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On Wednesday, it was pouring rain. I was meeting a new friend at a cocktail bar and walked in soaked after only being outside for 20 seconds. “Is this normal?” I asked the bartender. “No,” he replied. And it wasn’t Helene. It was a completely different weather system that came and went. On Wednesday, people were talking about heavy rain, not storms. When the tropical storm and flash flood warnings came out on Thursday, I started texting local friends, “Hey, how serious are you taking a tropical storm warning like this?” The consensus was: There will be heavy rain, but we won’t have flash floods or severe storms. We’re in the mountains. It seemed prudent, but I decided to cancel my dinner plans.
By evening, restaurants and businesses had begun to close, and I realized that the week’s leftovers—a piece of toast, a slice of tomato, a tip of a block of cheese, a quarter of a cucumber, two Thin Mint crackers—would be my good little girl’s dinner that night. I figured I’d use up the rest of the food, since I had to leave town for another 36 hours anyway. I woke up at 6 a.m. to the sound of a 60-foot tree falling, crushing structures and downing power lines. Asheville is lush, beautifully tree-lined… and just huge, old trees. The power was out. A 60-foot tree fell and almost hit the roof about 20 feet above my bedroom, and a large branch fell three stories, crushing a neighbor’s car. I read in the forecast that the wind was predicted to be 40 to 50 mph but later learned that the actual wind speed was only about 80 to 90 mph. I couldn't update my weather app; my data was too slow. I took my dog and hid in the basement, away from the windows, to go out for a ride from about 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
I’m in the final stretch of a leisurely weeklong trip to Asheville, scheduled to leave town on Saturday. It’s a last-minute trip, prompted by a friend’s offer to stay in their temporarily vacant rental. Earlier this year, I fell in love with western North Carolina on a reporting trip, and coincidentally, I met some amazing people from the North Carolina music scene. So I flew into Durham and drove to Asheville to relax, write, explore, and enjoy the fall.
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