Hello everyone
and welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville
your favorite real estate podcast here in Greenville
South Carolina I'm your host as always
Stan McCune Realtor right here in Greenville
you can find all of my contact information in the show
notes need to reach out to me
for any of your real estate needs
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some of the shows explicitly call for that
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that just helps to support the show
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that's the ultimate way to support the show as well
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recommend that other people use me as their realtor by the way
we still have the Zillow review contest going on
I just want to clarify I had forgotten about this
it's a funny a funny quirk about
about the internet right now
I've done these sorts of contest before
not with not with Zillow reviews
but a contest where I'm giving out a gift card
and so in this case I'm gonna
be giving out a gift card to one random person
that leaves a Zillow review
for me it'll be a 250 dollar Amazon gift card
and I had forgotten from past times that I've done this
that doing these sorts of giveaways
it attracts people that I don't know that
from other areas
that are just looking to get free things
and I've had multiple people reach out to me
that I have no idea who they are
one of them said that that he was from another country
and said that in his country
can't use Amazon gift cards
but he had left me a review
he screenshotted it and all of that
and asked if I could
could provide some other sort of payment
and the short answer is no
if you're if you're for someone that I don't know
I don't want a review from you
like that's not a real review but more to the point
Zillow is not going to accept the review
they only accept reviews if they can
reasonably tie the person
to a transaction that I've been involved with
and Zillow has access to all of that information
so this is just for my clients past clients
current clients only
I please if you're from a really any area
it doesn't matter what area you're from
but if you've not worked with me before
this contest is not for you okay
just move on and find someone else that you can try to
win a gift card from alright
but yes if you if you leave a Zillow review
I will take note of it
and I've got a spreadsheet where I'm keeping
tally of everyone
we're gonna do a random drawing in a week or two
to see who wins
I'll do it live on the show in a future episode
Today is Monday September 29th and Saturday
This past Saturday
was the year anniversary of Hurricane Helen
and anyone that knows me knows that I am a
a big fan of looking back at the past
and trying to learn from the past just and
and sometimes there's not even much to learn
sometimes
just memorializing and remembering the past is enough
and so this is an episode where I I want to do that
I want to look back a year later at Helene and
and what it was like for
for those of you that didn't hear my
content that I produced around that time
and for those that did
maybe it'll be a good reminder in
in some way shape or form
and I'll have some thoughts at the end as to the
the state of Greenville and what not in the
in the aftermath of Helen
but
the past year's been crazy and
and Hurricane Helene was crazy and of course there's
there's been a lot of discussions about
I believe it's a tropical storm right now Amelda
I believe I pronounce that right
I've not actually heard it pronounced
I've only seen it spelled
which thankfully is doing this thing
that all of these Atlantic hurricanes have
have done so far this year
and at least
it appears like it's going to make this sharp
eastward turn and we're all grateful for that
in case you're wondering where to get good content
on that most people by now know about this page
but Mike's weather page
I've been on there since I was an insurance adjuster
it's a he's a
the insurance adjuster crowd loves Mike right
he's a great source of content
on these major storms you know
getting out in front of them
before they become named storms
and then after they become a named storm
just providing really great content
and he's just a salt of the earth kind of guy as well
so he his main platform is Facebook
he's on all social media platforms that I'm aware of
but the main one to find him on is Facebook
so look up Mike's weather page if
if you haven't already done that
I did not do that when Hurricane Helen was coming
I had done
I had looked a little bit but here's the thing okay
golf storms never impact Greenville right
and I say never obviously
it's an exaggeration cause Helene was a golf storm
but I wasn't tracking it that closely because I
you know we've had many
many golf storms over the years that
that come up that impact Louisiana
that impact Florida
that impact Alabama that impact Georgia
by the time they get to South Carolina
they're so weak
all that they're doing is dumping a bunch of rain
and we might get some 30 40 mile an hour winds
it's usually kind of cool
you know it's like you can kind of
you know you can feel that okay
this was a powerful storm
but it's already
well past the point of having been powerful
so all that we just get is tons and tons of rain
that is the normal thing that happens
in my 21 years of living in Greenville
we had never had a storm that was in the Gulf
impact us in in any meaningful way
we've had some storms from the Atlantic right
because South Carolina is on the Atlantic Coast
or on the eastern coast and
and so it doesn't take much for us to
you know get a decent size storm from the Atlantic
but we all know those Gulf storms are the ones that
that tend to be the worst right
those are the ones that historically have reeked Mo
some of the most damaging
storms that we've had
and it it's been
honestly prior to Helene
it had really been a minute
since we had been impacted by a storm
I guess
Irma you know
impacted us a little bit but it wasn't that bad right
it wasn't that big of a deal nothing
nothing compared to Helene
so I was really really ill prepared
which is very unlike me
when it comes to this type of stuff
I'm a weather nerd
I have like a whole like weather system
at my house that like tracks the
the air pressure and wind speed and
and rainfall and all of that
like I am a I mean
you guys know if you listen to the show at all
you know I'm a nerd just in general
but when it comes to the weather
I'm really nerdy and I'm usually ahead of the curve
when it comes to weather as well
and I was way behind the curve on Helene
for all the reasons I've already said
and so it was interesting
the day before Helene hit
I got home I had had a really
really long day and
get towards the end of the day and I'm like
I don't remember how much
exactly how much mileage my truck said
I think it said about 75 80 miles to empty
I got home and I was just like
I'm too tired to go get gas
I mean we've got a gas station I could walk to from my house
now I am
I'm a little bit autistic when and
and by the way I don't mean that in a
in a negative sense
I actually
am technically on the spectrum on
on the very far end of the spectrum
for those that didn't know
but I am a little bit autistic when it comes to
I like to gas up at Costco
I love Costco I'm a big Costco guy
and when I go to Costco I pretty much always get gas
that is just my routine their
their pricing is usually very competitive
and so I was just kind of like
you know what I
I don't feel like going to Costco today
and fighting all the crowds and all of that
I don't feel like going to the gas station
right up by my house I'll just gas up tomorrow
right and Helene wasn't supposed to come directly to Greenville
it was supposed to go west of us
and so I that was really that and in a whole lot of other ways
I was completely ill prepared for the storm
we were not prepared in terms of food or in terms of
like having chargers and
you know generators
things like that just
just completely ill prepared
and most people were right
this was came as a surprise to everyone
none of the forecasters were predicting
that it would come right over Greenville
I remember waking up
I actually woke up kind of late on that day
I didn't really have anything in the morning
that was before I was really taking my
my fitness seriously since I've been doing that
which has been since November
I get up you know I'm still not a morning person
but I get up much earlier
back then I was getting up later than
really later than I should
most real estate stuff doesn't happen before 10:00am
you can get away with it
but again not a good habit
that was a habit I was in at that point
and I remember getting up
I think probably around like 7:30
7:45 and just you know
checking my phone to see OK
let's see what the storm did
and literally what had been the eye of the storm
was literally right over my house
right at that moment and it was like
oh wow
OK this one really swung east
so the first thing I did actually was
was I you know I looked outside to see okay yeah
we've got a few trees down
that kind of goes with the territory
I've got a bunch of trees in my backyard
then the next thing
once I realized just how much rain we had gotten
I realized oh wait
I need to go downstairs
and see if any of my cause I've got a basement home
and we've got a creek on our property and
most a good chunk of my property is in a flood plain
so I was like
wait a minute if we're getting all of this rain
I need to check
to see if any of this is coming to the house
and so I did
we had had just a little bit of water come into house
nothing that was
that was gonna cause any damage or any mold issues
or anything like that
because we were able to get it up right away
and all of that we're able to air it out
but that was my initial introduction to the Hurricane
it was like okay
so this is this might change some things
but I didn't know how much it was gonna change
of course we were our electricity was already out by that point
that was the other thing so okay no electricity
probably gonna have to deal with this for a
for a day or two
what I hadn't really considered was
the perfect confluence of events that
that happened around the Hurricane right
so we had had
several weeks up to that point of
of rain at you know
not just straight through
but just a lot of rain over the course of
of multiple weeks and the ground was just saturated
and this is ultimately what really devastated Western
North Carolina
which was hit harder than Greenville
but there was just nowhere for the rain to go
and additionally all of that rain
and then all of the rain that Helene brought in
then saturating the ground like that
making the ground very soft
then makes it easier for
for trees to fall when Hurricane force winds hit
and you know of
of course like I already said the
those Hurricane force winds did in fact hit
now it I don't believe it was still technically a Hurricane
by the time it got over Greenville
and certainly not over western North Carolina
but there were still recorded
straight line wind gusts of over 100 miles per hour
so the equivalent of a powerful Hurricane force winds
not sustained they were gusts
but that that happened
and that caused for so many of these trees to go down
and that first day you know the
the first thing I'm thinking is OK
I'm gonna need to get out and I'm
I'm gonna need to see you know
what sort of damage there might be cause
you know I saw trees down right away
so I knew that
there was a good chance that there was damage to
first off to my property right
that's the first thing I checked
no damage to my property
to my home
and then it was like okay
I've got several listings right now that are all vacant
of course and many of them
that didn't even have owners that were nearby
and so you know
this is part of the service that
that a good realtor provides
is to be
boots on the ground in these sorts of situations
so it was like alright
my No. 1 priority here get out
I need to see what the status is on my listings
cause if any of them are damaged
I need to then report that to the owners
we need to really jump on this right away
get trees removed get you know if
if there's insurance claims that need to be made
get those claims rolling all that kind of stuff
however
I did not fully comprehend that there would be issues
getting gasoline
and of course there were and
and mainly the reason
it wasn't because we were running out of gasoline right
you know that
that can be a thing
but the main thing was that there was no electricity
and guess what modern gasoline pumps need
electricity in order to operate
in order for payments to be processed
all of that
and so literally
I spent the first day of the storm going around to my
to my listings not thinking really
I should only be focused on refilling my truck
now my truck is a hybrid
so if you heard 75 to 80 miles to empty
earlier that I said I have
I have a hybrid F1 50
so that typically would get me
you know a
that that's typically going to
to stretch out decently far
like further than 75 to 80 miles
if you drive correctly or if you drive in an efficient
an efficient manner
but again I just wasn't processing
I in this 75 to 80 miles is gonna go very quickly my
my listings were spread out all over the place
I had one up by Lake Robinson in Greer I had one
down in Denin completely on the other side of town
I had man I can't even remember I had
I had some others that were on some other side
it was just all spread oh yeah
there was another one in Paramount Park
like we're talking all spread out all over the place
and I made the mistake
of trying to look at all of them first
and then quickly realizing
I was going by gas stations and seeing people just
waiting there
people are just waiting at
gas stations that did not have electricity
and just hoping that something would happen
I guess I don't know
but they weren't getting gas
that's all I know
and so I'm running my fuel down and now I realize
wow I need to I need to get fuel
and I've told you guys this story before again
but if you didn't hear it when it happened last year
I went around to multiple different gas stations
I finally found some that had power
I had to go on the outskirts of town
finally found some that had power
some of them didn't have gas though
some of them did run out of gas
simply because people were kind of panicking
in fact the mayor had to go on TV and tell people
we have enough gas do not panic
there will be enough gas
if you guys don't just go crazy and
and you know
have to fill up a ton of different cans and
and you know
act like we're about to go into some kind of
a World War here
now in my case I was nearly on empty so
so I was panicking
and eventually
I found a gas station out near Highway 14 at Palom
and honestly again
I had been to a bunch of gas stations and just either
either the lines weren't moving
huge lines or the electricity wasn't on
or it was clear that there wasn't gas
people were just hanging out you
you I got to the point where I could tell
if it was a promising gas station or not
based on people's body language
were people actually pumping their vehicles
did they have a pump in their vehicle
and something was happening
or were they just did they have their tailgate down
they were just sitting around talking right
that was kind of the dead giveaway
well I finally found this one gas station
the line was long but it wasn't like outrageous
and people were moving around and the line was
was moving as well
so I got in line and I'm at like 5 miles to
to empty at this point
and I'm I'd never run it down and
in this truck
I've had this truck for a couple years now and
and it doesn't have your you know a
a standard fuel gauge on it
it literally just tells you your miles to empty
and I didn't know once I hit zero
is that like true zero is that
is there still a little bit of a flex in there
you know do they
do they say zero before it's really zero
I didn't know
I really didn't want to take
take the risk
and in the end
I did end up pulling up to the pump on empty
at least per my truck and
and I was able to completely fill my 30 gallon tank
and it just felt like the weight of the world
came off of me but that was just the beginning
cause trees were down everywhere
many of them were these huge old oak trees
right interestingly the
the real skinny you know
pine trees and what not
they were not as affected right
and I and I'm guessing
those straight line wind gusts that came through
didn't have as much you know
tree to latch onto it was those real thick full trees
that ended up getting caught up in the wind and
and falling over and
causing so much damage
I saw people trapped on their streets with
with no way to get out
at least not by car right
I saw trees down on houses
trees down on cars
every one of my listings that I went by
was impacted in some way
one of them we I just got under contract
it had a tree fall right on top of it
I had several other instances that again
every single listing had some sort of
a tree down somewhere some sort of water damage
or something that had happened
and so I'm you know
going by each one taking pictures
contacting my clients telling them hey
here's what happened here's
here's how I can help you or
you know if it's an insurance claim
you know kind of thing you know
I used to be an insurance adjuster so I could tell them
you know if I thought it was potentially worth
actually making an insurance claim or not
and speak intelligently
to that of course when you have a situation like this
all the insurance companies get backed up
and the insurance adjusters
they'll will bring an
adjusters from all over the country
for a storm like this
but they all get backed up too
I worked when I used to be an insurance adjuster I
I worked at Hurricane one time and it was crazy
it was the most insane thing literally
the most insane work I've ever done in my entire life
and I was fully unprepared for it
an insurance adjusting company not the insurer
but a 3rd party company just started sending me claims
and I got so overwhelmed
I've never done that before and I finally was just like
I can't take anymore or these claims
this is this is insane
and so that's the kind of stuff that happens
these adjusters get overworked
they're not sleeping at night
they're just working straight through the night
on their on their paperwork and everything and there
there's a tremendous
amount of paperwork that they have to do
and so long story short that was a
a big part of what I was doing right away in
in the aftermath of Helene
making sure that
that that my clients and particularly my
my listing clients
that everything was good to go for them
I did have some buyer clients as well
that were impacted there was a lot of work
extra work we had to do for them as well and
and at the end of the day
those are all things that you can push
push through right these things happen but what
what really caught everyone by surprise
was the length of time there was no electricity
as I already said
there were literally people on the day after the storm
just waiting at gas stations that had no electricity
just thinking okay
this is gonna come back on at some point
the problem is there were power lines down everywhere
and there were some times where I would go down a road
some of these listings that I had
I had an insane time getting to
because there would be trees down everywhere
sometimes there were power lines down there were some
some really
sketchy situations where like
I was trying to go around power lines not
not knowing you know
if there was power to those lines that just
just all sorts of things and so
it we should have all known
this is not gonna come back on right away
and basically
the entire upstate was without electricity
like we pulled up the map
cause Duke Energy
which is the main power company in the upstate
and they're also in other states
by the way it's a huge company
Duke Power
had a map where you could see all the power outages
and it was like thousands
it was it was utterly insane
nobody hardly at all had power
and it took the power companies like Duke like
you know grew C P W
Lawrence Electric Coop all
all the various power companies that we have
it took them several days just to assess the damage
and what was needed to fix it right
they couldn't put together a plan for how to fix it
like this isn't just a single down power line
cause someone ran you know
ran their car into the power line
this is an entire power infrastructure problem right
the entire infrastructure
in terms of the power lines
was basically destroyed at all these different points
and so they had to
to assess and figure all that out
before they could even
even put a plan together for how to
how to fix all this and how to get power back
and of course it didn't help that many of
of these areas were blocked by down trees and
and the like now
for me and for my family it was about a
I don't remember the exact number of days
but it was about a week or so
that we were without electricity
but for others my mom
some others it was two to three weeks
and as someone who had never been through more than
about a day without electricity
I mean I can't remember ever going for
for more than a day maybe there's
was some time in my life
where we went two days without electricity
but certainly not more than that
so this came as a huge system shock for me and
I found myself going to my office a lot
my office is over there by the Hayward Mall
which oddly had electricity the entire time
I have no explanation
I maybe somebody does I haven't actually tried to
to figure out why my office had electricity
but it was just like every
it was just like
nothing out of the ordinary had happened maybe
maybe is that little pocket right there
around the mall
there's not a lot of trees
and we just got lucky but I mean
the mall didn't have power
a lot of the businesses
around my office didn't have power
for some reason my office had power
and that was unbelievable
right cause they had also had refrigerators
had ice microwave ovens
all these things that we desperately need
I mean ice it
it's funny when something like this happens
how certain things become
extravagantly more valuable than they normally would
ice became a huge priority right
cause so many things were going bad
so the fact that my office just had ice
that like being able to just get ice
that was like printing money
every gas station was out of ice
every everything
everywhere they're all out of ice right
so I spent a lot of time in the office
it was you know I'm
I'm grateful for my company
that they were
were very welcoming to hey
if you wanna bring your families here
if you guys wanna have parties here whatever
there was
there was basically no restrictions on that
we were going there to watch Sunday Night Football
to watch Clemson football
like I said
I would take my family there
we would we would watch TV
play games whatever
just to feel normal right
it was challenging for everyone
at the end of the day it's just and
and again these are first world problems right
but our entire first world runs on electricity
and so that is an upending of
functionally the world order in so far as this is my
the world that that I live in
that my family lives in and
and we just had to make do
and of course it was extremely stressful for me
and honestly on par with Covid
on in many ways
and that's because similar to Covid
real estate didn't stop
even though we had no electricity
no internet etcetera
you know everything else shut down
just about every other job wasn't working
but real estate continues on
it does not stop
you know it didn't stop during Covid
it just doesn't stop people have to buy and sell homes
and so we just had to make it work
despite having limited resources
for how to charge our devices again
the office was clutch
I would just take all the devices to the office
and just plug everything in
and but that was just an added stressor
because now
there's just so much extra planning that has to be done
done to do normal
daily tasks that are either typically automated or
or just kind of done without thought right
you don't think about how
like every second of the day
I was thinking about whether my devices were charged
and there was just a mental drain right I was
needing to be mentally and emotionally charged back up
because there was just this mental drain of
of having to deal with these
these devices that need that need to be charged
you know needing to account for you know my
my kids and they're
you know they're homeschooled and she's like okay
you know well
we don't have electricity
what do what do we do
just there's just so many different
extra things that we had to be thinking about
and it was depleting
and of course you know it's like
constantly putting everything on low power mode and
you know trying to coordinate tree removal services
at a time when everyone is backed up
trying to meet contractors at
you know at homes at
at some of my listings by the way
I have rental properties as well
I had to check on all of them too
I checked on all of them
after I had checked on all of my client stuff right
that's just again I'm not trying to pat myself on the
on the on the back here
but I wanted to make sure that that my clients
truly came first
and I do think I approached it that way
also my rental properties have people in them so
you know my hope is that they would contact my property manager
and whatever the case may be and
and hopefully I wouldn't have to be super
super duper hands on but eventually after I
after I got gasoline then my next step was alright
I'm gonna go check on all my rental properties
so again another more and more things that
that just have to be done
and one thing I would do is
I would go out every day in the morning
to just check on current conditions
see if you know trees have been removed
see if power lines were being worked on
if I saw Duke Energy anywhere any
anyone working on the power lines
and that was honestly discouraging for the first
for the first like week right
cause didn't see a whole lot
and it just took them so long to assess the damage
honestly probably I don't wanna judge
but it really felt like
it was longer than it should have been
before we finally started to see people
start to come back on board with power
and the Sunday after the storm
this is this is something I've
I doubt that I will ever forget
who knows I forget a lot of stuff
but the Sunday after the storm
I was driving down Pleasantburg and
over not too far from my house and I drove
I again I'm just scouting out you know what
what's going on what
what's the deal here and Pizza City
which is a great mom and pop old school
you know they've been there for forever
New York style pizza place
they had a guy with a
with a sign out saying that they had fresh pizza
cash only and that you could buy it in there
and it was like now we're going on
you know basically Day 3 of not having had a
a true like warm meal
we've been just scrounging things together to
to try to not be hungry
and so I immediately pulled in there and
basically they didn't have power
but they had gas and because they had gas
they were able to cook on their in their gas ovens
now all of their toppings had been spoiled
but they had had managed to salvage or
or to source cheese and pepperoni
so they were selling cheese and pepperoni pizzas
only for cash cause they couldn't process
credit card payments without power
so needless to say
I bought a bunch of pizzas for my family and
and having a hot meal on that Sunday
after multiple days of just trying to
like I said scrounge things together
that was just such a breath of fresh air
now the impact the storm had on
on the community here in
in Greenville and the greater Greenville area was
was noticeable there was a tremendous amount of anxiety
right you know
people just the unknown right is
is the hard thing and that
that was a hard thing during Covid
anytime that there's something like this
like that's unknown
how long are we gonna be without power
how long
are these trees gonna be down everywhere
it was just very intense
you would see fights break out at gas stations
especially early on I already said
the mayor had to go on TV
to tell people to stop fighting
that there was plenty of gas
it was kind of crazy
I think the governor
also may have said something to that effect
but there were a lot of good things that I saw
in the community as well right
people helping their neighbors clear debris
people helping
transport people that whose cars were damaged
people with electricity
providing housing to those who didn't have electricity
the Hayward Mall provided parking for
for these
residential pods that
construction crews that were coming in from
from out of state
needed in order to live in
and so we saw some of the
some of the positive human elements that
you know we
we did see that we've seen at different times right
I was in New Jersey when 9 11 happened and I
I saw a little bit of that
around 9 11 that that there was a
a sense of like hey we
we all need to we all need to
to band together and help each other out
and provide comfort to each other and get along right
one thing that was cool that I got to be a part of was
it was volunteering to
kind of represent the Realtor Relief Foundation
which is a foundation realtors can donate to
to help those in need if you're a realtor
I highly recommend donating
to the Realtor Relief Foundation
it's an ongoing thing it's not
it's not specifically South Carolina
it's something that's done by the National Association
of Realtors and they will donate money to
out of the donated money that they receive
they will then donate that to people in need
I believe pretty much 100% of those donations go to
go to people
I don't think that I
I don't I you know
I've never seen the books
but I don't think the NAR is skimming
anything off the top or anything like that
so the state of South Carolina hosted
this event that the
that the governor really scrounged up very
very quickly hosted this event
over at Greenville Tech for
people that were in need
people that were needed financial assistance
people that needed to talk to
the department of insurance
people that needed to talk to FEMA so
there were I don't know
close to I think 100 different vendors there
private organizations
in addition to all these government organizations
as well and
and so we the Red Cross I believe was there
and yeah so we
we had our own little table there
and a bunch of us that are on the
the board of directors for the Great
Agreeable Association Realtors we
we volunteered to basically assist at that table
and to help people sign up
to be able to get grants
that they would just be given not
not something that would have to be paid back
but grants that would help them out if they had damage
to their home that they could prove
or if they had been displaced from their home
and didn't have you know
enough money to
live in a hotel or whatever the case may be
they were able to get money from the Realtor
Relief Foundation and it was
it was really cool to be able to
to see just and to be a part of people
being able to be helped in that way
by realtors functionally from all over the country
and then
and then for our little group here in Greenville
to be able to you know
assist them help them sign up
it was really easy they made it super simple
you know you could
like scan a QR code and fill out a few things on
on your phone
and then you apply and then that was your application
and my understanding was that they were very
very lenient in terms of what they accepted
like they didn't turn down a lot of people
unless
those people just didn't follow the instructions and
and the instructions were quite simple
now at the end of the day
that those are some of the positive things
but this storm made for a very challenging end of year
for many people
and that was definitely the case for me
now I don't want to make this about me
because a lot of people had it way
way way worse
but I can't speak for them I can only speak for me
and for me
it basically meant no pay for several months
because pretty much all of my closings got delayed
and as I already said had a ton of problems
like that listing that that I just got under contract
that had a tree fall on it
and my headspace wasn't good right
this was it was just a tough tough time
on multiple levels and it was just
just knowing that wow I'm
I'm now going to have to do a bunch of extra work
and not only that
this work is going to be tremendously difficult right
cause we're
talking about getting to places
that were hard to get to I had
I had one home where there were
there were issues in the foundation
I kept having to go back and crawl in the
crawl space for different things and
and all of this
knowing that I'm not going to get paid for any of this
for at best for months right
because all of these closings are
are gonna be delayed and so every day was just a grind
knowing that I had to keep doing
everything I could for my clients
but knowing that that you know
I wasn't gonna get paid anymore
for the extra work that I was doing
and on the flip side
in some cases might be paid less right
if a property that I had listed
for instance
if the seller decided that they weren't going to
to fix up the property that got
if it got damaged and wanted to relist it just as is
that could mean that you know
that even my potentially at
at the end of the day my pay
for helping to sell that property
wouldn't be as much as it would have been
so there's just like all of these different things
that was just challenging right
for me professionally and
and of course that impacted me personally
so a year a year later
reflecting back I still feel not
not to be too dramatic
but you can probably tell in my voice
I feel a little bit of PTSD from the storm
and as a result
I have been more aware
of the storms forming in the Atlantic
and of course
we haven't had any in the Gulf this year
but I've been tracking every single storm very closely
I'm on Mike's weather page all the time now
I'm on there much more than I am on anything else
on Facebook
and again I'm just immensely grateful that thus far
all of these storms have veered east
from the South Carolina coast
particularly this week
there is a Realtor Political Action Committee
event that we have and for those that
that don't know I chair that committee
and we don't have too many of these events
which by the way if you're listening
you're interested in the event
let me know be happy to talk to you about
you know what's going on for that
and you know
what the point of the event is and all of that
but long story short the
that we have an event on Thursday a
an oyster roast
and it's gonna be all kinds of stuff that
that we're gonna be doing there and
you know it was just like
are you kidding me you know
like a week ago it was like this storm
which at that time wasn't even
I don't even think it was a named storm yet
but it was like this storm might of course
impact this one event
we haven't had an event in so many months
we've been planning this for a while now
it's like please tell me this isn't going to impact
this event thankfully
it doesn't appear like it's going to
but now I track these storms way more closely
to make sure I'm not blindsided
I have a generator now so I am ready
ready to go if we have something like this again
of course you can never be fully prepared
but I'm prepared in so far as I can be personally
and thankfully it's just been a dry
uneventful storm season for the most part
for Greenville and
and if you're wondering
if you're not someone that's from around here
this is the norm for us we don't
typically have major storm seasons here in Greenville
like I said we had
we were impacted a little bit by
by Irma and you know
we've had impacts from other storms in the past
they're typically nothing
nothing like this right
and again I talked about that
that perfect confluence of events
with all the rain that had come in beforehand
the storm taking a a major
major eastward turn towards Greenville
all these different things that just happened and
and just created for a really unique
weather event that happened
and I know
a lot of people have been turned off to the Carolinas
due to Helene
I think that that's kind of a flash in the pan kind of
kind of trend I don't
I don't think that that's going to last
but I just want to say this unless climate change
really causes these storms to be more common
than they have been in the past and
you know we can't rule that out as a possibility
but unless we have some kind of
a dramatic impact from climate change
we shouldn't see Helene a
a a storm like Helene again in my lifetime not
not in Greenville not in Western North Carolina
Western North Carolina has had something like this happen
only two times the past hundred years and
and the other time was 100 years ago
pretty much Greenville it's
it's the same thing I mean
to me this is like a 500 year storm for Greenville
it's just so unusual for storms like this
to maintain those straight line wind speeds
that far inland
and then you combine that with all that rain
the saturated
the saturated ground just everything
it was just a very unusual event
and I'm hoping as well that the trees that fell
that you know that are now gone
that the trees that remain are the stronger trees right
that that is reasonable right
that typically the
the trees that fall are the ones that are weak
or the ones that for were more susceptible to
to wind damage and so
what I'm hoping is that if we have another big
you know wind event here in the future hopefully
it we won't have the trees falling to the extent that
that we did
and hopefully the infrastructure that was put in place
for electrical
was done in such a way that
that is less likely to fall as well
because it was chaos right
it was utter
utter chaos a year ago with all those trees
power lines down and everything
like I said
I am prepared in so far as I can be
I hope I never have to use my generator
but I have it if I need it
and if I ever find myself at the end of the day
running low on gas I am going to stop and get gas okay
I have
that is a change I have permanently made in my life
I am going to go get gas
even if I'm exhausted at the end of the day
if I only have 70 80 miles to empty
I'm not gonna go into that next day with 70
80 miles to empty not making that mistake again
so a year later
as you can tell
I have I have a lot of emotions about Helene
a lot of a lot of memories
I don't miss it I don't miss it
my daughter actually
she was saying about how she has
my younger daughter has good memories from
from 2024 and I was like
really good you
you have good memories from
from the Hurricane and all of that
and she had actually forgotten about it
and I was like that is a blessing
I wish I could forget
but also it's good to not forget
and that's why we're doing this episode
there are other things I could have talked about
but I I did feel like that
this would be something worth looking back on and
and memorializing a year later
hopefully we don't have an event like this again
I don't think we will
but if we do now we know how to handle it
and now I know to keep gas in my truck
that's all for today's episode
thank you guys so much for watching and for listening
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