Garbage People to the Rescue
/"But, but, they didn't wait for an environmental impact study! They didn’t file a single diversity-hire plan!" Peter Paul Buttigieg, U.S. Secretary of Transportation
‘West Virginia Boys’ move a literal mountain to build a road so Helene victims can finally return home: ‘Nothing short of miraculous’
CHIMNEY ROCK, West Virginia — Blue-collar workers prevailed over bureaucracy in Hurricane Helene-ravaged North Carolina by rebuilding a highway at breakneck speed on their own terms – allowing residents to finally return home.
Coal miners from West Virginia – whom locals have lovingly dubbed the “West Virginia Boys” – moved a mountain in just three days to reopen a 2.7-mile stretch of Highway 64 between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock washed away by Helene.
Chimney Rock residents who fled the hurricane one month ago will now be able to return home for the first time within a few days, months earlier than they expected.
“The river swallowed the road, so I haven’t been home since the hurricane,” Robin Phillips, 49, told The Post.
“The West Virginia boys have moved the mountains. All of the roads were just gone, until now. It’s nothing short of miraculous.
…. “For a small community like ours without many residents, that could easily get overlooked, it’s unreal what they’re doing,” she said of the miners’ effort.
The Post previously spoke to “sole survivors” from Chimney Rock, who expected to spend a year on the open road until road access to their home was restored.
On Friday, The Post watched while the miners balanced a bulldozer and two excavators on the banks of the newly-widened Broad River to shift the final 20-ton granite boulder into place to restore access between the two towns.
The miners, who were all volunteering their time, were too sheepish about building a highway without legal permission to speak on the record.
Help, or get out of the way.
Credit where due, the Government Boys did one thing right:
“Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), North Carolina Department of Transportation and the local Sheriff’s office all visited the site but turned a blind eye to the unsanctioned build.”
Logan Campbell, 37, a volunteer from Mississippi, said the miners embodied the American spirit.
“To see this many wonderful men, women, all races, different political views, none of that matters at all in these situations,” he told The Post.
“Weak people don’t show up for s–t like this, and if they do they don’t last long.
“It’s such a heartwarming thing to see amidst all the heartbreak.
“It gives you so much hope for the American we all want to believe in and the America we want our children to experience.”
Campbell and his friend Dan Lewis, 41, have been sleeping in tents for the past 17 days volunteering for the residents in the hardest hit towns.
“Different road crews came in and said ‘it’s not doable, the people who live between Bat Cave and Chimney Rock will be trapped in all winter,” said Lewis, who traveled to North Carolina from Oklahoma.
Back in the 90s (2000s?), the City of New York had spent eight years and over twenty million dollars attempting to restore and reopen the Central Park skating rink, and made no progress whatsoever. Donald Trump stepped up and offered to do the job, and the then Mayor accepted his generosity. With the cooperation of the labor unions Trump used on his own projects, the new rink was completed in 18 months at a cost of less than $2 million. In 2018, Mayor De Blasio had the Trump name removed from the rink.