Latest / APD Pod Squad / Episode 4; Helene Recovery, October 8; Deputy Chief Sean Aardema

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Episode 4; Helene Recovery, October 8; Deputy Chief Sean Aardema · APD Pod Squad

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Rick Rice, and this is a special edition of the APD Pod Squad Helene Recovery.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: The first of many.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to try and do these uh multiple times per week, uh, hopefully on a daily basis.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that'll be based on the availability, of course, of certain people that I would like to join me to tell their stories uh of the storm that we all dealt with and still are.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I hesitate to use the word new normal.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I won't.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's the only time you're gonna hear me say that because nothing happening now or in the future as it relates to the events of last Friday in the arrival of Tropical Storm Helene can be considered normal in any way, shape, or form.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we are, however, all dealing in uh some ways.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's people with power, there's people with water, there's some people that have both, and there's a lot of people that have neither.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and regardless of your current status or situation, everybody has been affected or knows somebody that has been severely affected by the tropical storm that arrived and just decimated our area.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: We might say Asheville, but what Asheville really means to a lot of people is the entire region.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so we're all doing different things.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're all in survival mode, and we're gonna be talking with some key players in the coming days and weeks because this is gonna be a marathon, not a sprint.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Not a huge fan of cliches, but I think everyone kind of knows that one certainly applies uh as we're still hoping and praying uh for a water system that works, that we're told is going to be weeks, not days away.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Although progress is being made, and they're very hopeful that it's not going to be the rumored months that some people are hearing on the internet.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I get a lot of people asking me that, and I they said, What's your prediction, Rick?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I say, I don't have one.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if the people at the water department aren't making one, why would I?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then they respond, Well, what I've heard is, and I'm like, what you've heard is people that don't have any particular knowledge of the situation.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're just seeing and injecting their opinion.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So let's just let it play out, let them do their hard work that they're doing right now, and we'll see where it goes.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then hopefully that'll play a large part in us getting back to some sort of routine.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because everyone loves routines, and right now all of our routines are disrupted.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And everything we do is survival at this point, mostly.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about dropping the kids off at soccer practice and maybe going to meet a friend for a beer.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's about, okay, collecting water and making sure I've got enough food.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And where can I get a shower?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have a friend?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have it here?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need to help others because my situation is better?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so everyone I think that's listening, at least that lives here, has been affected the point where Helene in the aftermath is the dominant thought when you wake up, as you go through your day, and before you go to sleep.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you might be asking yourself right about now, what is the point of this podcast?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, to share information first and foremost, but also to tell stories and to stay connected with the community.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to be asking a lot of the key players involved right now in the recovery efforts to join me, and I hope they do, so you can hear directly from them what they have experienced and what they're doing right now to help the Asheville area get back on its feet.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pleased to have as my first guest the deputy chief of the Asheville Police Department, Sean Artima.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me, Sean.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're hoping to do uh these with uh many people in leadership, both at the Asheville Police Department, hopefully with the city and some others that can provide a picture through many different lenses of what happened and where we are now and where we're going to be in the near future.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: It affected different people differently, but it affected everybody in some way.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, from you, uh from the deputy chief of the Asheville Police Department angle to a father and family man angle, you've got a house, you've got a situation, and we've got work to do here.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes some people kind of uh I don't know, they look at the uniform, not just police maybe, but other you know, departmental people, people that are doing things in charge, and they just want things to happen, and they kind of forget these people have lives as well.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, from a personal point of view, uh, how did you prepare for the storm and then what happened to you and then in the immediate aftermath?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: So those of us in the area were aware that you know, a day and a half, two days before the actual tropical system moved through, we had a pretty significant rain event.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um that one was predicted well enough in advance to where I my wife and I were able to make some preparations at the house, but got a lot of water, had a little bit of flooding in the garage, so you know, we were hoping that was going to be the worst of it.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, as we and a lot of other people found out, the worst was was yet to come.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: Friday morning, like everyone else, the wind started blowing, uh, rain started falling again, our power went out around 5 30, 6 a.m.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Friday morning.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: The height of the storm hadn't even arrived yet, but you know, I just knew deep inside like this is gonna be a big thing.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I got up, woke my wife and son up, told them, hey, I I gotta go.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, left my wife and son at home alone to to kind of brunt uh last half of the storm alone, which fortunately they they're safe.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: House is safe.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, that's that was in the back of my mind the whole time is you know, I have to leave them there and and come in and and do what needs to be done here.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen them a lot lately uh around our headquarters.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well you know, like a lot of people that sometimes don't have power, don't have water to whatever.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're fortunate here within our building to have power.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not water.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has water.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think uh, you know, we're we're up here on this top of the mountain thing and we've got all the services available to us, we don't have it here either.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: We are fortunate to have power so we can do our jobs.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we're for much more fortunate than you know my family and the Ashville Police Department to a certain extent than than a lot of people in our community, in that the headquarters building never lost power, and we've actually maintained access to the internet as well, at least, you know, early on it was you know the hardwired devices.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: So into the the actual wired network.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so we had some communication with the outside world.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: From day one, we've kind of encouraged people to bring their families in, because you know, it is in addition to a headquarters building, it's kind of been a shelter and a haven for a lot of police department families since that day.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly has.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and something that uh I've tried to explain to friends, to people outside of town, more than here, and they're like, How did this happen?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why was it so bad?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what I don't think people understand was the storm before the storm, which you alluded to.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we had a separate, yet from my understanding, semi-related system that dumped anywhere between six and ten inches of rain in the area over two days in the days leading up to Friday, which was the arrival of tropical storm Helene hurricane, of course, strength when it arrived in Florida tropical storm strength here, but with hurricane winds.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there was peak winds that have been reported uh up to 80 to 100 miles an hour, which is a hurricane.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think two the important thing to note about that is the way that the river systems come into Asheville.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: You have both the Swantanoa River and the French Broad River, which have a confluence just west of Biltmore.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they come together there.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: The French Broad flows north from the Henderson, Transylvania County area, and this the Swantanoa flows west from the eastern part of Bunkham County.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: And one thing that I think some people often forget or maybe didn't know to begin with, is the Swantanoa area and the area above Swantanoa is a watershed.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: And the area of Transylvania County Brevard region is a watershed for the French prod.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: So those areas tend to get a ton of rain.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: So they got a lot more rain in that preceding event that you were talking about.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why you don't see river crest like the top level of flooding until sometimes up to 24 hours after the rain event.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: The water is still moving from where it's coming from.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: So the rain may have moved out, and it may be six, twelve hours later that the flood actually comes.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: So when you kind of do the math on that, we had that huge rain event a day and a half-ish before the tropical system came through.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so the river was either just starting to crest or the the crest was ebbing slightly, and then wham, we get hit with the actual tropical system.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there is because of all the rain we had before, there was nowhere for the water to go.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was fully saturated.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was a wet sponge, and that also means the trees, the root systems don't have anything to grab hold of because the system, the the ground is so wet already.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about some of the things that you have seen and I have seen.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: We've of course encouraged people to to not leave home if they don't have to, uh, you know, to preserve, of course, resources like gas and things of that nature, and to stay off the road so first responders can do their job and and the utility workers can do their job, and all those people can do their job, which is also why there's a curfew.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, as part of your job, you're out and about leading your men, seeing things.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: As part of mine, coming and going to here and some other places helping as well.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen some things.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are some of the I guess the most shocking, glaring things that you have seen in your uh in this week or twelve days since it's occurred?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, kind of that same area.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: So from Tunnel Road uh near the Swantanoa exit in East Asheville, all along the kind of basin for lack of a better term, of the Swantanoa River, west into Biltmore and then the French Broad up through Riverside.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's a level of destruction that I've never actually seen.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this past July was my twenty-fifth year here.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was boots on the ground working barricades in 2004 and when we had the series of floods.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Ivan in France is crisscrossed.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in Biltmore Village.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: And that I thought that was the worst thing I'd ever seen, but it doesn't hold a candle to this.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I I I've tried to tell people whatever it is you're seeing on TV is just a tip of the iceberg.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: The infrastructure damage down there alone.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: The word I've been using a lot is apocalyptic.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's fair.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the loss of life we're still trying to wrap our heads around.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um we've got crews out there pretty much 24-7.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Our own crews, crews from the Astral Fire Department.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: We have an entire search and rescue team that came in from Los Angeles County, California.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: We have another search and rescue team from Fayetteville, North Carolina, that's been assisting, and another search and rescue team from the state of New Jersey that's been out there assisting.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And we've been out there pretty much 24-7.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the support we've received that I've seen, I've met officers from all across the state, all across the country uh has been just tremendous.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And to the to the point where they're if people are wondering what they are doing here specifically, uh, well, over the weekend I can give a shout out to the Holly Springs Police Department as they assisted in a very good arrest.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: People that were trying to take advantage of businesses and individuals that, you know, were not there and looting.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: So they're trying to get some copper pipe and things of that nature.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the fine men of the Holly Springs Police Department saw what they saw.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And with their cop brains and eyes, they saw something that looked suspicious, and of course, immediately contacted the Ashville Police Department who assisted and arrested three individuals, uh, which also happened to have uh a good amount of drugs on them, in addition to uh the copper piping and things they tried to steal.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just one example of the hard work that they're doing.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think the the biggest shock to me of what I've seen with my eyes was the I think it was probably Saturday when I was coming in and coming down uh 240 through West Asheville, people that know that stretch and the Amboy Road exit that heads down to the uh the park down there.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: The water was as high as the exit top, the top of the ramp.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost cresting and approaching 240.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you know that area and you've taken that road before, you've got to look down quite a ways to get to what is an RV park down below there.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's like a 20 to 30 foot drop to get down there.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: That gives you an idea how high the water is in a river that is traditionally less than two feet deep on average through that stretch.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Two feet.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it was almost 30 feet.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's hard to imagine that even happening.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: How's that possible?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's just I you know, I'm just so thankful.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: National Police Department provides services to community 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: So we had an entire team of patrol officers out that night and into the next morning when when the floodwaters crested.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just so thankful that all of them are safe and weren't swept up in that.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: There's some jurisdictions around us that weren't that lucky.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: We ended up losing an officer.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Was it Madison County?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Madison County.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe I believe Macon lost a detention officer as well.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: That uh lost his life uh trying to do a rescue from the floodwaters.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's been very rejuvenating, I guess, and very it gives one hope when you have seen the acts of kindness not just from law enforcement but individuals as well in the aftermath of that, too.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's obviously uh your job, uh, but I firmly believe that the officers, if they weren't officers, they would do it anyway.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's just in their nature.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so let's give me a brief look inside your day in the let's say Saturday.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the day after the storm, yourself and leadership, uh, how did you react?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, the city of Asheville, uh, we've been training just as an organization for, you know, a couple of years.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that includes, you know, membership of City Hall and things like that.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: Now, to back up a little bit, us in the fire department, we've been trained in the incident command system essentially since it was initiated after 9-11.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's gone through development and you know, lessons learned and things like that along the way.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: It gets tweaked.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: But we were, you know, the fire department probably more so than us, but we were pretty familiar with incident command and emergency management and and those kind of things.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: But the city took the steps, you know, in the last couple of years and realized like this isn't just a police and fire thing.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, there are other people at the table, like, for example, in this latest incident, the water department uh plays a huge component in the emergency management of this latest disaster.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but public works, the street department, sanitation, like everyone has a seat at the table.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And we've been training for that for the last couple of years, just as an or organization as a whole.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so pretty early on, because of that, in the design of the new fire station on Broadway Street, an incorporation in that was an emergency operations center for the city, which we're extremely fortunate to have because Saturday the EOC opened.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's been running 24-7 since then.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um we have a seat in there, but so does essentially every other city department to make decisions for what's best for the city and things like that.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: So don't know the exact time on Saturday that it started, but I know that it was activated on Saturday, and we we have had a presence there ever since.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah, but you want to throw some acronyms out.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know the APD was at the EOC, is the ICS was in effect in the JIC.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's so cops love their acronyms, but in this case, this is the federal government.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is the federal government, and this is their initial response after 9-11, realizing we needed a system where people talk to each other.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that is for people that are unfamiliar, the ICS, the incident command system.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so under that system, it's like one of those the flow charts of sorts.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: It tells you who goes where, and you instantly don't have to say, okay, we got to figure something out.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to plot people in.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think a lot of people in the outside have thought the response has been a little bit scrambled, but it's only because I think of the sheer amount of damage that it appears that way.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: There are people that instantly jumped into action and went right to work.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, those first couple of days, I mean, for the most part, I think police and fire especially, we were essentially in survival mode.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we were literally out there saving lives.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and, you know, at the same time trying to check on each other, make sure all of our employees were okay, uh, get them whatever information or materials or evacuation in some cases that they needed to ensure our employees were safe.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: Down to we need to feed people.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: We need to feed our people.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: We expect them to be here and serve their community.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: The least we can do is get them something to eat.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, even down to the logistics of that is something we hit the ground running with Friday night into Saturday morning is how are we gonna get people fed?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, because there's no power anywhere.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: There were a lot of, you know, most, if not all, grocery stores didn't have power.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them were just completely destroyed.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was very clear to us early on that this wasn't gonna be a one-to-day event and that everything was gonna go back to normal.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: So we in leadership roles had to look and say, you know, where do we want to be five, seven days from now?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we've got to get through these initial first few days because we knew eventually resources in the form of material support and as well as human support, police officers, whatnot, would be coming into the area, but we knew it was going to be a few days before that happened.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: So we did what we had to do to frankly survive those first few days.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, now it'd be a good time to just throw a couple of shout-outs out there out there because without knowing, uh, restaurants and other businesses and individuals in the community kind of knew that we would need some of that, like the things like the food.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: So while we're trying to gather things and just figure things out, I was here when trucks would pull up with here's a hundred meals for your officers.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and that happened on multiple occasions.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know places uh I I'm certainly going to miss a whole lot of them, but I know for a fact uh Ianucchi's was it Ayanucci?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, which which pizzeria was it?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Del Vecchio's Del Vecchio's.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Del Vecchio's pizza just dropped off a ton of pizza.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I know that Carabas brought by a whole bunch of meals.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And many, many, many.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't want to certainly those just those are the ones I witnessed.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: We have a staff member keeping track of that.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we're definitely going to recognize everyone officially at some point.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but yeah, the community rallied around us as we were trying to support them.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're we're going to talk a little bit more uh in the coming days.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh obviously there's uh there's a lot to talk about, but I want to thank you for at least getting this conversation started.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be having many more of these in the days to come.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of places that people can gather right now the basic information as the power comes back online and things of that nature.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: They don't need me to rattle off a long list of websites and places they can go to get potable, or is it potable water?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: I guess it depends on who you asked.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: I know uh I heard a uh I heard a medical doctor the other day say potable, but then I heard some other scientists say potable, so I'm still not entirely sure.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a there's a meme right now on the internet, speaking of pronunciations, that just all it is is an oh by the way, while you're here, it's not Appalachia.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's correct.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is Appalachian or Appalachia.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell But you know, but here's the funny part.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Growing up near the that particular range in New York, we pronounced it differently.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I think New York's different.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is it wrong the word you were looking for?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Is that the I was trying to be diplomatic.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: I attended Appalachian State University.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I know the proper pronunciation.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: But the people in West Virginia would call it the Appalachians.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm old enough to remember when App State and Marshall were big rivals.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't really care what people in West Virginia want to say.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Fair enough.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've we've figured some things out here today.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be talking more with Deputy Chief Sean Artemis here in the future.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the first of many of the Tropical Storm Helene Recovery Podcasts on the APD Pod Squad.