Saving our Barn from Hurricane Floods

We happen to have a lot of gasoline, but we're banding together with Art and Bree, who aren't too far from us. Unite as community, I reckon, and help each other out. We're gonna top your car off. We're topping everything off. Four-wheeler, the minivan, Salma, and then the Suburban. And then the ladies will take the truck. The big gas run. And do a big gas run to Greenville. Greenville normally takes 45 minutes to an hour. It sounds like once we just get out of our area, things are gonna be pretty open.

Think we got enough gas?

Maybe have your phone— check your phone more often.

You're the only notification I need, Nathan. You're right here.

I know, but I'm gonna leave.

We're letting the boys run for you. Boy, they're gonna have a time. Such a cool thing about this hurricane and being out of power is it's bringing the community together. Which, that neighbor just informed me that there's power now in Fletcher, in Hendersonville, in Asheville. So the girls might not even have to go all the way to Greenville. I needed to run that a little extra long. Somebody left the The drawer freezer opened and we lost some of our liver. It just became mush.

What are we gonna do today, Paul?

We are going to fix this pole barn. Hurricane swept through. The creek got absolutely ridiculous. It even still looks like a river. It's not supposed to. This is not normal. That creek as is is like 3 times as big as it normally is. This creek was 10, 20, 30 times the size it was. Took out telephone— like, that's a power pole, y'all. Our storage container was right there. There it goes. Our pole barn, this is what we're working on today. It totally washed out the soil underneath the concrete. The concrete has collapsed. Our pole has collapsed in the corner. I think it's only being held on by hay. If we're going to save the pole barn and have a place for— it's very important. It's a place for our cows and sheep this winter, and we had just enough hay to get everybody through the winter, so we can't really— we cannot lose any more. I'm not sure if our insurance covers this because I don't know if it included flood insurance. We wouldn't have thought of that because this is just absolutely catastrophic. We haven't had this kind of flood since 17— I forget what decade— and since the 1700s. Brianna said Arthur's been thinking about it all night.

I feel like the easy part is supporting that post. I think if we can get the— yeah, the loader up here.

Okay.

Or excavator and chain the bucket to that and tilt it out and lift it. That's the easy part to me. To me, the challenge is this slab because my concern is that that slab is unstable. I kind of think we should try to drop that. I would hate to have us build something and then like this comes down and knocks it out. If you look at the truss there, the middle of it looks like it needs to come up like this much to get to its previous location.

Yeah, you can see the old fade.

This end is probably going to have to come up twice that, So this hasn't slid down.

What's the tool for the job? The Mini X. Mini X, yeah. The goal today then is just to get this shored up temporary so nothing— so it doesn't fall anymore. Don't hit the pole.

Do you want to hit that other piece of concrete? Wow, that's too heavy.

You got to put your blade down. That would help. There you go. Trying to break this next one in half. There, he did it!

Yeah, buddy!

Few more, you might be able to break this one.

Hit it.

You try breaking this one, it's more, uh, Water is so destructive. More destructive than a 9,000-pound machine. You're starting to break it. That's good.

There it is.

There it is. Break us another one. We're gonna need two. Two. You got one right there and one over there. Okay, we might need three. Help, let me help you. I'm good. It's not that bad.

Okay.

All right, we're gonna need another one too after this. It's gonna go up just Size says this needs to be in the middle, so it needs to go 4 inches. This is where the concrete was. That's what they think. You think the concrete was there? I think it was. Oh wow, this was in concrete. Look up top, looks like.

So this post is not doing anything structurally.

Oh, okay, shoot. We need to support it. Is this supported now?

It's supported, but we haven't lifted it. I'm concerned if we lift it now with this one really low that we're going to flex that even more than it's flexed.

Post.

Okay, where it's connected to the truss.

All right, and this is supported, it's not going to fall any further. We obviously got to get all this stuff out of here. You were talking about getting this out first.

We potentially could try to move this to make a spot to support the post.

I think when we move that, everything's gonna come down.

I don't think the barn will come down. Here's why: it's already not supported.

If it brings this hay down, that's fine, but if it starts pulling that hay, we're screwed. And what's going to happen when this concrete slides on this pole. It's sitting on this hay, this pile of hay. Can we clear some of this debris and put some rocks under that? Yes, let's do that. And then do what you're saying. Then just— all I'm saying is, why is that going to help, Papa? That's just going to break this, this— if when we— if we lose hay or whatever, this won't fall anymore. He's going to lift up the barn and see if we can't put that post on a piece of the concrete that's laying right there. That post is not held up by anything right now. This corner pole is currently sitting in the air right there. The idea is to lift it up, put it on that piece of concrete right there, and then hope for the best. Nagling that back piece of concrete out. Josiah had an idea that maybe you could weigh in on it. Should we go all the way up and secure this back to that post?

The truss isn't designed to be supported like that and then cantilever.

Okay.

It's possible you'll bend your truss.

Oh, okay.

If this ends up dropping.

Okay. And you have it screwed in there. We're just getting to where we can get that back out so that eventually we can build a, uh, we can build a foundation. That corner temporarily held up for right now. Hundreds of dollars of hay right there. We can't just leave this. It's too compromised. We need to get it out, then we're going to shore this pole up. We think it's being held up by this. We're gonna hope that this piece of concrete falls down, not out. It fell down! It fell down and we didn't even lose hay. All the hay fell to the drive. We can get everybody to haul some hay up to the drive.

Such good hay.

This piece is connected to our rock base.

Yeah, I don't think you'll break that either.

That's just like— yeah, that's gonna pull it right out. Is it too big for the machine?

I think the best way to figure out the height that we want is that—

is to have—

is to have someone climb to that far corner.

Okay.

And eyeball down and just raise until we get all those trusses in a line. Art is fascinated by the history here.

This was our old garden. This was field dirt to level for the pole barn. Arthur's guessing overplowing, grandpa's overplowing, which is very, very probable. And this is probably the original soil.

That could have been another flood that ran sediment down, or who knows.

Yeah, that's what we're finding under all this soil is just this, these rocks. Look at this layer of grass.

Let's see what happens here.

We might have to cut this one.

Wow.

Wow, tricky, tricky situation. Wow, it missed. It missed. Barely missed. You get that one further out and then pull that way. There, there's our supervisor, Rebecca's dad, ex-GC, general contractor, trying to break us a foundation. That does it. Time out from the pole barn work because Lily and Joy For Jones and to do something. They could work on this container, but we need to get it pulled up and balanced for them first. We need all the clothes off, and, and, and because we're going to use that chain. Lily, I'm so proud of you. Did they dry? That— I'm so proud of you for doing that. Pulling the trash out of the way. Nice using the road. Might take both the machines. Yeah. Ain't no way. Okay, get the other machine and push it.

Take this corner and just shift it.

There you go. Art has the idea to spin it. Get over there and just pull it this way.

Yep.

Okay, get away. Chain can break. Keep going. Oh, now we're in the creek. Maybe put that particle board down or something. They have a bridge.

Two machines.

What we're thinking, Jonah's gonna pick up the shed. Josiah's gonna hold up this— he's gonna hold that up with the track loader and Jonah can clean out from underneath it and we can put solid concrete chunks under it. Now to fill in under this post. Jonah's holding this up. We're gonna grab this big one to start off the bottom. 2, 3. That's it.

Good job.

All right, I think that's it. Look at that. All we lack is the middle pole. I feel really good about this. This is shored up. This is shored up. We've saved thousands of dollars worth of hay, $10,000 in, uh, barn. Thank you, Arthur.

Absolutely.

You knew exactly what to do. Billy, what'd you make us? Thank you. This is peaches and blueberry and milk. This is good for some— from, from preserved peaches. Locally. You know, it'd be a good last hurrah for you guys in the vlog is if we get poor old Beefcake and Poundcake out of the dark stall and back over to the pole barn where it's airy and bright. Don't be too excited, Josiah. Look at our lights.

Kind of like it, actually.

Kind of cool.

Look, especially this side.

Yeah, this is gonna get gross. Oh, make him chase you out.

So he's only gonna run so fast.

Now I feel like something is restored. And look who's home! 5:20. They've been gone all day. Hey, how'd y'all fare?

We fared.

We're home.

We did it.

How'd the toddlers fare?

They— it was a hard day, but they did it. They made it through.

One of them passed out. Let's get these fuels. Look at this.

Okay, so this is—

how many of those were you able to get?

I got about— so the man pulled up behind me and I had just gotten all of the diesel things off of them.

Yeah.

And I was trying to figure out how I was gonna figure out how it was full.

Yeah, it's hard.

And so the gentleman came up, he was getting out of his car, and I said, can I ask you a question? And he goes, are you filling all these? And I said, yeah. And he goes, I'll help you. And he did it all.

Wow.

He did ask me where my husband was. He's like, he's not in the store, is he? I was like, oh, he's at home.

Oh, he's at home. Pole barn short. Supplies are here. Happy day.

La la la la la, let me be free.