Third Update

There's still no power, but at least for now some of the cellular towers are running. Coverage is unstable, as towers sometimes go back down again. For those with generators, internet access has reappeared in some places as the phone company's lines are mostly buried and were less heavily damaged. (The phone company technician's name is Joe. He's a good guy.)

As described before, the first 48 hours our operations were focused on opening the roads just enough to get to people in far flung homes. We helped a few families even while the storm was raging, especially those who had trees fall through their roof, but getting to them was the hard part at first. Every road was impassable, hundreds of trees were down across them.

By Friday morning the cellular networks were all down. 911 was also down. We had to go out to find the people who needed help. Cutting trees and throwing the pieces was most of what I did on Friday and Saturday. As we opened access to vulnerable people in the community, we brought them oxygen cylinders or generators to power life-saving equipment like oxygen concentrators. By Sunday we had a county saw team to help, and we mostly cleared the mountain roads up here by nightfall Sunday.

By Monday we could expand our sweeps from known vulnerable people and homes that had obvious physical damage to elderly citizens who might need extra help. Patrols dispatched multiple times a day in each of several directions went through different regions of the district, distributing water and food to the very old and those with young children.

The first law enforcement showed up Monday as well; up until then it had mostly been volunteer firefighters, technical rescuers like me, and the county groundskeepers who became our saw team. Two deputies appeared on Monday and returned Tuesday with some more. Today the Sheriff was here, as well as two members of the National Guard.

Starting yesterday we began an effort to contact everyone in the district, to distribute food, water, gasoline, and information about how to obtain further aid at a time when ordinary forms of communication are down.

Today I took a patrol out to Wolf Mountain and talked to every person who lives on it. It had several of the last "black" roads, places we had not been able to go to at all. I think we are very close to 100% accountability on citizens; so far, I'm not aware of anyone who has died in our district, neither from the storm nor from the aftermath without power or the ability to obtain food (or water, for those with well pumps but not generators). There are some missing still that we are searching for, however. My team found one yesterday, who had broken her hip, but she is ok and receiving treatment.

The communities up here have pulled together beautifully for the most part, and are supporting each other with minimal need for outside assistance. I'm proud of them.