9.30.24 Jon Bailiff Asheville Update
He May Have a Way Out, Tuesday, by Air
We have a tentative commercial flight to fly Jon out of Asheville to Washington DC, his original destination, where his family awaits with love!
Here’s a brief audio message from Jon today. He’s referring to working with his partner, Haley McBride at the Holiday Inn, to get food and fuel and water and Starlink, for the hotel staff and first responders.
His sister, brother, and brother-in-law are all there. LOVE to Megan, Dan, and Marcellus. Send me photos of y’all when he arrives!
Jon’s flight outta Asheville is scheduled for Tuesday, tomorrow morning.
I only say tentative because everything in Asheville is on the “temporal plane” — Mother Nature is calling the shots.
However, the workers at American Airlines are moving heaven and earth to run flights out of the Asheville Henderson airport.
If you have people in Asheville who want to get out, grab your credit card if you have one, and book’em, Dano!
https://www.americanairlines.ie/
Our New Pals, Jon’s best friends, the crew at the Holiday Inn that has been transformed into Rescue Central.
Pack your patience, as they say.
Tune into the wonderful Asheville 24/7 community news radio, 99.9. I listen to them all day, they are the ONLY place to find out what’s really going on, minute to minute.
Nothing is “easy” or reliable right now, but possibilities are emerging. Keep trying, even if one road closes, if one flight cancelled, if there’s one more blackout— just keep on trying. Don’t give up. Every day people are helping each other.
I’ve been trying all morning to upload a video onto Substack, and when that happens, you’ll see an update right here. Geez, technology is failing us, eh?
Jon will also post more audio, video, and photos himself when he has wifi.
Man oh man.
As always, there’s a bigger picture here, and you know we’ll be talking about it in the days to come. I’m singing this song:
RESOURCES
American Airlines has flights out of Asheville Airport.
https://www.aa.com/homePage.do
99.9 “KISS Country Radio” 24/7 local community run news station
Studio Line: 828-240-5477 — priority for local callers or people with help for locals.
Today, Jon is helping to bring a Starlink connection to the Holiday Inn where he’s been working.
Jon’s Emergency Facebook Support Group
For Family and Friends. I’ll always post the major updates here, on Jon’s Stack.
(Note: FB is throttling weather and hurricane news, so do not rely on them as your news source. And no, I’m not kidding).
Twitter “Asheville”
Next to the radio station above, Twitter has best breaking news on Asheville and flood areas. If you “follow” me, https://x.com/susiebright, you’ll see LOADS of relevant news, and then you can figure it out from there. Yes, we know “X” is absurd, but for some reason, it’s kinda working, if you know where to look, for breaking news. Follow reliable sources. Figure it out.
Fuck Facebook. They are throttling the weather news. You cannot reliably post or find anything, except for “private groups” like the one I started. Even some of those are being censored and “paused.” My god. That’s why I’ll keep using Stack for the big updates.
Fuck MSM headlines and corporate news decisions. Just a complete fail on climate change and Hurricane Helene. COMPLETE FAIL.
Blue Ridge Holiday Inn Asheville East
This is where Jon’s been staying and working all this time, since the storm.
1450 Tunnel Road East, Asheville, NC 28805, General Manager, Haley McBride, Jon’s hero and BFF!
Jessie Cudney, Jon’s driving companion from Madison, WI, has left with a Holiday Inn manager in his truck to drive to Raleigh, and then to her destination. She left this morning. Good luck, Jessie, and we have high hopes!
Glad to hear this.
We love you toooooooo!!!!