Asheville Help

The note above, we have all received. It is a list of steps one needs to take, not only to prevent health issues, but also, to prevent a house-wide system failure.  Please see the notice received this morning from Asheville Water Department regarding steps to be taken before and when water service is returned. The steps of what to do when the water service is returned came the way seen below. Mandatory System Wide City of Asheville Boil Water Notice 10-14-24  If you are receiving this message, you are under a Boil Water Notice.  The City of Asheville Water Resources Department has issued a  Boil Water Notice to all customers  due to loss of pressure in distribution system pipes and levels of turbidity (particles) in the water. A  Boil Water Notice  means there is contamination due to impacts from Hurricane Helene including the potential for untreated water in the distribution system from pipe breaks and levels of turbidity that exceed Safe Drinking Wat...

    We had a full day yesterday, oh boy! I was exhausted by days end. For some of you who may not know us personally, Steve and I have been trying to sell our house for the better part of 2024. A task that has proven more challenging than we expected. So on top of everything, there is that and sometimes, we have to remember that there are things we still need to take care of in out own lives...     Yesterday we have showings here in our own house, our car has been in the shop for regular scheduled maintenance for the past month (don't ask) but they called us last minute to tell us they had a loaner vehicle. We dropped everything to go get that! Then on to our friends place for laundry! Tim and David also suggested we could use their spare bathroom to take a shower with water that came through the pipes! Wow, hot water coming out of a shower head... It felt amazing... oh how quickly we forget. Hopefully soon, we will be able to do that in our ...

    As I have already mentioned, there is so much help going around. It is truly amazing how this community has come together to help one another. Steve and I stopped at what it seems to us to be a large parking lot behind a gas station where they had tables setup with all kinds of goods. They had food, soaps, and paper products such as toilet paper and paper towels.      We spoke to a gentleman named Mike to ask if those items we were seeing was something that would be gone by the end of the day, or did they have enough that it would be okay for us to take some to someone in need. Mike, who was so kind to even offer a tour of what he called our "Heaven Warehouse" informed us that if we have someone to give it to, we would be welcome to take as much as we needed. These are resources we plan to also tap into to ensure our longevity as well. We intend to be of help to our community for as long as we keep receiving funds.

   We finally finished setting up the water tank for our neighbors. There is water available and we have witnessed it being used a couple of times already! We have also received a donation generated by one of the neighbors benefiting from it.    10:27AM - Yesterday we heard of an apartment complex that houses disabled persons. The plan today is to go visit the complex and find out how we can help. We will keep you posted on what we find out.     Today at about 1PM we were able to visit the aforementioned apartment complex. Cecilia, a lovely lady who helps manage the complex received us in her office. She was happy to report that the current Manager, whose escapes me right now, but I have to come back here to correct that, is doing a wonderful job making sure they are fully supported for the time being. Not only they manage that facility, the manage 9 others around town and they are all well taken care of. She mentioned the National Guard is  ...

   Yesterday was a very productive day that resulted in our 1st finished project.     Bt the way, we don't have a media team. Heck, we don't even have a team! YOU are our team! So please be patient when it comes to images and videos. It takes time to stop what we are doing to film it and to take a picture. As I mentioned before, Steve and I are the only sure boots on the ground (we are asking our friends to join us when we are on the road to meeting people to help), so if one person stops while trying to perform a task, we lose a set of hands and it delays us in reaching that goal for the day.    Yesterday I also received news that Bill, a very important person in my life has passed away. I am going to miss Bill very much. I am so grateful for having met Bill. Some people come into your life and add/share so much with you that you feel an infinite debt of gratitude to them. Bill is one of those people in my life. Thank you Bill for being such a good fr...

  While thinking about putting this together, an avalanche of thoughts, ideas and fears flood one's mind. Lots of them are negative ands counter productive but a ton of them are... well not so much thoughts but day-dreams of how much good we can do if we get the help we need from our friends, family and beyond.   A very wise man used to say to me: "No good deed goes unpunished!". I used to hate hearing that because it told me of a world I didn't want to live in (I was 23 years old at that time). A world where people don't help each other in fear of negative unintended consequences. As I mature, I see the truth in that more and more and, it saddens me. Well, this time I am going to be stubborn and put that wise saying aside. However, this blog is a way to catalog and show to our contributors how their hard earned money is being spent.    Now, going back to the "Dreams". Asking people for help, especially money is such a difficult position to be in. One, b...

So much for us thinking our neighbors around us were stable regarding resources as we feel we are. Please read on… First we need to figure out where to get pallets to create a base for the water tank. Turns out we had stored some in our basement. Yay! We will set them up on top of our driveway so passers by can get water. Today I saw a lady walking by with 2 buckets she has been carrying for at least 4 blocks uphill where there is a creek. 11:29 Steve and I have left the house to go buy the supplies we need to setup water station for our neighborhood. Yesterday after speaking to a few about our fund raising, they mentioned the lack of water access. We weren’t thinking of that. So as we thought, we have no idea what we will encounter once we leave our house. Turns out, we didn’t have to get to far to already find a need. As promised and are springing into action to meet that need! Please keep donating so we can keep helping! https://gofund.me/7d3edf11 We went to a friend’s house and ...

Today Steve and I went out in search of the water barrels we have seen people carrying around on pickup trucks and also placed on strategic locations so the community can have access to water. It looks something like the picture below. After asking around a couple of places, we saw a gentleman pulling into a parking area for Harbor Freight who had one of these on his pickup. He directed us to a Farm Supply store and low and behold they had them. The tank itself costs about $500. We will need to get a couple of hoses and we already ordered a Sump Pump to bring the water from the bottom of our driveway to the street curb, so anyone who passes by can fill-up their own buckets. Please Watch the videos below to get an idea of what we are facing here: Swannanoa, NC French Broad River Flooding Biltmore Village Area

Help Steve and Decio help Asheville on your behalf! Steve and I don’t need anything personally. There is No Damage to our home and we could even leave the area if we needed to. The roads are open now, and we know lots of people who have left the area to seek a more comfortable situation for a while.  Those who left are still helping by allowing the resources here to be available to the ones who can’t leave and by sending supplies to us by any means possible. We love comfort, but we can live without it also. We need to stay and help. We helped friends and neighbors immediately after the storm left our area. Right now, we feel very stabilized, but the community around us isn’t. That’s why now, we need to create more resources to reach folks beyond our immediate surroundings.  People in need are spread out all over this region, and that’s why it is difficult for authorities to reach them all. We need to stick together as a community and one by one go and search individuals in nee...