downed tree I saw thinner adjacent trees swaying in the 65 miles per hour wind gusts. The wind blew off the V-shaped top of another, smaller tree. It flew like a missile into our backyard and planted itself a foot deep and perfectly upright. It caused minor damage to our fence. If you hadn’t seen our yard previously you would have thought the tree top belonged there. A branch of another fallen tree got stuck between two fence posts.
In my 40 years as a television news reporter, I covered earthquakes, tornadoes, large brush fires and hurricanes. I reported on people who refused to evacuate and were later found dead or seriously injured. When I saw the swaying trees, I told my wife, “We are evacuating, now.”
We sat in our car with our dogs in an open area on our street away from trees from 9:30 a.m until 1:30 p.m., when the wind gusts subsided.
As of this writing shortly after midnight heading into Monday morning, we are into day 11 without running water and internet access. We had no power or cell phone service for six days.
We are among the lucky ones. We’re still here. We still have our homes intact.
We could not avoid a very different type of trauma last night.
As we were having dinner we took a punch to the gut. Our 15-year-old, seven-pound Chihuahua mix, Bear, suffered his third seizure in 24 hours. He had multiple, uncontrolled seizures a few months ago and was put on medication that helped temporarily. After lengthy consultations last night with two veterinarians, we decided that having Bear euthanized would be the humane thing to do and they agreed. We made the half-hour drive to the animal hospital, where we hugged and petted and kissed Bear until he stopped breathing.
And still, we are among the lucky ones.
Hurricane Helene has been hellish for people in the southeast. We got remnants of the hurricane here in the form of Tropical Storm Helene. Emergency management officials have called it a “biblical” storm. More than 220 people have been killed, about half of them in North Carolina. More are missing. It is the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland US since Katrina. Entire towns and business are flooded and wiped out. It will take years for many to recover. Streets are impassable due to downed power lines and fallen trees.
The floods decimated Asheville’s River Arts District, a key tourist draw which is littered with artwork drifting downstream. Some of the 300 artists who work out of 26 buildings along the banks of the French Broad River fear the district will never be the same.
We spent two hours during the morning of Saturday, September 28th at Lowe’s, where an employee told me, “We have a backup generator good for four days.” All the nearby stores, including Walmart and McDonalds, were not as prepared and were closed. We bought two items in those two hours at Lowe’s: bottled water (the limit was three cases per customer) and a package of six battery powered lights, which proved extremely useful.
When we left Lowe’s the doors were being closed intermittently, opened only after a certain number of customers left. The line outside was at least 300 feet long, the length of a football field.
We drove to the only other area store with power, a Publix Supermarket a half mile away. Publix was more crowded than Lowe’s. We loaded up our shopping cart with non-perishable items. I stood on line for 90 minutes while my wife sat in a dining area which had wall outlets and charged our mobile devices.
My younger brother reported me missing after two days because without cellphone service I couldn’t respond to his calls or texts because I never received them. Buncombe County did a welfare check. Officials called, texted and came to our home to see that we were okay.
Last Tuesday we went 15 miles north to a friend’s house which had power, to shower and charge our devices.
Our power was restored Wednesday afternoon just before 2 p.m. It first went out the day before when the initial wave of rain hit us. It went back on Thursday night but off again early Friday. While at friends' homes with power, my wife, who has run a dog rescue based in Florida for 24 years, emailed her supporters to raise money for two Asheville animal sanctuaries that are underwater.
Credit is due to Duke Energy, which texted customers in our neighborhood early in the week saying power would be restored Friday night at approximately 11:45 p.m. and restored it more than two days earlier. As fellow TV news reporters and I would say about describing an upcoming piece to management, “Undersell and over-deliver.”
During the outage, many of our neighbors left for Charlotte and Charleston and Athens, Georgia, and other places with power. I read every night thanks to one of those battery powered lights. I read the best book of pickleball tips I have ever read, Simplified Pickleball, by the legendary instructor Richard Movsessian, better known as “Coach Mo.” As I wrote in last week’s column, I had planned to go to Florida this weekend to take lessons from Coach Mo and then to write about them. Of course, I canceled the trip.
It may seem trivial unless you’re a sports nut like me, but it was weird not knowing any scores, especially those involving my New York Mets. My brother texted me the play-by-play after my cell service was restored.
In such a tragedy, pickleball might also seem trivial. It seems incongruous to even mention it. But after you’ve done all you can at home and offered strangers and neighbors help and food and water, pickleball, in a way, seemed important.
So it was that last Monday morning I decided to ride my electric bicycle to the pickleball courts just over a mile from our house. Three of the four courts were covered with tree branches and leaves. One court was mostly clear. My wife walked there (a mile is a stroll for her, she’s a long distance mountain hiker) and after we swept off some leaves we practiced serves, did a couple drills and played skinny singles. I felt somewhat guilty considering the chaos a few miles south. Maybe because I had pent-up stress, or maybe because I hadn’t played in a week and in normal times play every day, I hit my serves harder and faster than usual.
On my bike ride home, thoughts returned to those who lost loved ones, lost friends, lost their homes, their businesses.
We are among the lucky ones indeed.
My thoughts of the week, not all pickleball
Two famous athletes died last week and they couldn’t have been more different human beings. Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time hit leader, was 83. The cause was heart disease and diabetes. Rose was a deeply flawed individual, a compulsive gambler who bet on the horses and just about any sport that offered odds. He served a five-month prison stint for tax evasion and while in prison sold his autograph to other inmates. He was accused of having sex with an underage girl. Most damning, Rose bet on baseball while managing the Cincinnati Reds. On the field Rose was a winner. A guy who earned the nickname, “Charlie Hustle” and would do anything to win. There’s no question that Rose was one of the greatest players ever. He was banned from baseball in 1989 by the Commissioner Bart Giamatti and subsequently declared ineligible for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I believe those decisions were justified because I don’t think gamblers belong in the Hall. If Rose immediately admitted to gambling, was contrite and asked Giamatti for forgiveness, I believe he would have eventually been allowed back in and eligible for the Hall. But he lied about it for years, until he had a book to sell.
Dikembe Mutombo devoted most of his life to humanitarian causes. He was a giant at 7 feet, two inches tall, with a giant heart. He died at only 58 from brain cancer. Mutombo, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, played 18 seasons in the NBA, is the league’s second leading all-time shot-blocker and was inducted into its hall of fame in 2015. Mutombo went to Georgetown University, originally majoring in pre-med. He spoke French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and five African languages. His mother died at her home in Central Africa after a stroke in 1998. Mutombo had been unable to get her hospital care due to a government-enforced curfew. Over the next several years he raised millions for a 300-bed hospital named after his mother. Mutombo donated roughly $15 million to the project.
Two senior women pickleball players got into a brawl in an upscale retirement community in Walnut Creek, California in July but the news only recently became public. Probably because the community was so embarrassed it didn’t want it known. The fight broke out over presidential politics. Punches were thrown and clumps of hair were left on the court. Another reason never to discuss politics at pickleball.
When I’m reading an interesting thread on Facebook and the topic has absolutely nothing to do with politics (it’s usually about pickleball) and some troll injects politics into the conversation, I immediately block the troll. Simple and quick, really. They want you to engage them. How many of them do you think are happy with their lives? I sincerely hope things get better for them.
And I hope they were unaffected by Hurricane Helene.
Hudef is giving away a new paddle to the first person who emails the correct answer to one question at the end of my first blog of every month. This month’s winner will receive the Kevlar/carbon fiber Hudef Viva Pro Gen3 paddle, valued at $169.99.
The question: In my August 12th blog, I asked pickleball instructor Kevin Beeson for his top three tips for rec players rated under 4.0. His reply was applicable to all players. What was his number three tip?
Email your answer to sales2@hudefsport.com. The winner will be contacted by email.
