Father of the Bride - All Systems Down
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How does Hurricane Helene threaten David’s plan to walk his daughter down the aisle?
When the system crashes, when the first responders can't respond, when you're left all alone, what do you do? For the next four weeks on Snap Judgment, we're sharing stories of people trying to think their way out of situations where no help is coming. A deep space probe, a teenage driver, a surf legend, the father of the bride, all of them. You're just going to have to figure it out because this July on Snap Judgment, it's all systems down. What happens when every single thing falls apart? hoping to snap judgments all systems down, well, you're about to meet David Jones. And David Jones has been counting the days until his daughter's wedding. All week, the rain had been coming down hard, but David had a plan.
Friday evening, he'd drive from his home in Boiling Springs, South Carolina, up to East Tennessee, two and a half hours. Easy peasy. The wedding's Saturday morning. David just needs to be at the church by 10 a.m. sharp, because when those doors open, David had one job, walk his daughter down the aisle. Snap judgment.
I'm not known for one who's always on time. It's a challenge for me. And I wanted to make sure I was on time for Elizabeth's wedding. A woman's wedding day is one of the most important days of her life. And it was really important to me to honor her by being on time. Would you say you had a reputation? My daughters know me well enough to tell me the time that I need to be there ahead of what the actual time is so that I will be there on time for the way things work. So the wedding was at 11. They told me to be there at 10 for photos.
Hi everybody, I'm live here in the Weather Center with another update on Hurricane Helene. Now a Category 4 hurricane getting closer to landfall in Florida.
The latest advisory has the winds at 130 mph sustained, gusts even higher than that, and it's moving north-northeast... I've lived in the southeast for more than 40 years, and I know from experience that whenever hurricanes get this far inland, that they've pretty much fizzled out by then. And I think that was kind of what most people were thinking is, yeah, we've had this before. No big deal.
And that's where we're verging on right now. So here it comes. You're next up for some of those intense winds.
The real concern in my mind wasn't just the storm, but my daughter's wedding. I had been looking forward to her wedding for years.
I had always envisioned walking my daughters down the aisle on their wedding days. I have three daughters. Elizabeth was the oldest. She's the first to get married. I don't know why. I've just had this vision in mind for many, many decades, in fact, that this is one of the great privileges of fatherhood. I know we've got this storm bearing down and it's like, okay.
And it kind of meanders around here through Friday afternoon, Friday evening. Some of you are asking kind of where does it go after that. It kind of rains itself back out over Tennessee.
After the storm, the cell phone coverage was spotty.
Hey Elizabeth, it's your dad.
The track of the storm after it left us was to go through western North Carolina and right up through east Tennessee, where the wedding was going to be. Occasionally, I would be able to get something. Most of the time, I couldn't. And I was able to text her, and she said as far as she knew, the wedding was on. The plan then was for me to head on up to our other house, which was in Johnson City.
You know, with all the weather and all that stuff, you never know. But love you, sweetie. If you got any questions, call her back. Thanks.
Bye.
I left around 5 or 6 in the evening. It's just two hours on a normal day from Boiling Springs to Johnson City, right up Interstate 26. When I started out to get to the interstate, the roads weren't very crowded. And I'm thinking, this is great. I'm going to be there by dark. Traffic was light. And then I came over this hill, and there I saw a long line of parked cars. Nothing but brake lights ahead of me. And I thought, oh, no. What is this about? What's happening here? We're talking hundreds and hundreds of cars, anxious, everybody anxious.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
How does Hurricane Helene threaten David’s plan to walk his daughter down the aisle?
0:02–5:55
2
Why does David decide to drive to Tennessee despite storm warnings?
5:55–24:27
3
What roadblocks and communication failures trap David on the interstate?
24:27–47:10
4
Why does David choose to abandon his car and attempt a nighttime hike?
47:10–51:41