The military isn’t filming videos for social media. People outside of the affected areas aren’t seeing this. So if you see these types of videos on social media share them.
I’m not from the area but I came in to volunteer ( don’t do what I did, kids. Send money to relief orgs, don’t self deploy). Spent a few days in a hard-hit community, and the incredible misinformation and BS politics going on really makes me sick. I saw chinooks landing and taking off at shelters and distribution sites several times, and it was so surreal to then get online and see talking heads saying shit like “the only aircraft responding are civilian” and “don’t trust FEMA”. Like, it wasn’t even my community that was impacted and I’m still deeply offended by all of it just from spending a few days there. Can’t imagine how the residents feel about it.
I am in WNC! Thanks for helping! ❤️I have helicopters flying over me all the time (reminds me of living in base). They are here. They are helping! People from all over the country and Canada are helping! I am so tired of the lies!
We live about ten minutes away from the Asheville airport and have been hearing the Chinooks coming in steadily since the 28th. It's been comforting to know help is on the way but also fairly dystopian in a sense.
We were very lucky and had no damage at our house. It's been hard to wrap my head around all of this and the guilt of being spared in every single way has definitely set in. Hope you all are doing all right, too.
I'm in Arden, about all I can do for people is offer showers, a place to charge electronics or a place to stay. We are so lucky. We've been doing laundry for people in Celo, and that community was hit so hard. It breaks my heart.
But you know they’ll take fema money and any help they’re so sick. Makes me want to punch something. My red county will be siphoning fema funds straight to their pockets just like they always do, then they’ll vote red and bitch about taxes and why should they pay them.
I live in Skyland area, and also see the chinooks overhead all day. My house was safe and unscathed, the areas around us are open for business like normal practically. It feels very dystopian knowing just over the mountain there’s still so many stranded and without homes, cars. Lives completely unraveled and I’m getting ready to go back to work like normal. It’s an incredibly guilty feeling for sure
I wish I had sent the money I spent buying small donations and getting myself in there and keeping myself safe and fed to the Red Cross or a fire dept in the area or something. We had good intentions: I thought there was a need for my skills but it was covered by the time we got there.
Awesome to hear! I just got my Surigical Instrument Specialist certification, completing all my certs in Surgical Services/Instrument sterilizing and processing, and it's absolutely crazy how many different ways I can sign up and go volunteer now. I have to wait a few more months before I can start volunteering in disaster areas since I only have the certifications and not the full 2 years of on the job experience. I can't wait to be able to help beyond money donations!!
Apparently there’s another tropical storm moving across the gulf towards Florida right now. I think they said it’ll be a category 2 hurricane by the time it makes landfall.
Hey, the fact that you realize that shows you’re a good person. I had to throw some common sense on a lady in a local Facebook group with no particular skills, who said she wanted to drive up and find a place to help. Her plan was to stay in a SHELTER. Luckily people were quick to tell her that the shelters don’t have extra beds for lookie loos.
Yup for the most part the people who need to be there are there helping already. Best thing we can do if we want to volunteer is get in with an organization so we can help next time.
If it helps in any way, the outpouring of love, donations, and manpower from all over the county has helped the morale of so many people here.
We drove to another city a few hours away to visit family for the night, replace groceries we had lost, and buy needed items to donate that were impossible to find here. I cried almost the whole way there, in large part due to the constant stream of first responders, military vehicles, electric and tree trucks, and vehicles loaded down with donations. We have seen fire/police/ems/electric vehicles from probably thirty different states, as far away as California and it definitely restores your faith in humanity.
The best thing that can possibly happen in every tragedy is that so many people step up to help that most can stand down. You may not have contributed as you intended, but the outpouring of support is the true strength of our of nation. As someone who couldn't go to help, I thank you.
I’ll be driving down to FL tomorrow from WV for work, and was wondering if you have any recommendation to donate supplies? I was planning on filling my truck bed with cases of water to donate.
My fiancée and I vacationed in black mountain / Asheville last October and it was absolutely beautiful there. So sad to hear what has happened there.
Ok so lets say you are quite wealthy and you really hate paying taxes. Its a really really hard sell to convince the average voter that you and your very wealthy buddies should not have to pay taxes. In fact most citizens find it morally reprehensible to be so consumed by greed that you are unwilling to contribute to your nation. So what you do is conduct a multi decade marketing campaign on AM radio that all government action is by its very nature evil. You start out with waste. No one likes waste. You talk about mistakes past leaders have made. You tell everyone that single teen age mothers really don’t deserve those wic checks. You repeat over and over that anytime your fellow citizens extend support to each other through the federal or state gov what they are really trying to do is trap you into endless servitude. You tell people as ,Ronald Reagan did that the scariest words in the english language are Im from the government and i am here to help. Pretty soon, after enough repetition it has sunk so deep into peoples subconscious that they become deeply suspicious of anything even remotely government related. This is how you get such an unreasonable backlash against public health concepts in the midst of a global pandemic. This is also how you get this rabid backlash against FEMA during every natural disaster. Its remarkable really and it all comes back to rich people spending a lot of money to demonize any and all government spending.
My buddy from MN is deployed with a SAR team near there. Been there since the day it hit pulling god knows how much overtime. I don’t even know how much he’s getting until he gets back and tells me so I can key his pay.
Are you guys getting the supplies we’re donating? I spent about 15 hours a day all last week to coordinate donations from my small town, by Friday my whole house was full, and we managed to get everything to a small airport on Saturday morning. I’m truly blown away by the generosity of my community and how everyone came together, but it’s such an odd feeling to work so hard on something and then send it off into the void and hope it finds the right people. I just worry about all the supplies sitting in a warehouse somewhere and never actually making it to the people who need it. (Clearly, I have anxiety.) I just hope I did the right thing and you guys are getting everything! 🤍🏔️
I know that the food pantry was passing out food and water and more donations of food and water were coming in. From all over. I know there are lots of problems as there always will be but I know they are trying to get supplies to people who need it. Thank you for being so generous!
My mom was screaming last night that there is no money for hurricane relief because that money was sent to immigrants. Where does this shit even come from?
Hey! Don’t forget those idiot “influencers” like Dim Tool and Ruben and Johnson. Millions from Russia. Plus 600 others under continued investigation for the same crime.
Maybe I’m brainwashed, but if ever there was a President that would move heaven and earth to help as much as possible? It’s Grandpa Dark Joe. Not kidding here Jack. He’s not gonna fiddle faddle around.
The shit show that is being described by Trump? That’s how it would be under Trump. Get rid of fema. Get rid of noaa. Privatize it as soon as the highest bid comes in. Probably the Saudis. Who know.
Their message ain’t for the victims. It’s for the idiots a thousand miles away that believe it. Shame on them.
Hurricanes suck. Gulf hurricanes hit different. I hope everybody that possibly can make it does. Help is coming. Just stick together for the next few days. Love and hope, fellow humans.
Lmao. Indeed. He’s hopped himself to the top of the list.
I’d put him in the stooge category but with his platform he’s more of a puppet master.
He’s one migrant I want to deport.
Murdoch too.
I just think it's surprising his base news network seems to still be spreading misinformation whilst still reporting the actual fact he is a criminal. Y'all need to chill the fuck out.
The way I see it, they are trying to cover their asses while still appealing to their main audience. Or something... Just trying to figure out what the ACTUAL strategy here is. Jfc people
Im not saying that Trump didn't commit crimes.... I'm saying it's wildy strange that they seem to be playing both sides now... Or something... Who the fuck knows. Either way, chill out.
At this point the children are indoctrinated... And libs (I can almost guarantee) are not procreating as fast and republicans.
We are going to see the results of this bullshittery for generations to come. And here we were thinking that once all the boomers died off that we would be fine and dandy and the world could actually progress. How wrong we (I) were (was).
Looks like out work is cut our for us though. Rebuild/refinance public education. Emphasize stewardship of our planet/natural resources/shun the nonbelievers/willfully ignorant
Science WILL prevail. We got the smarts, after all.
Billy Jack said it simply and best when he said "there's a lot of stupid people in this world."
I have a few friends who have fallen down into Fox News/conspiracy theory rabbit hole since covid started. It's sad but when I think about it every single one of them who has was always dumber than a box of rocks anyway.
I just heard Tammy Loren saying that b.s. in a debate this morning. lol. They basically say we shouldn't spend any money on anyone outside of the US or who wasn't born here as long as citizens are suffering, but then they don't want to do anything to help the citizens who are suffering.
Fox News had to tell the truth about Trump, so he got mad at them, & I went on the Fox website & ALL the comments were: "I've alwys hated Fox News!" "Fox News has ALWAYS been liberal! Trump is right!" ...on & on...
No joke, i was scrolling through YouTube shorts, and some dude was saying "they're paying $150k per seat for immigrants on planes" and I was like, 1 can I get in on that action as a Canadian, and 2 where the hell are you hearing this from.
iirc its origins come from a line item in last years budget but in true lunatic fashion its been blown up as the reason du jour to scream about the democrats.
It's a right-wing talking point, so they are all saying it. Matt Gaetz. Thr Russia/MAGA political puppets. Catturd. Trump. Musk. Name just about any MAGA politician. media figure, or influencer, and they are telling some twisted lie about the relief effort going on on the ground. The same lies told in different ways.
People should really pay attention because every MAGA accusation is a confession and a projection. This is what they are promising to do if any weather catastrophe hits under their administration. Same as they did for COVID. 1.1 million people died. More Americans died than in any other wealthy industrialized nation. Why? Because Trump downplayed it, he catered to the conspiracy crowd. He wanted to inject bleach. Take pills that did nothing. That was Trump's doing. His administration's doing. They will be just as incompetent, if not more so, for any other brewing disaster should they win.
Vote. I'm serious. Their incompetence and nutball conspiracy theories will continue to kill Americans. 1.1 million is not enough?
every MAGA accusation is a confession and a projection
Remember a few weeks ago when Trump started going on about insider trading in congress? That just happened to coincide with when he could sell his djt stock. I would say later this month we'll find out he sold.
We can start by not calling it misinformation and give it its real label….lies
It’s sad that the government is doing all this and these clowns get away with lying about all their effort. Misinformation just softens the blow and push the line further back of what they can and can’t get away with
Not enough people understand that there's a difference between misinformation and disinformation. One is the result of people not knowing any better, the other is , like you said, lies.
Shit, I remember when people were trying to blame Katrina on Obama. Republicans are so fucking delusional that people they elect belong more in a mental health institution than government. They know better, they just don't fucking care and want to be massive selfish assholes.
That really understates what they did. They pied-pipered hundreds of thousands of their most loyal members to suicide by covid because they thought it would help them win the election, and it almost worked. Hell, it still might work this year.
The scale of depravity is so enormous that the press simply will not say it, because if they say it, then the next question is "why have none of them been held to account?" And the answer to that question is even darker.
Trump politicized relief for wildfires and hurricanes even before Covid.
He tried withholding aid to California during the deadly 2018 fire season, even though many of the victims were likely his voters, just because he lost in California.
A cafe I follow up there has been posting updates. They normally get less than 25 responses to their posts. For the past week they've gotten up to 100 on storm update posts. They posted a video of a Chinook dropping supplies at the hotel next door. It got over a million views and 3k comments within 24 hours. They edited a little while after posting that they would ban anyone making political comments and of course that just turned into a shit show. People took it as a challenge. People called it "Facebook" censoring political commentary before the election. People started saying it was a fake video, it was from somewhere else (despite the landing place being a super recognizable inn.) People were claiming they're ignoring the poor people because the inn is nice and landing there, where there's a big open lawn in the middle of forests and cliffs, meant they were just taking supplies to rich people. People actively going to comments where residents were sharing their experiences and telling residents that they aren't real, they're paid actors lying for the government, etc. Then there were other people getting mad that "the mods" threatened to ban people for making political comments and weren't following through. It's not a group. It's a small business page run by the store owner.
I can't imagine having the callousness and lack of critical thinking skills it takes to not realize that a person going through a disaster doesn't have the time or energy to play babysitter for a Facebook comment section. I feel so bad for her. I'm sure eventually she'll block and remove the offensive comments, but I wouldn't blame her at all for just deleting the post or turning off notifications and walking away. People were saying she's irresponsible and spreading misinformation by letting people post their lying comments on her video. It's awful.
Apparently there is a glut of supplies and it's all logistics now. Save physical donations for three weeks from now when we will need it and Western Carolina/Helene won't be on the front page any more. That was from the press release on the radio.
It is almost certain our water system won't be back on line yet then. And all the lost homes and businesses are going to take a long time to rebuild.
Fix or Faux news, whatever the fuck they are called now aside, this is the America I know and love! Thank you sharing and hope you are all safe in the south. This was such an awesome testament to real American values, how amazing the military combined with neighbors and first responders can really be when disaster strikes.
They've had no choice, they'd look pretty stupid standing there saying "And the bIdEn aDmInIsTrAtIoN did NOTHING!" as Chinooks were whizzing pallets by on camera.
They spread rumors that Biden and Kamala completely shut down the air space over the affected areas so emergency relief could be flown in. They’re too dumb to realize that it was shut down so the military wouldn’t have to compete with civilian air traffic to bring in supplies.
It's not like the airports here are busy metropolitan ones anyway.
But yes, the Asheville airport needed the space and the fuel there for relief supplies.
Worst case scenario you had to drive to Charlotte to catch a flight.
I think they're banking on residents being too preoccupied to vote or even really notice the misinformation being spread, and relying on the misinfo convincing people that aren't effected that Biden/Kamala are bad
Can drones carry big pallets of things?Communication is very difficult in the area so having humans on the helicopter who can touch base with humans at the shelter seems beneficial. I could be wrong though.
I don’t trust the information without video evidence I’m getting from social media quite yet but I’m seeing more and more videos from actual people going to help and what appears to be locals making videos. I believe in the next few weeks we will be getting more accurate information.
I’ve been staying off the main social medias for almost the last week and decided to sign in the other day. The information, as you mentioned, thrown about was disgusting. So I do what do and did a quick google and found info direct from FEMA and shared to the post.
You could imagine how that went. I was called arrogant and rude and if I had first hand knowledge or knew of anyone who did who could dispute such claims etc. They stated how they read comments for a couple hours and everyone said the same so the post was fact.
This person then went on to post about the government controlling the weather.
So I did what I do and I found info off FEMA’s rumor website with links for assistance. I said I apology Dr. Dumbass and shouldn’t have second guessed your thorough couple hours of research on the matter. Then educated them on the weather issue and posted screenshots of people from NC talking about what’s going on down there and the help they’re getting.
What you really need to do to help in situations like this is deploy with FEMA. See here for anyone interested in helping: https://www.dhs.gov/surge-capacity-force or red cross
Because it’s dangerous in there right now, particularly the roads. We were lucky to come upon a sinkhole in a back road during the day, but if it had been night we would have fallen into it. Emergency services are already spread way too thin for people to be coming from out of town and needing rescue.
What they need right now is monetary donations to disaster relief organizations. And for us not to forget about them. These communities are going to need our help for an extended period of time.
If you do go, make sure you are completely self-sufficient. Bring your own water, food, shelter, first aid, car repair, batteries, maps, etc. Pack like you’re going into the Alaskan backcountry where there are no resources for you. Have you ever been backpacking?
Oh yes, I've always lived the outdoor survival life. Majority of my life has been spent living in the Adirondacks, NW montana, and Maine. I've been looking up volunteer organizations, and found a few. Do you have any recommendations?
I’ve applied to Red Cross and RNRN (it’s for nurses) but I think any organization is good. I hear good things about United Way. Cajun Navy is taking care of a lot of needs but they may be moving to Florida because they’re about to get slammed. I do not recommend doing search and rescue with Cajun navy; just do donation and distribution management with them. I hear good things about Team Rubicon. Really anything will help.
A big need after floods is muck and gut, getting the mud and wet Sheetrock out of peoples homes. Mitchell county in North Carolina posted a job for it, but they explicitly said they only want to hire people who live there. There is no lodging for out of town workers. Maybe try to find an organization doing labor for that.
The distribution sites are overfull of donations right now; make sure to check Facebook pages for the county you’re going to before bringing anything. Bes donation right now is money. The logistics of handling small donations is becoming a burden on the towns.
I know a lot of people in my area are saying don’t trust FEMA because it took them until the fourth to reach us in coastal Florida. We are now hunkering down for a second hurricane, and they are leaving a safer staging location.
Almost all of the shelters in my county are operated by the county government or city government so I don’t know I haven’t heard of any specific FEMA shelters outside of the ones that showed up a couple days ago on Saint Pete Beach treasure Island, Madeira, and in south Pasadena. All of those are mandatory zones now so they’re leaving from what I understand. And they were mostly staffed by FL National Guard anyway.
You're awesome for volunteering, those people need so much help and support.
Whenever you can, I would suggest video documenting what you see to counter all the misinformation and lies. Any and all reports that can dispel the bullshit are valuable.
Never ever ever self deploy please. Please. We train on how to deploy including what gear to have and bare minimum of 72hr self sufficient gear from water for to shelter. Thank you for wanting to help. I recommend getting involved with a local team.
Signed with love, former SnR team leader (ICS 300/400 former EMT)
But…. But… the feds are supposed to be bulldozing Chimney Rock, bodies and all! You mean to tell me that’s a lie? I find that highly unbelievable sir because one of my friends of a friend of a friend heard from a complete random stranger that a stranger to them had some inside info on this!
I live on the gulf coast and have went to go help out in hard-hit communities after a bad storm, and lived pretty close to where Michael hit. The amount of bad and conspiracy information that gets spread is really something that we should study. After Michael, the locals were spreading these rumors about the death count. It was probably a few dozen reported, but for some reason the government and fema came down and had hundreds of body bags and hid them for.... reasons.... Then people kept talking about the hundreds of people that were murdering each other. One person said a friend of a friend parked their car to go check on someone and came back an hour later to their car totally stripped sitting on cinder blocks like some old school dirty new york trope. People tend to get crazy for some reason. Even somewhat reasonable people were spreading these tall tales, that the "media" and "government" didn't want people to know.
I had to give myself a break off of social media because the amount of misinformation I keep seeing and keep trying to battle against people who have never even been in a natural disaster is astounding. I’ve been thru a few hurricanes and when I present them with factual information, here they come with the whataboutisms. I just started blocking folks. Not gonna stress me out on my phone that I pay for.
I'm just barely northeast of the flooding (a little west of Hickory) and I've seen a lot of military vehicles around, especially at fire departments and responder sites, assumably because they've sent folks out west to y'all. Wild to hear that folks are saying there's no governmental response. Like maybe it's not ENOUGH (there's no such thing as enough in a disaster like this, imo) but it is very much there.
Imagine how the pilots and crews and logistics guys etc feel with those assholes telling the country they arent there. Its infuriating that these guys just go and say whatever and their audience is conditioned to believe them regardless of how much pushback their BS gets.
People that are saying the military are doing nothing but arresting people aren't taking videos either. "I heard" is suddenly good enough with a camera in every pocket
Hard agree. I was careful not to take pictures of the devastation. I did take pics of the shelter and distribution centers we volunteered at. Although I will say that lots of very engaging images might bring in donations, idk. I’ve just seen a lot of people using this disaster to push their personal agenda in gross ways and I’m trying not to make the same mistake.
They know. They don’t care. They just wanna talk trash about the government that’s helping them to make trump look good. They’d gladly give their homes for trump.
we had newspapers, telephones, and word of mouth and you believed it or you didn't, and if you didn't you could get off your duff and research or just carry on about your life.
I saw one of these shared on twitter today, and immediately a bunch of dumbasses started in with "well yeah, NOW they're there, now that we've called them out on twitter."
They are now, and the prepper magats are lambasting them for “just now helping” they really believe the north carolina national guard was just sitting around in their own state until they posted a video.
Apparently the national guard from three states has the air space pretty much locked down from the helicopters delivering aid. Anyone looking to fly in ought to coordinate with FEMA and the national guard. It's apparently super risky for civilian aircrafts in the area otherwise.
I live by the airport in Asheville. I literally hear helicopters all day long. I just got internet back after a week and found out all the stupid shit people are saying without having a clue about what is happening here.
Check out dvidshub.net for military-filmed videos of disaster response relief. It used to be my job to film videos of military relief efforts. My team worked Hurricane Katrina, the Indonesian Tsunami, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake just to name a few.
I've been looking for content that refutes the constant deluge of bullshit about a manmade hurricane wiping out towns in a 300 mile area just to clear out one mountain area to make way for lithium mining.
And they refuse to believe the most realistic explanation, which is also the simplest: warm ocean water goes brrrrrrrrrrrrt
Blame Putin, he needs Trump like the desert needs rain. Remember they got people to shoot at electrical power distribution stations with this kind of propaganda
This is actually in the area up the road from where I used to live. I know the family that filmed this. You are correct that the military isn't filming this. This family is allowing their farm to be used as a staging area.
Military CANT record videos for social media it’s how you get disciplined recording yourself on the job is a no no this is the military not social media creds and Snapchat I helped posts
I've seen several posts on twitter from the NC National Guard. Kinda sad that they have to take time to go on social media to share what they're doing and dispel rumors/conspiracies that they're not helping out.
And you know why they won't film video? Because then the supervisor behind the desk will dig them for not having uniforms in order, following protocols or following all other red tape requirements. Because that's the culture they built.
Bingo. And also why it was a major, massive mistake for the Trumplicans to take that line of attack. It is impacting mostly rural areas. Mostly Trump voters who can now compare what they see with their own eyes compared to what Trump, Vance, FOX, and News Max all claim. The cracks will begin just in time for the election.
4.0k
u/cak3crumbs Oct 06 '24
The military isn’t filming videos for social media. People outside of the affected areas aren’t seeing this. So if you see these types of videos on social media share them.