If you guys have the chance, please take
@mdwest up on his offer to help these folks. We’ve got members of our community in there as first responders. Thank God for private citizens stepping in to help. The government has failed these people.
For those unaware, there are a lot of former SF guys that live in North Carolina… Ft. Bragg is the home of Army SF and a lot of guys either retire or leave the service from Ft. Bragg, or just return there because they’ve spent a good bit of time there during their careers and just like the surrounding area..
There are a couple of different groups of former/retired SF bubbas roaming the really hard hit places, doing what SF dudes do… setting up medical stations, building/rebuilding things, conducting search operations, conducting rescues, providing security, etc etc etc.. these guys are all volunteers that just jumped in their trucks, threw chainsaws and logging chains in the back, pinged their networks of friends, and have banded together to go help people…
Some of the groups are more organized than others.. some are working through a couple of non profits… some are just working on their own and footing the bill(s) for fuel, gear, expendables, etc themselves..
If anyone here is looking to help, I’m checking in with one of the “private” groups regularly… (not affiliated with a non profit… they’re just out helping)… there’s about 20 of them total… sleeping in the back of their trucks and just going town to town… mostly deep in Appalachia.. little hill communities in the middle of nowhere… there’s an old Warrant Officer with the group that I’ve known for probably 20 years that I trust… I’m happy to put you in direct contact with him.. they’re happy to get any additional manpower, equipment, or funding they can get their hands on…
Theyre mostly communicating by Starlink.. where they’re at cell service was spotty before the hurricane… it’s still practically non existent now…
Some of the pics they’ve shared are truly apocalyptic… it’s unreal what they’re dealing with… most of these guys have spent a lot of time in a lot of very nasty places… dealing with a lot of very nasty things… and they’re saying what they’re seeing in parts of NC and VA is worse…