‘We Can Help:’ Service Offerings To North Carolina

“As the smell of death continues to permeate through the mountains of western North Carolina…”
This is the second time Andy has wrote something to this affects. Are you saying you literally smelled and continue to smell corpses? Because that’s what you’re suggesting.

“Helene caused at least 500 fatalities in western North Carolina alone”
Here, Andy cites only his own report with no source. How’d you get 500, Andy? If you are going to claim the true death toll is 5X what the state is reporting, you should be specific.

“…members of the Western Carolina Emergency Network (WCEN) purport that “at least” 143 bodies were recovered in Buncombe County alone.”
The “WECN” was literally created after Helene hit. If you don’t believe me, look at when their social media and website pages were established. Their website was also registered in California, suggesting they may not even be local to Western Carolina. It is apparently not a well established organization. From their posts, it looks like they probably are helping in recovery efforts. But if they support this claim, why aren’t they making it on their pages? They haven’t even posted any of Fits’ articles. Likewise, Fits and Andy never actually tagged them in their social media posts. They only used a # instead of @. It doesn’t seem like they publicly stand by the claim.

That this involves Buncombe County is also interesting. Just this week, their sheriff had to retract an originally reported death toll, as it was inflated (although it still wasn’t near 143). Andy is effectively saying they are lying. Also of note: in a previous article, Andy claimed additional deaths in Swannanoa, where this week the fire department put out a statement to combat misinformation of inflated death tolls. Again, Andy is implying they are lying.

““Anyone who’s been in this area knows how inaccurately Helene is being reported,” concurred Marry Beth Poole”
After Andy quoted this person in a previous article, I looked her up. First of all, her name is “Mary”, not “Marry”. Andy has misspelled her name in both articles. Bad job, Andy.

Anyway, you can easily find her on Facebook by searching her full name. Like the “WCEN”, Marry does not appear to be local to Western NC. She traveled there from Virginia after Helene. I don’t doubt from her posts that she’s helping, but I also don’t believe she’s a reliable source for reporting death tolls. In one post I read, she claimed that the state’s reported death toll does not include unidentified people, and that deaths are not reported until they are identified. This is simply incorrect. From the last numbers I saw, the state’s 96 reported deaths includes 13 unidentified bodies. So, Mary either doesn’t know what she’s talking about here, or is lying.

It is absolutely true that western NC needs help and I applaud those who are helping with recovery efforts, especially volunteers. But Fits, Andy, and Will are disgusting for continuing to spread these garbage lies. They only stand to detract from recovery efforts, as officials have to spend their time investigating and addressing BS claims. This may be a new low for this “news” organization.