After Tropical storm Helene, life in the mountains of North Carolina will never be the same
Heartbreak on the Hills: The French Broad River and Swannanoa River HTML King Street, in Boone, an idyllic college town, was transformed into a rushing river Interstate 40 is a chain of closures.
- Nine hours later, Rutherford County Emergency Management announced that engineers had examined the dam and a data-var After nine tense hours, Rutherford County Emergency Management announced that engineers had examined and inspected the dam,
Why is it important:We will not know the extent of devastation for several days
- Widespread cell cellphone outages and avenue closures, mixed with the jagged terrain, made the scope not possible to evaluate.
Rescue efforts Emergency crews alone in Buncombe county responded more than 3,000 phone calls and performed more than 130 rapidwater rescues on Friday. Officials in the area called it an “active natural catastrophe.”
- Adam Tamburin of Axios Nashville reports. Just across the Tennessee state line, 54 people were trapped on the roof for seven hours before they were declared rescued shortly after 5pm.
Status of Play:An unprecedented set of life-threatening and extensive flash flood emergencies was declared for Asheville, NC and the surrounding area on Friday.
- At 11:15am , the NC Department of Transportation issued an alarming warning stating that “All roads in Western NC are closed.” Do not travel, unless you are in an emergency situation or looking for higher ground.
- North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned about landslides and said the storm was the worst ever in the history of parts of western North Carolina.
- WBIR, Knoxville confirmed that pieces of the eastbound lane of 1-40 disappeared along the North Carolina/Tennessee Border at the Pigeon River Gorge.
- As of Friday afternoon, more than a foot had been deposited in most of the area. According to the Governor’s Office, Yancey County in the Blue Ridge Mountains saw almost 30 inches of rainfall.
The Big Picture: Helene made landfall Thursday night in the Big Bend area of Florida as a category 4 hurricane. It is one of Southeast’s most destructive and expansive hurricanes, due to its unusually large size and rapid intensity.
- The AP reported that as of Friday afternoon, at least forty people had died across four states due to the storm.
- According to Poweroutage.us, more than one million customers in western North Carolina, Upstate South Carolina, and eastern Tennessee were without electricity as of Saturday morning.
- Helene’s size was unusual, so its effects were felt across an inconceivably large triangle of South from southern Florida to the coast of South Carolina, and east to eastern Arkansas.
The bottom line: “A historical rainfall event is underway for the southern Appalachians and area with considerable/domestically catastrophic flooding anticipated,” an NWS Greenville-Spartanburg forecast discussion stated.
For More Information Visit Our Homepage:
