Re: 18th Annual Crossfire Fall Rally -Asheville, NC - 26-30 September 2024
NOT the usual post and photos here that generally recap our Annual Fall Events !!
I attended our Fall Crossfire event is Asheville last weekend.
I chose to fly to Asheville, NC just to spend time with all the others there.
32 Crossfires out of the 68 registered still came to the Biltmore Hilton in Asheville with weekend weather looking uncertain but not knowing what Hurricane Helene truly had in store.
We all slept Thursday night unaware of the destruction happening nearby as we were asleep in this solid built Hilton hotel.
(The Aftermath)........
The Hilton lost power Friday morning about 9am
A solid 6 story hotel with NO POWER, no operating elevators etc.
None of us had WIFI , data , cell service or TV to see or know the magnitude of what the Hurricane / Tropical Storm had done around us over nite.
Several of us stayed throughout the day on Friday and others chose to leave and venture out to make there way home not knowing the devastation all around the hotel at the time.
The hotel restaurant was closed as well as the entire city itself without power...NOTHING was open !!
A few brave souls ventured away from the hotel in search of food and were successful in finding a Target store open and bringing back a lot of stuff for us all to share.
Within a 4 mile radius and beyond many areas were under water or flooded yet our hotel was standing strong on dry undamaged land.
Several of us stayed Friday night at the hotel which had generators keeping only emergency lighting on all night.
The hotel staff then told us Saturday at 9:30am we had to leave the hotel by 4pm because the power was certain to not be restored and the generators would run out of fuel making the hotel fully CLOSE and they had no choice but to evacuate the property.
This was a first for them and had never happened before.
We had no idea what was ahead but had to leave and there were NO other places to stay in Asheville without power .
We were all out of the hotel pretty quickly once we found out we needed to leave.
I was very fortunate to have a ride out of there with my friend many here know as (Rob, Owner of Needswings) heading back to Michigan.
I was originally to fly back home on Monday morning but the airport was also without power and closed just 4 miles away, plus 2 more nights without a hotel to remain at anyway.
We left the hotel and began looking for roads that were not closed.
ALL gas stations nearby were closed and without power and we needed to get pretty far away to even find gas and the lines to the pumps were down the street.
We finally found the way after driving 230 miles over 7 hours with road closures after road closures and turning around for everyone of them after many miles.
By the time we were in the clear we were only 98 miles from the hotel in the town of Newport,TN. where we had a clear shot to the open interstate.
So finally after road closures after road closures, floods trees, down power lines, and traveling mountain back roads after back roads
(All of us in different groups) heading in different directions from Asheville made it home back to:
Michigan , Louisiana., Kentucky , Kansas , Tennessee , Arkansas , Texas, Washington DC , New Jersey and even Canada but most of us devastated over what we all saw first hand.
We got to leave it behind but saw first hand what those who live there are dealing with, the devastating aftermath and are unable to leave it behind because it's their home.
Here is an unusual collection of my pics and others pics taken as well as a lot of what has been shared by others who were there on their Facebook pages......
Crossfire Fall Event & Hurricane Disaster
Last edited by Valk; Nov 21, 2024 at 11:48 AM.