Hurricane Helene’s heavy rain causes flooding in western NC

CARY, N.C. (WNCN) — Hurricane Helene’s heavy rain flooded roads and forced businesses to close in western North Carolina.

Cary Fire Department’s Swiftwater Rescue Team is one of several local emergency teams deployed to Western NC to help out. Captain Craig McDowell, who is part of the Cary Fire Department’s eight member Swiftwater Team in Caldwell County, said their biggest concern is flash flooding.

“We’re prepared for just about anything,” McDowell said. “We’ve been prepping gear, making sure our boats are ready to go, our equipment’s all ready.”

The team arrived in Lenoir at 10 a.m. Thursday. McDowell said they did not have any calls Thursday. The crew expects to be there for at least a few days, depending on how the storm progresses.

In central North Carolina, wind will be the biggest concern Friday. Duke Energy’s Jeff Brooks said with all the rain seen recently, the ground is already saturated. Brooks said crews will be ready to respond to any overnight outages. With the more severe storms to the west, crews are staging in Charlotte and Upstate South Carolina.

“If we do get some strong gusts through here, we could see some downed trees,” Brooks said. “That can cause power outages from downed lines. We do have the ability to quickly move resources from anywhere in the state within just a few hours to the hardest hit zones and that’s what we’ll be doing as the storm comes through.”

Emergency officials are reminding people to treat any downed power lines as live and do not go near them.

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