Splinterquest!

It doesn't take much talent to point a camera at a pile of sticks, which is probably why I'm so good at it. Then again, I've had a lot of practice. For two decades strong, all manners of calamity have passed through my glass. Minivans flipped by wind, homes broken open up by fallen forests, flimsy splinters driven into sod -- I sometimes think I've shot it all. I haven't. Nor have I swarmed around every type of storm victim, a lesson I learned today when I stumbled upon one Terry Lawrence. But more on him later. First, the news: I don't know if it made the papers up your way, but Mother Nature took an unexpected dump on North Carolina Monday night. I was lucky enough to sleep through much of it, but I arose this morning with the certain knowledge that I'd spend the day paying for that uninterrupted slumber. Was I ever right.

It seemed like hours before I hit pay-dirt. In fact, it had only been eighty minutes since I tore out of the door at the TV station, a cameraman on a mission. "Go find Randolph County damage," someone said as I peeled out of the parking lot and onto the interstate. Several miles and a few phone calls later, I was deep into said county and altogether lost. Oh, I knew where I was; I just didn't know where I was going. The overnight storm had raked across the region, leaving isolated pockets of toppled trees among otherwise unscathed neighborhoods. But without solid intel as to where the destruction was, I was forced to drive blind, scouring the passing countryside for any signs of downed branch, tangled power lines or drunken wildebeests. I guess two out of three ain't bad.

Eventually, I found just the kind of carnage we needed to keep the commercials from bumping into one another - but it wasn't due to my stunning hunting skills. No, it was social media. Folks like Terry Lawrence flooded the station with photos, tweets and clips of what nature hath wrought, providing with he street addressees needed to harass them accordingly. Which is why I was so impressed with Terry. Cordial to a fault, he took time away from staring at the tree in his kitchen to show a photog all the best angles. Had the fallen tree trunk not blocked access to his fridge, I do believe he'd have offered me refreshments. And I would have taken them too, for you don't turn down a man with a red oak in his breakfast nook and AC/DC for his ringtone...

'Hell's Bells', I think it was...