STRANDED by Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Helene absolutely destroyed our lower farm. Our driveway was absolutely obliterated. We've got to get our vehicles out if we're going to go anywhere. We're going to get some fill dirt and fill in these massive holes.

And then we'll—

bring in some gravel that washed away and grade this road smooth, and hopefully we'll be getting out of here. We've got to get a path up to where we have some fill dirt from an old mountain board course. While Jonah works on filling in that side of the road, we're going to try to find this grate. There's a grate that takes water from this side of the road over, down through there. It's finding it first with hand tools so we don't accidentally crush it. The edge of the road is right here. We gave up. It's so deep. We're gonna get the mini excavator and dig at it. I think that'd be safe because we can put the machine over there and it's a little water and can just kind of barely scratch.

Found it!

It looks undestroyed. He's so good at that.

That was like a foot buried.

Yeah, this is taking so much dirt. Hit that hand and then hit the other hand. Go flush every toilet. Be very careful not to spill because we don't really have a way to pick it up. Flush the toilet.

I'm flushing it. Check the freezer temps.

4. We really want that. I mean, that's 4 degrees. I'll keep them frozen. They like to be at zero, so let's see if that happens within 2 hours. We would lose untold amounts of homegrown meat if we lost these freezers. Easily $1,500 worth of meat in each freezer. 3, 6, $6,000 worth of meat. We are gonna do a cooler with ice pack to cool down our milk before putting it in the fridge. What do you think? Any more? What? I think it's good. I just washed the milk pails. That's on the list to do when we're powerful. I'm not kidding you. These drop down to zero that fast. That means if we have to, we could start getting power. I mean, maybe just an hour at meal times. Let's see how much fuel we burn. We're eating a lot of ground beef because we can't use our ovens. And we have a lot of ground beef, so that's good. What was all that hoopla? I heard everybody screaming.

I don't know, he just stood.

He was standing still. Not hanging on to anything, huh? He was holding on to the toy. You did it.

You got to see her, Rebecca.

Yeah. And Mom and Dad got to see it. All right, let's do it. Hold on to this and then let go. Now let go.

Let go.

You want your toy? Aw. 9:30.

Taking so much dirt. Our goal is to get out at brunch. So he's got 30 more minutes. I think we're gonna do it. I doubt it. Really need a dump truck. I know, right? I think we got to where we can get out of here with our cars. Gravel— where are we going to get gravel? Right there on the soccer field. I want to first start getting it from there. Finish filling in the potholes. 10 minutes. And he's getting rocks from the creek. He was successfully able to get down there. This is going to take a pretty minute. We got the telephone wire rigged up, zip tied it to the pole right there, and then zip tied it to the ladder.

Wow!

Just in time, dude. Let's eat.

I'm hungry.

Are you low on diesel? That's okay. I think we have a lot of diesel, man. My assistant Heather, we just got word leaving town— like, she lives near the airport and there's no power. 1.2 million people are out of power. Everybody's going to be leaving. I know nobody can survive. They're gonna have to. They're not this equipped, honestly. Yeah, 25 gallons of gas.

Okay.

Yeah, well, let me tell you about this driveway. We gotta do it. Because we got to be able to get Grandma and Grandpa out of there if we have to. So that comes at all costs. That's like our emergency. We got a little bit of connection to the world right here. Ashley, y'all are gonna head to Charlotte? Yeah, we're gonna try. And we have the weather radio. Kids are worried about our food supply. We've got plenty of meat and plenty of salt, and that's really all we need in a pinch. But right now we're gonna live it up with some water from some fruit, and we're gonna have plenty of eggs, plenty of potatoes. Plenty of green beans. Being a homesteader is coming in clutch right now, isn't it? I know, we are really not in a bad situation.

Oh yeah, we're gonna—

yep, we're gonna— we're gonna get Grandma and Grandpa out, and then we're gonna start clearing power lines.

And we're gonna— like, the neighbors are bringing stuff to put in our freezer.

We'll get them. Bring it on, bring it on. The plan is you're gonna lead them out of here because there's gonna be all kinds of crazy closed roads. We have heard From neighbors, there is a way out of here, but buddy, it's roundabout. We don't have a shortage of milk. Well, there it goes. So say we got it all scraped and we can't even get the truck out of the garage. How much fuel we got? That's about the middle. Just a little bit. Yes, Austin, we have a driveway! Looks good. Oh boy, he's stuck. It's a little soft. We're not stranded anymore. Freedom! There goes Mom taking Austin and Ashley to Charlotte. They can go and edit and upload the videos. That's how you were able to see last week's videos. Hope they make it back all right. Oh my—

This is intense.

I was gonna say, do you think we could drive over this? I mean, I feel like—

It's not like it's gonna fall in.

Yeah, it's not like it's gonna fall in.

People have been driving over it.

This is insane.

That wasn't too bad.

That is a local nursery plant farm destroyed. There's so many power lines down, it's insane. Oh, I'm taking a bet that this is the right way to go. I don't know. I feel like There's no telling which way is the right way.

Everything's so clear.

I know, like the road, the woods aren't dense like they used to be.

Whoa! Whoa!

Grocery store is open. It looks like there's no power, but the line is going out the door to the end of the parking lot and wrapping around. So I was thinking if something was open, I might run in and see what they had, but because Gideon's birthday is in a couple of days. We're to the interstate. We're just gonna wave them goodbye. I told them I'll go straight.

Bye! Be safe.

Rebecca and Josiah got them out of this area to 26. They're going east. It just so happens that's the only way in and out of Asheville. Then 26 east, we send them on their way. Now that we've got the top of our driveway clear, we've got to get Grandma and Big Daddy to where folks can come, the nurse can come. Got to come Thursday and help Grandma with her ALS. I'm getting word that this, this storm is severe and brought brought widespread, and that's just from neighbors. We have no way, real way of getting information. We get texts every once in a while. Jonah's gathering rocks from the bottom. That's where our soccer field was. Never in a million years. Hey, what y'all doing? All right, you got your little tri-rack. You are a little bird. My late grandmother, Birdell, would have washed her and everybody else's clothes in this creek. I am unbelievably, incredibly, inexpressibly thankful for those machines right now. We gotta put the oxygen mask on ourselves, and then we're gonna get out there and help. I think our emergencies are getting this road open, getting this stuff out of the container, shoring up the pole barn, and then I think we can go out into the community. Oh boy, that culvert is full of rock. No need digging that out with a shovel. We're gonna need to dig that out with mini excavators. He's trying to help. I have an idea. Tell me what you think. Take rocks like this and this, build a dam on that side with rocks, and it'll make this shallower. What needs to happen is the water needs to flow across it evenly. Yeah, and that would be better, and that's what I'm gonna do. Hey, over there! We're coming for you. Let's get across. Big Daddy seems to have some ideas. Okay, you got an idea? No, I was trying to figure out where your property was. It's kind of deep in your— you mean the bridge was? Yeah. Okay, so Jonah's going to come from this side. He's going to take these rocks and put them in the deep area. Step 1 to getting across— get across to Grandpa, Grandma— get these branches out of the way. We weren't able to push that far enough without Jonah falling off the edge here, so we think the Mini X is the tool for the job, right? We're gonna be able to get across with the truck. Yeah, buddy, making progress. Jonah and I are getting exhausted. How do we wrap this up? Let's just get these trees out of their driveway. Laying on the power lines. Of course they're not on, so I'm not worried about it at all, but you know how it's gonna fall and that kind of stuff, I'm kind of worried about. Stop! Really don't know what to do. Hold on, I can't reach over there to cut those ends off. Could cut it here, then it might all fall on the line. That's gonna be too much. Chain fell off, but I think, I think I did it. I think he can get through with the Mini-X now. It's quite the tree. So excited! You know what one of the coolest things about this is? We've met like half a dozen of our neighbors. We got some other special neighbors come visit us from over the mountain. Art and Bree. We're gonna try this creek for Big Daddy. He's wanting to get out. He's got a two-wheeler. I don't know if I'd Ford it with a two-wheeler, but he wants to see the— our truck do it first. No problem, our truck. There it comes back. Yeah, good thing he's thinking about it. That's handy having that big old truck, isn't it? Yeah. Grandpa's worried I'm gonna have to pull him. Well, what's the rush? What do you need? He just wants to get across.

Where are you going?

Oh, do you just want to have the truck across there? Can Big Daddy get out? Two-wheeler. Hey, we got Big Daddy across. One week later, the road is coming in clutch. Fuel truck arrives just in time to refill their generator before they're empty. Sunday. When that man looked at the creek, he said, I'm going for it. He's working on a Sunday. He's risking his life and limb. The roads are sketchy there. They're scared to go through on a car, you know, they've fallen out and stuff like that. But that's what's going on. The community helping the community. I'm proud of us.

I'm gonna start the Street Tripper.

I'm proud of us.

I'm gonna stop by Randolph's house. We drive past him and I want to just make sure. I've texted him and have not received word from him. There's several people I've checked on that have not responded. Randolph is one of those people, so I just want to make sure that he's doing okay. That was good to visit with Randolph and to see him. They're doing good. They just don't have any cell service, which is most of everybody.

It's good to be home.

This story can continue on Austin's channel. He and Ashley documented their journey all the way to Charlotte. I'll leave the link for that wherever link goes. La la la la la, let me be free.