CONCORD, N.C. -- The next scheduled NASCAR race weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway is still a week and a half away, but on Wednesday afternoon, the 64-year-old racetrack was operating at full throttle. Helicopters and jets streaked overhead. The squealing of air brakes produced by massive tractor-trailers filled the parking lots. Engines rumbled to life as convoys of digger line and bucket trucks rolled out, having waited in the lots adjacent to the speedway for their assignments, and suddenly headed to all points west into the Appalachian Mountains.
That's where so many towns, valleys and hollers remain filled with helpless people.