Gatlinburg is burning

The drought throughout the south has been pretty amazing. We normally don't get big wildfires - especially in November. If we don't have a good wet winter, then a lot of crops are going to be struggling next year.

 

Are we sure there was really a fire?

 

Isn't this just more proof that China's orchestrating a global warming hoax, as surmised by the man most East TN residents voted into the WH?

 

Goodbye ski season.

Gatlinburg hotels, homes destroyed in Tenn. wildfires

 

If you have never been there, Gatlinburg is reached by traveling narrow winding backroads. On weekends and holidays the traffic is such that a fifteen minute drive can easily take forty-five minutes. There is one reasonably wide and direct route out headed north, but I imagine that when told to evacuate most people went back out the way they came in, the way they knew and pointed home. I think that they are very lucky that the evacuation did not have to be called at midnight or later, because a lot of people would not have known about it. They also got lucky in that most people had already headed out after the holiday before things got this bad.

This Youtube gives an idea of how scary it was.

 

Hooray for Dolly and her two milk cannons!

 

Agreed. And I do regret my dumb prior post. Didn't know the severity at the time.

 

I've always had a love/hate relationship with Sevier County. Growing up it was always the backup plan for the years with no time or money for a "real" vacation, so there was a certain amount of built in resentment when we'd go. A lot of the hillbilly kitsch has thankfully been tamped down, but some of it was borderline offensive in ways I couldn't even understand until years later.

But even though it may be the Cousin Eddie of tourism, it's still family, damnit. And it hurts to see the pictures of people's lives and livelihoods burning to the ground.

 

Site not working, so I don't know if this headline is hysteria or truth:

http://appalachianmagazine.com/2016/11/29/gatlinburg-is-gone-fire-destroys-most-of-tourism-town/

 

Terrifying video captures man’s escape down mountain during Gatlinburg wildfires

 

Got married in a quaint mountaintop chapel in Sevier County. I love it, warts and all. Our drive through there next month will be depressing.

 

WBIR updating this list regularly.

LIST: What's damaged, destroyed and intact