Gatlinburg Tennessee

I mentioned my personal sadness about the fires in and near Gatlinburg back in November.  This is such a great area, full of great people, and I felt this region's pain as property, businesses, and lives were destroyed.

We did talk to a local who told us some of the gossip about the fires, the young kids who are accused of starting it, etc.  I was interested to hear from someone from the area about what the local community thought.....

AND the area went through heck with this fire... there is no silver lining in the loss of 14 lives and infinite other losses....  but I saw a lot that brought me joy as I explored the area, four months after the tragedy.

The strip in Gatlinburg still exists.. and it looks great.  If you didn't know that a fire had been through here, you wouldn't know now.  Businesses were busy, and people were enjoying themselves.  The only fire damage I noticed was fire damage that I looked for.

I talked to someone with "inside information" on the main day of the fires who told me that the whole area was "gone".  Luckily, I had been watching some live local news online, and I knew that this wasn't true.  Still, there were rumors going around very quickly that specific businesses were gone, and THANK GOODNESS... those rumors were false.