Stuck on the outside, we started sending one another images and videos, whatever scattered scraps of digital information we could find. We searched for familiar landmarks and place names, trying to guess what some crumb of nearby news meant about the places and people from which no news was coming. There was a woman in the next town who posted a video of waterfalls cascading over the broken slabs of what used to be her access road. On a Facebook page for Spruce Pine residents, suddenly the only activity was from people like us: people who weren’t actually there. Person after person begged for any news of friends and relatives, until finally the number of posts grew so overwhelming that it was clear the problem needed to be corralled into spreadsheets. Several versions appeared, with columns for residents’ names and addresses and one for the vulnerabilities that made those who couldn’t contact them especially frightened: the people who were elderly and living alone, who needed oxygen tanks or dialysis, the ones whose houses were in bad condition already and located very close to a creek.