005 - What does "Open" mean?

Good morning, Asheville. This is Asheville Daily Podcast. I'm your host, Tony Bertaccio. Today is Friday, October 25th. Looks like we have, you know, the fifth piece of a final day of a perfect fall week. Weather looks like it'll get up into the high 80s with 0% chance of rain and sun that sets just before 7pm today. The, the structure of the podcast is a little open, open to interpretation, open to your consideration. And so the, the word of the day is open. In preparing for this week of content, one of the, one of the thoughts I had and one of the things that people had mentioned in the past is like, well, how do we, you know, know what's open? How do we, what, what are places that we can go to? And what I've found in doing some level of research on this is that like, it sort of seems that more places than not are open, are open in some way or another. Places that are closed are, you know, very closed. And places that are open are trying to figure it out, play within the rules and manage to continue to pay their people, managing to continue to, to do the things that they do. And so there's somewhere in that that I think there's a, there's a thread to pull on. And I, it kind of reminds me of, you know, the earliest days, days post storm where it was like, hey, roads are closed. All of western North Carolina roads are closed. And then, you know, some roads were in fact open. You could get in and out of Asheville on 26, but, you know, the roads, as a matter of fact were closed. One of the things I've been trying to get smarter on is water, water quality, water testing, the water Systems. And so Asheville.gov has a pretty great massive page on water testing and water quality and what, you know, the ways that people are talking about water, it's just hard to know. It's like, hey, is the water bad or is the water bad? Open versus open, close versus closed, bad versus bad. Like, what degree of stuff's going on here? And so, you know, the research shows that right now they're testing water samples 35 times a day versus a typical 8 or 10 times a day. They're testing for contaminants, coliform, E. Coli, chlorine, and some heavy metals. Right? And so what I'm seeing is that primarily the water, the water is sediment rich and generally doing close to close to close to okay for testing on, you know, the quote unquote, important contaminants. Now, if you have any kind of medical need that makes high levels of iron or manganese particularly bad for you then, you know, or heavy metals bad. That's worth knowing and knowing what you're getting into. But I'm a little surprised when I did some of this homework on what's going on with the water to see that it's, you know, doesn't. It looks like. It's like, you know, the roads are closed, but you can. You can get out. So, like, the water isn't necessarily as bad. Sediment is high still. And so there are a bunch of flags around the process of bringing your water back online in your house. It's like, have your ice machine off, you know, keep your water boiler off. But then when you talk to people, it's like, I don't know if. I don't know if the pe people I've talked to, like, did that or have done that or, you know, what happens if you turned your hot water heater on and then can you. At what point is the damage too much? Is what point is. Is it even. Are we just being concerned about a thing? And so, yeah, reading about water, I'm like, very. I'm way more hopeful than I was before diving in and trying to get a better sense of what's going on with water. 99% of water services are restored in Asheville. Generally, you know, Town, Mountain, Web, Cove remain out due to some severe infrastructure damage. But, you know, businesses in and around Asheville right now, you know, have water. And so the businesses that have water and restaurants have water. We're getting asked, like, from folks who aren't in Asheville. It's, you know, should we come at a. At a high level? What we hear is like, hey, don't come to Asheville. Like, things are bad. And then we hear other people say, like, hey, no, like, we are open for business. Please come spend your money with us. And so I think that there's been this. What I've noticed is that there is with most things, it's like two, you know, say one thing, mean two. And it. People, you know, varies person by person and varies situation by situation. But I want to, like, open it up to you. Like, what do you think is the truth in this. In this situation? About, like, is Asheville, you know, in quotes? Is Asheville open? We have leaf season upon us. The Biltmore is opening back up in a week or so. Like, November 2nd, I believe. The forests are slowly coming back online. For a city, a town, a big town that is so tourism driven. At what point do we say hey, you know what? Like there are some, there are some places that are truly hurting, but by having some portion of the city quote unquote back online, we can help those places more than if they weren't online. And that's like what I've been struggling with this week. And that's what I'd love to hear from you on I know about right now. As this goes live, there's a listening session going on with the chamber of Commerce and elevate Asheville. I look forward to hearing what they hear from business owners. I look forward to hearing more from you. The question I've been asked the most this week from folks who are not in Asheville who quote unquote are fans of Asheville or who love Asheville or who are quote unquote devastated about what they've heard about Asheville. Oh my gosh, those are some of my favorite places to go. What I hear from them is they're unsure of what support looks like. What I've said is if there's a business that you like, they almost certainly have a GoFundMe open, send money in. If there's a business that you like, they almost certainly have the ability to honor some sort of a gift card, spend money with them. Right now I think that that is a true statement. I think that those are, you know, that's good actionable advice to folks who aren't local. The question is, should I also say yeah and come like come spend some money like go to allow for spontaneity and serendipity while you're here to have you spend even more money than you know the than you would to the GoFundMe campaign for the one restaurant that you particularly like. I think seems to me that there might be more good possible if someone comes here, spends a night anywhere in downtown and then, you know, buys coffee, has lunch, goes to a five dollar movie in downtown. Like I just, I could see this going both ways. I'm really interested in knowing what level of open you think Asheville is. Let me know at hello at making it in Asheville.com DM me on Instagram. I'm making it in Asheville. This was the first week of the daily pod. I hope you enjoyed it. Improvements to come next week in look, feel, sound structure, all of the things we will consistently get better at this I'm confident and I look forward to hearing from you. So thank you one more time. Makingitinasheville.com Daily for the show notes from this episode. Making it in Asheville.com for general purposes and hello at Making it in Asheville. Until next week. Be good and take care of people.