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Marshall on the French Broad River

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19 comments

  • allen griggs

    Computer extremely slow. More pics tomorrow, maybe. Millions in property destruction in Marshall. All 8 restaurants destroyed. Post Office, built under Jimmy Carter 1977, utterly destroyed. Marshall is destroyed.

    0
  • William81

    Wow, that is a terrible tragedy……..

    I hope the courthouse is not like the one where I worked. All of the old records were kept in the basement !

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  • Grasshopper

    LOTS of people suffering big time around a lot of areas. That pic tells some of the utter devastation.

    0
  • montanajoe
    • Community moderator

    Oh man, that's awful. Prayers for all affected.

    0
  • montanajoe
    • Community moderator

    I did a search of the town and found this picture. @allen griggs , is this picture of the same area as yours Allen? Same bridge and court house in back ground?

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  • susie

    Tiny url of the Google maps link

    https://tinyurl.com/yh7377y5

    3
  • allen griggs

    Yes Montanajoe that's the bridge, and Marshall. Computer slow, I get high speed internet from a Verizon cell tower. Cell service came back yesterday but is still messed up. Power came back on Sunday at noon. Our little "neighborhood" six houses up here on a ridge is OK. We're 500 feet above the river. No trees down. Water was 8 feet deep in Marshall, all windows of restaurants and stores were broken out. Two feet of horrible mud in every building.

    20 years ago Marshall was an abandoned hillbilly town with 15 vacant buildings. Then, it was decided that Marshall was a charming mountain village. Money began pouring in by the millions. Every building was occupied and remodeled, into bicycle shops, restaurants etc. Upstairs of every building turned into apartments. Hundreds of people lived un Marshall. Marshall called itself "The Jewel of the Blue Ridge" and it was "groovy" to be in Marshall. An abandoned cottton mill, Capitola Mill, was remodeled for $5million into shops, stores and hotel. Look up Capitola Mill.

    Our favorite restaurant, Zuma. Just had lunch there a week ago. I walked into the kitchen and handed the cook a $5 bill for a tip. told him it was the best Reuben Sandwich I ever had eaten. Nobody does that in a restaurant it brought tears to his eyes.

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  • allen griggs

    This is a charity named My Sisters Attic. They took donations of coffee cups, clothes, CDs etc and sold them cheap, to benefit abused women. This place started up in an abandoned building 12 years ago.

    One guy in town had a book store. He had 5,000 used books, mostly hard cover. $ Twenty, thirty thousand in inventory all destroyed.

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  • allen griggs

    There was a factory ten miles up river, they manufactured PVC pipe and 1 1/2 inch black plastic tubing. In their yard, right on the river in Woodfin, was a massive inventory of 4 inch PVC pipe, 12 feet ling. At least 100 18-wheelers worth of white pipe in the yard. Also ten thousand spools of 100 feet of the black tubing. These spools were bound up with plastic wire, each spool about 4 foot diameter. Their entire inventory washed into the river, and floated past Marshall.

    You can see one of the spools, torn apart, in this pic. Standing there during the flood in one minute I saw 200 of the spools of tubing, and 300 12 foot lengths of white PVC pipe. Maybe $2 million in inventory, plus all the plastic melting machines, extruders etc. all destroyed.

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  • Ruger4me

    Glad to hear your house was spared, sorry for the loss of your town.

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  • drobs

    Sad to see.

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  • He Dog

    Sad, yes. I am just glad Allen is OK.

    6
  • montanajoe
    • Community moderator

    just devastating. Glad you and the houses are good. The town, its going to be awhile again. Best wishes.

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  • Frogdog

    These videos may be of interest. Really shows the during/after overview. Poor town really got nailed…….

    Aerial Video - Marshall DURING Flooding (post-peak flood):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAlIfRiDjRw

    Aerial Video - Marshall AFTER Flooding:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQTr1jniEr0

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  • montanajoe
    • Community moderator

    Just awe struck, the force of natural disaster.

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  • tnranger

    Reminds me of eastern Kentucky where I did environmental compliance for local flood control projects for a number of years, I had many local residents tell me that they couldn't sleep any night when it rained.

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  • jltrent

    Just terrible as I really feel for those people.

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  • Horse Plains Drifter

    Words…..I have no words…..Prayers for all .

    6

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