Asheville and Western NC, TN, and SC damage from Helene [Staff Warning]

89,000 Views | 575 Replies | Last: 2 mo ago by Independence H-D
TRM
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Where is that forecasted track again? Up along the western Carolinas and eastern TN. What do hurricanes bring? Lots of rain. This was particularly obvious as it could pull moisture from the Gulf and Atlantic and the Great Lakes as you move further north. Accuweather predicted it.







https://www.accuweather.com/en/hurricane/helene-to-become-major-hurricane-in-gulf-of-mexico-strike-us/1694728
Quote:

The AccuWeather Local StormMax rainfall for Helene is 36 inches, but is likely to occur hundreds of miles inland of the Gulf coast and centered on the southern Appalachians, where catastrophic flooding can occur in some communities.


ETA: That Harvey rain prediction of 40"+wasn't the converged ensemble it was an outlier model.
Nanomachines son
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There was a cutoff low that hit the area right before Helene so those forecasts were only for Helene not the combo of both. That's the problem it was a double whammy. It was more than just Helene. They could have handle either one by themselves but not both that close together.

Also, there is a massive difference between flooding in Houston and flooding in the mountains. The former is slow moving and a lot of standing water, the latter is flash flooding and rapidly moving water that can wash out roads and gouge out creeks and more. The difference is staggering.
AlaskanAg99
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I had no idea the rain would be so intense. With FL taking the brunt of the storm I expected inland to be a wind event and downed trees and power lines. Not a major flooding event made worse by topology which increased the velocity of the water.

With it being g a Cat 1 inland I would have expected Beryl damage, not Harvey damage.

This is so incredibly sad.
Nanomachines son
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Also it seems like you're trying to blame the people there for not being prepared for an entirely unprecedented scenario that has never happened in recorded history. How do you prepare for flood waters moving fast enough to wipe out a house in seconds?
Nanomachines son
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Abbott needs to do the same.
Kenneth_2003
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AlaskanAg99 said:

I had no idea the rain would be so intense. With FL taking the brunt of the storm I expected inland to be a wind event and downed trees and power lines. Not a major flooding event made worse by topology which increased the velocity of the water.

With it being g a Cat 1 inland I would have expected Beryl damage, not Harvey damage.

This is so incredibly sad.

The problem was that once it got over the Carolinas/Tennessee it got stuck and pretty much spun on itself for a full day or so.

Also I saw one graphic, I think it was weather channel (yeah yeah) just calling for 3-5 inches of widespread rain. Total fail on that prediction.
Nanomachines son
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tysker
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We need Kanye to remind us that Biden and Harris dont care about black people
Nanomachines son
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jefe95
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Government needs to seriously stop tinkering with the weather.
BuddysBud
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Another thing is that along the Gulf Coast most have flood insurance. I cannot imagine many living in the Appalachian Mountains with flood insurance.

Without some sort of aid many of these people are SOL.
MooreTrucker
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Our family was at Lake Lure over the Labor Day weekend, and ate a couple of times in Chimney Rock. Such a cool little village.

My daughter forwarded this tweet to us on Friday. If you watch the video to the end, you'll see a parking lot with a couple of ticket gates. If the video continued on around, you'd see a little BBQ place where we ate our last night there. It was not the edge of the town like it looks in the video.

That sweet little village is basically gone. We are just heartbroken. I contacted our AirBnb folks to see how they made out, but obviously haven't gotten a response yet.


aggiehawg
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Were any of those places under evacuation orders?
AggieKatie2
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Sounds like we've got all employees accounted for in Asheville and Hendersonville offices.

Just waiting, anxiously, to hear back from one of my Aggie friends and her parents. Texted and FB messaged, but nothing back yet.
Raiderjay
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Where the F is the federal response, even a mention of this storm by Kamala or Joe?????
[b][raiderjay, you need to come up to the front of the bus where I can see you in this giant mirror above my steering wheel. -Staff][/b]
Sq 17
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Nanomachines son said:

Sq 17 said:

Nobody is ever prepared for 15 + inches of rain


This was way higher than 15". A few mountain top areas got 40+". It's why so many videos are of washouts and more. Mountain rain with flash flooding is far more vicious than flat plain flooding like during Harvey.
Yes I know totals were much higher I am just saying that very few people even if the predictions are accurate still struggle being prepared for that much rain
AlaskanAg99
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AggieKatie2 said:

Sounds like we've got all employees accounted for in Asheville and Hendersonville offices.

Just waiting, anxiously, to hear back from one of my Aggie friends and her parents. Texted and FB messaged, but nothing back yet.


I have an old boss who lives in Hendersonville now. He had to drive 50miles east to get a signal and let us know they were OK but no power or cell service for the foreseeable future.
Bayou City
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They had days of warnings. They we're in a flood zone and NWS extreme flood Advisory 48 hours before,
"I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which have actually happened."

Mark Twain
Bayou City
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They were all under extreme flood warnings.
"I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which have actually happened."

Mark Twain
Bayou City
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Not blaming them but NWS had predicted this scenario. The flood issue they had in place has only been used like 10 times in their history.
"I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which have actually happened."

Mark Twain
richardag
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Nanomachines son said:



This is going to take months to years to fix!
Holy crap, I drove through that area on I40 quite a lot when driving home from A&M to Petersburg , VA.
Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep.”
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787
flakrat
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deadhead aggie said:

reporting from Johnson City, TN….major interstate from the Tri-Cities TN area to Asheville is wiped-out….our access to the Carolinas took a serious blow…went to the grocery this morning and it's evident that deliveries of inventory are impacted…lots of people still missing….

i went through Ike, Harvey, Katrina, Alicia, etc. in Texas….this one caught everybody off-guard….gonna be a long recovery…

I'm in Bristol. This is a huge disaster! I-40 is going to be a mess for a long time.
aggiehawg
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Where would people evacuating in those mountain towns and cities actually go? And how far away? The storm was so huge covering a lot of territory.
jja79
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Raiderjay said:

Where the F is the federal response, even a mention of this storm by Kamala or Joe?????


Working on funding for Ukraine.
Nitro Power
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Any word on Knoxville?
Nanomachines son
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Sq 17 said:

Nanomachines son said:

Sq 17 said:

Nobody is ever prepared for 15 + inches of rain


This was way higher than 15". A few mountain top areas got 40+". It's why so many videos are of washouts and more. Mountain rain with flash flooding is far more vicious than flat plain flooding like during Harvey.
Yes I know totals were much higher I am just saying that very few people even if the predictions are accurate still struggle being prepared for that much rain


Models nailed Harvey though, they did actually predict 60" of rain and widespread 30+". They really struggled with this one with the rain totals. 25" is a lot different than 45".

They did hit the extreme rain from Helene but you all are acting like a flat flood is the same as a mountain one. They are nothing alike. You cannot traverse this kind of water in a boat. The roads are literally gone now. This is an order of magnitude worse.
TAMUallen
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Why isn't this a much bigger story?

Why don't we have feds shouting from the rooftops?
Nanomachines son
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TAMUallen said:

Why isn't this a much bigger story?

Why don't we have feds shouting from the rooftops?



I am convinced it's because large parts of these areas are gone, power is out, and all communication is gone. There is no way in or out except by air and all helicopters are being used for rescue efforts. Since media are too stupid to report on anything like this without being told what to do, they just ignore it.
Nanomachines son
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Nanomachines son
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Many of these areas may never recover.
Dan Scott
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one safe place
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Nanomachines son said:

Sq 17 said:

Nobody is ever prepared for 15 + inches of rain


This was way higher than 15". A few mountain top areas got 40+". It's why so many videos are of washouts and more. Mountain rain with flash flooding is far more vicious than flat plain flooding like during Harvey.
Yep, we got like 44 or 48 inches of rain in Harvey, in like 40 something hours. But did not flood. And in the mountainous areas, or even areas with high hills, it does not take 40 inches to be a catastrophe. We had some property leased between Uvalde and Rocksprings and got a 4 or 5 inch rain, over a short period of time, and the water running down washed a maintainer and a huge backhoe way, way downstream. But no damage to houses because people in that area don't tend to build where that can happen.
jhermon
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flakrat
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Nitro Power said:

Any word on Knoxville?
Knoxville didn't get much of the storm. I saw early predictions of the eye going over Knoxville before heading northwest into Kentucky where it was supposed to stall out and die.

Fortunately for them, unfortunate for us and western NC, it steered east and hung around.
mazzag
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AG
 
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