Stupid arsonists

[John A.]

Here's a few things you'll probably need to know.

This is my crash course in plain southern English that may help you. Even if you get the words right, if your accent ain't right and don't git it, you're still not going to pull it off very well even if you get the words right. But you're going to need to know what the local people are trying to tell you so...

Holler
1. Yell louder
2. A valley

Far
1. A long way away
2. The thing that you were sent there to put out.

Bless your heart
This phrase is pretty universal. It could mean a lot of different things depending on how the person says it.

It could be meant as an upmost and sincere compliment, or it could be a polite way of looking you in the eye and telling you that you're stupid

Don't ask for a soda or a soft drink if you go out to eat or order food. Ask for a coke. No one says soft drinks or soda here.

If I think of other things that could help make this transition a little easier for you, I'll add more.

 

[Scoop]

Here's a few things you'll probably need to know.

This is my crash course in plain southern English that may help you.
Don't ask for a soda or a soft drink if you go out to eat or order food. Ask for a coke. No one says soft drinks or soda here.

Right.

Oli. This sentence makes perfect sense over here.

"I'll have a coke. Make mine orange."

 

[oli700]

Well, Oli, thanx for helping out. Party Rock is about 175 miles away, so our face-to-face will have to wait.
But I won't back out on buying the meal.
Yesterday's newspaper had an article about Bradley Healthcare Facility taking donations to send out to the firefighters in 5 states. So Saturday I am going to pack up a bunch of jerky and have them ship it out to you guys.
I taught a TN handgun carry class today. We had 30 students. At the end of the course I showed them your picture, my "firefighting friend who volunteered to drop in from Oregon." I left 30 copies of the article and told them if they felt like donating to take one and get their stuff over to BHC. Sixteen copies disappeared.
So if you happen to see a package of Jerky with a red SCOOP on the front, that's a thanx from me.

Safety first, buddy.

wow that is the coolest thing ever , so cool......

We are calling it the PNW Thanksgiving Team
Southern states came to the big show when the show was bigger than we have ever seen it , I mean it, seasoned firemen were breaking, some never been back and those guys stepped into the unknown to help us and I guarantee they will never forget 200 foot flames sitting on top of 150 foot tall trees
We are going there so those guys and gals can go home and eat Thanksgiving with their families, take a breath and regroup. By that time we will be ready to rotate out and get back here for Christmas and you all should gave weather by then

It is unless you want to get your ass kicked by a girl.

bout lost my coffee, as long as it isn't one of those trannies all confused

Here's a few things you'll probably need to know.

This is my crash course in plain southern English that may help you. Even if you get the words right, if your accent ain't right and don't git it, you're still not going to pull it off very well even if you get the words right. But you're going to need to know what the local people are trying to tell you so...

Holler
1. Yell
2. A valley

Far
1. A long way away
2. The thing that you were sent there to put out.

Bless your heart
This phrase is pretty universal. It could mean a lot of different things depending on how the person says it.

It could be meant as an upmost and sincere compliment, or it could be a polite way of looking you in the eye and telling you that you're stupid

Don't ask for a soda or a soft drink if you go out to eat or order food. Ask for a coke. No one says soft drinks or soda here.

If I think of other things that could help make this transition a little easier for you, I'll add more.

man your on a roll

the funny part about all that.

I have a bro here at work from NC and you can pick it up here and there. When those guys came out there I said " you never sounded like that".....but he did it left
The funny part was I started talking like them on my division

average radio traffic between some NCFS guys o my didvision
yall gunna bring that dozer up the holler .......no, got no gription up there ....you were here yesterday......weell I usedta could but that was yesterday.......well if it was yall I would help yall .......i wanna help yall but I got no gription get the bugs out your ears boy

 

[John A.]

^ That sounds about right.

 

[oli700]

At the end of the course I showed them your picture, my "firefighting friend who volunteered to drop in from Oregon."

if you interested in why I'm not looking at the camera......that picture was in many papers and that's always the question
I recite the story in JohnA's thread here scroll a bit
http://www.mossbergowners.com/forum...-announces-his-resignation.13560/#post-181012

 

[Scoop]

Oli, Happy Thanksgiving to you. I appreciate you and your crew's service in our forests. I hope you got some food and supplies from the NC community. Here at BHRC they collected some goods that went to fire crews in TN and north GA.

 

[John A.]

Looks like they're making mandantory evacuations at Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, TN. Essentially the area around the Great Smokey Mountain national park.

One report of people trapped at park vista hotel with fire coming up to the building, probably lost her jeep in the parking lot and the building was on generator power.

http://www.local8now.com/content/ne...rk-issues-air-quality-advisory-403402976.html

http://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/...east-tennessee-firefighters-ordered/94535434/

The Gatlinburg Fire Department has ordered the mandatory evacuation of downtown Gatlinburg as wind conditions worsen and several fires continue to grow increasingly unpredictable and dangerous.

"We were just told by the Gatlinburg Fire Department that they had told everybody in Gatlinburg to get out," said Judy Tucker, director of Sevier County's E-911 call center. "... No one's getting through to anyone. Phones are ringing and not being answered anywhere. It's chaos."

Around 6 p.m., Gatlinburg fire officials declared an immediate mandatory evacuation of the Mynatt Park neighborhood, East Foothills Road, Turkey Nest Road, Davenport Road and Savage Gardens areas. At that point, average wind speeds were recorded at 40 mph, with gusts clocking in as high as 74 mph, according to a news release from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

"The wind is not helping, and the rain is not here yet," Gatlinburg Fire Department Chief Greg Miller said in a news conference on Monday night. "These are the worst possible conditions imaginable."

 

[John A.]

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1799199340292836&id=1429608893918551

 

[John A.]

Confirmed, 8 active structure fires in/near the area I mentioned above.

Live Breaking streaming right now from channel 6 WATE.

http://wate.com/

 

[John A.]

Wind advisory going through the area saying gusts at 60 mph and expected all through the night.

While he isn't working this fire, being near the area, is going to give Oli and his team a hard night.

 

[CaddmannQ]

We had strong rains the past couple days. Hopefully some of that will blow east.

 

[John A.]

Not sure how many are keeping up with it, but the fires in NE Tennessee in Gatlinburg/Sevierville, has been one of the history books. I don't know if it's made national news yet, but I suspect that it will quickly if not already.

More than 100 structures have been lost, property, and ultimately families too because it came so fast there wasn't enough time to get away from it.

Having spent a lot of time in the area throughout my life, this hits me really close to home and is heart wrenching seeing the photos and videos and hearing the videos of family members going to shelters trying to find their family because they couldn't get to them because of the evacuation traffic and fire blocked roads.

 

[John A.]

some photos from WATE broadcast

 

[CaddmannQ]

I saw on the morning news that they are in serious trouble back in Tennessee. I didn't catch any details though.
This is more awful than I could imagine.

I see the radar shows very little rain headed that way. This is looking worse and worse.

 

[CaddmannQ]

 

[John A.]

Weather forecast for the immediate area is expecting the winds will pick back up 35 mph-60 mph (again) toward late evening and throughout the night.

Unseasonable winds coming up from the Gulf bringing in warm air, which we're hoping will mix with the colder air and give them some rain.

This fire is about middle way between me and Oli. He's to the southeast of there. I'm not sure what the fire there is doing because he usually doesn't get online and check while he's away fighting these fires. But I remember him saying it was the #2 fire in the country when he left, so it wasn't going to be a walk in the park by any stretch.

There is a lot of freshly fallen leaves that is providing fuel for the fires and the strong winds and drought conditions, has really worked against us this year.

But the fire in Gatlinburg, was a fire storm. That's the only explanation that I can give.

 

[oli700]

Coming home Friday ......thanksgiving was good. I

Oli, Happy Thanksgiving to you. I appreciate you and your crew's service in our forests. I hope you got some food and supplies from the NC community. Here at BHRC they collected some goods that went to fire crews in TN and north GA.

View attachment 13748

i have never been treated so well in any state I have ever been on fire ......not even close
A lot of NC Wildland fire fighter got spend thanksgiving with their families , they are eternally grateful
We a cementing a conduit between the two states
Even talk of a sister state to make exchanges happen easier in emergencies
We have taught them a great many things in the forest fire world , we leave you a better firefighter force on Friday
As much as I like home for the first time I am not in a huge hurry to get back.......and I would bet money NC would pay is to stay over winter .....we really had the red carpet rolled out for us I love NC and all the people
And no one should believe the news about Appalachian folks,the hospitality is real but we are way bigger hillbillies than these folks ......they think it's funny but they say we remind them of their grandfathers LOL
Actually makes since because we can trace a lot of people's great great grandfather back to here that followed the timber out west and settled in Oregon ........and we don't change for shit so we remind them of their grandfathers they say

 

[John A.]

I am glad you checked in Oli. With all that has gone on around the Great Smoky Mountains, I was worried about you guys.

We have gotten a lot of rain last night starting about 11PM and still going as I type this now. It's a long soaking rain. Even got a little bit of thunder with it last night from the warm air coming up from the Gulf. Hopefully it'll be moving into your area and helping there too.

There are few times when I've ever been more thankful for the rain.

 

[oli700]

Rained like hell
It froze a couple times when it was clear but the rain storm was t shirt weather
We were hiking Chimney Rock when the storm came through .......we have a saying in Oregon , you can only gets so wet!
tornado warning but meh .....never even got above 20 wind we were just a little north to see the bad wind

Today I got to hike all around where Last of the Mohicans was filmed
If you look at the Rock faces in the background , that is the hill we had our fire on the pointy one is round top , the long ridge with the long rock faces is Rumbling Bald .....the falls is Hickory Nut falls ......they are fighting along the trail in to the falls , fight on top of the falls and when Wes Studey falls dead it's at the bottom of the falls ......this has been a good bucket list

 

[John A.]

Sounds like you got a real good taste of what I've been telling you for a while. Maybe now you can understand better why I call it home and can't see myself living anywhere else. It's a hard life, but an honest one.

On the note of the tornado, there was an F2 that touched down in Athens TN and messed up a bunch of houses just to your west in Tennessee yesterday. Unusual for this time of year, but Lord knows we really needed the rain.

We joke that we can have all 3 seasons of weather in the same day LOL.

It's either going to be cold, comfortable, or miserable hot and humid. There is no fourth season around here.

I hate the reason why you're there, but I'm glad that you were able to set down at the foothills. I know it's something you always wanted to do. And I'm glad you said you felt at home. That's southern hospitality at its' finest brother. And much the same anywhere you go in the Appalachians. Though there is an exact stark opposite side of that coin where you wouldn't want to find yourself, but that's a subject for another time.

We have a lot of exposed rock faces up here in the heart of the Appalachians too, but they are more prominent and defined around the blueridge parkway where you're at because you're on top of the continental push and there was more pressure there than where I'm at the outer edge of it though we still have a lot of small earthquakes from it still today. If you're interested in learning more about that, you can read this on your flight home. http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/birth/birth.pdf

It's weird for me when driving south towards Myrtle beach SC not far from Mount Pilot when you top the mountain and start over it. Then all of a sudden, you can see the earth go flat from there on out to the ocean. It sure is a strange sight from what I'm used to seeing more hills that keeps going on feels like forever. Then you top a hill and suddenly they're just gone. I sure ain't no flat lander. That's not the life for me.