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Helene flooding is 'catastrophic natural disaster' in Western NC: Live updates
By Michael Loria and Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY,
9 hours ago
Dozens killed. Hospital-goers scrambling to rooftops to be whisked away in helicopters. Mayors frantically telling citizens to flee. And inmates desperately removed from a jail directly in the path of floodwaters.
Helene has brought a cascade of destruction across the Southeast . The record-breaking storm hit Florida as a hurricane with wind speeds of 140 mph that flattened buildings. It has since weakened to a post-tropical cyclone with 25 mph winds, as floodwaters besieged parts of North Carolina and Tennessee and utilities reported 3.8 million power outages Saturday morning.
Hundreds of road closures isolated Western North Carolina amid what Buncombe County has billed as a “catastrophic natural disaster,” in a morning news release from the county. There was no cellular coverage as of Saturday morning in the county of over 250,000 people. In Asheville, one video posted by ABC 11 showed a house floated away and collapsed into raging floodwaters.
Across the border in Tennessee, some 100,000 residents were urged to seek higher ground Saturday morning as the Nolichucky Dam in Greene County was on the brink of failure, a warning reiterated by the National Weather Service on Saturday morning. Hours later, NWS ended its "flash flood emergency." In a Saturday afternoon update , the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said the dam remained intact and there were no reports of dam failures. A flood warning is still in effect to cover effects of high water.
Meanwhile, eye-popping rainfall totals were measured in the North Carolina mountains, including 29.6 inches at Busick and 24.2 inches at Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River and a landmark along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Friends talk after having canoed the flooded South Fork New River for 32 minutes and landing at a washed out road on September 27, 2024 in Boone, North Carolina. Melissa Sue Gerrits, Getty Images
Helene made landfall at about 11:10 p.m. ET Thursday near Perry, Florida, becoming the first known Category 4 storm to hit Florida’s Big Bend region since records began in 1851. The storm continued its push across western Kentucky on Saturday , and is expected to slowly move southeast, then east along the Kentucky-Tennessee border through the weekend, the National Hurricane Center said .
“It’s destroyed,” Jordon Bowen of the Florida State Guard Special Missions Unit told The Palm Beach Post , part of the USA TODAY Network, about the area where Helene made landfall. “Not accessible, debris, lots of hazards, downed power lines, houses cut in half."
Dozens of deaths have been attributed to Helene’s onslaught, according to authorities and media reports across the Southeast. A tally of the deaths approached 50 on Saturday morning, as officials have said they expect the death toll to keep rising as they go door-to-door in the aftermath of the storm.
UNC Asheville cancels classes as downtown hotels fill up
Classes at the University of North Carolina at Asheville are canceled until Oct. 9, the university's student alert system announced on Saturday.
UNC Asheville spokesperson Michael Strysick told the Citizen Times that approximately a quarter of students living on campus left before the storm, leaving around 1,200 still on campus. He said school staff went door-to-door after the storm performing checks on students.
Strysick said UNC Asheville is coordinating with other UNC system schools and is looking into bringing mobile Wi-Fi to campus.
"We're doing the best we can under difficult circumstances," Strysick said.
In downtown Asheville, nearly all downtown hotels are booked, and any with remaining availability have no running water and aren’t accepting more guests.
Jeff Elstro, the general manager of the Flat Iron Hotel, said the hotel has no water, no internet and is not taking guests. Yesterday, locals who went to the hotel searching for accommodations were unable to be helped. Most people at the hotel today are trying to leave, he said.
Jordan Hicks, a valet at the Restoration, said all 60 of the hotel’s rooms were full.
Other hotels downtown, like the Haywood Park Hotel, have no vacancies or running water. The Downtown Inn and Suites was closed because it did not have water.
The Cambria Hotel Downtown Asheville, which posted on Facebook that it has a displacement rate for locals affected by Tropical Storm Helene, does not have rooms available.
Officials in Asheville, North Carolina, have billed Helene as a “catastrophic natural disaster,” as Saturday dawned with all rivers still at “major flood status," per an 8 a.m. news release from Buncombe County.
There was no cellular coverage as of Saturday morning in the county of over 250,000 people. Town officials in Buncombe County's Black Mountain reported that most internet, cell phone and landline access is down, and the local water system is non-operational, according to a social media post Saturday.
All roads in the western part of the state "should be considered closed," the North Carolina Department of Transportation said Saturday. Across the state, over 400 roads were closed.
Flood waters from the French Broad River cover the River Arts District in Asheville, North Carolina on Saturday, September 28, 2024. Jacob Biba/Citizen Times
Neighboring Haywood County announced a curfew between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., and urged residents to stay off roads and conserve fuel.
Since Sept. 26, Buncombe County has received over 5,000 calls to 911. The county urged people not to call to report downed trees, power lines or outages.
More than 130 water rescue missions have been conducted.
“I cannot stress enough how important it is to stay away from the water,” said Buncombe County Fire Marshal Kevin Tipton. “There are down power lines in the water, sewage in the water, and an incredible amount of debris. It is not safe.”
The 911 center will not provide updates on road conditions, power restoration or internet service, it said. I-40 and I-26 are impassable in multiple locations.
Most airlines at Asheville’s regional airport announced plans to cancel flights Saturday, officials announced on social media . The airport is open and flights can take off and land, but there are “operational difficulties” due to outages and staff are unable to get to work, officials said.
Helene's catastrophic winds and flooding caused somewhere between $95 and $110 billion in damage and economic loss, making one of the costliest storms in history, according to an early estimate by AccuWeather.
The estimate includes damage to homes, businesses, roads, vehicles and the effects of power outages, along with lost wages, flight delays, damage to the supply chain and more, AccuWeather said in a release.
Other catastrophic storms include Hurricane Ian in 2022, which caused about $180 to $210 billion in damage; Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in 2017 with a combined total of about $270 billion; Hurricane Sandy in 2012 with $210 billion; and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 with damages of about $320 billion. AccuWeather's estimates have been adjusted for inflation.
A confluence of weather patterns over the eastern U.S. set up the historic flooding that forced people from their homes in the dead of night Friday along the Nolichucky River in Tennessee, as officials warned of dam failures and raging torrents ravaged communities.
In several forecast discussions earlier in the week, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologists described a band of moisture ahead of Helene. This is called a predecessor events and they’ve been documented in the past to cause heavy rains ahead of the arrival of tropical storms and hurricanes.
Along the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina on Wednesday and Thursday, almost 10 inches of rain fell in Asheville and 8 inches in Tryon, according to preliminary weather service data. Another six inches fell over the two days in Bristol-Johnson, Tennessee and more than four inches in Knoxville.
Then Helene’s massive circulation moved into the mix with more rain, and then transitioned into a post tropical cyclone. Recent studies have shown some hurricanes are soaking up more moisture from the warming Gulf of Mexico , further enhancing rainfall totals.
By Friday evening, record-breaking rainfall totals were reported in some Southeast locations, with more than a foot of rain across swaths of Georgia and South Carolina. Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia saw widespread amounts ranging from 4 to 7 inches.
Rain flowing into rivers in the mountainous areas quickly turned into cataclysmic flooding, setting an all-time records high on the Pigeon River at Newport, Tennessee. In Asheville, record high levels were set on the French Broad River and the Swannanoa River near the Biltmore estate.
Deaths from dangerous weather conditions unleashed by Helene have been reported across the storm's path, and authorities expect the death toll to continue to rise. A tally of the reported deaths approached 50 on Saturday morning.
In Florida, at least 11 deaths have been attributed to the storm, Gov. Ron DeSantis said in an update on Saturday morning. In Pinellas County, which encompasses Clearwater and St. Petersburg, five people suffered storm-related deaths, said Cathie Perkins, director of emergency management, at a news conference Friday. DeSantis said Friday a person died in Dixie County, along the Big Bend coast, after a tree fell on a home. On Thursday night, a person was killed in a storm-related traffic fatality in Ybor City in Tampa, the governor said.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's office said at least 15 people were killed during the storm, including a first responder. "One of our finest lost his life trying to save others," Kemp said at a news conference.
The first responder was Vernon “Leon” Davis, assistant chief of the Blackshear Fire Department, Pierce County Coroner William Wilson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution . Davis died when a tree fell on his city truck shortly before 1:30 a.m. Friday. Also killed in Georgia were a 27-year-old woman and her 1-month-old twin boys, who were in bed together when a tree crashed through their mobile home, McDuffie County Coroner Paul Johnson told the outlet.
At least 19 people had died during the storm across South Carolina, the Charleston-based Post and Courier newspaper reported, citing local officials. Of those, two people were killed by trees that had fallen on their homes, the Anderson County Sheriff's Office and coroner's office told local media outlets. Two firefighters in Saluda County were also killed, Gov. Henry McMaster said at a news conference. Two people died in Newberry County, Sheriff James Lee Foster said in an email. Four others died in Aiken County, Coroner Darryl Ables told USA TODAY by phone.
In North Carolina, a 4-year-old was killed and others were injured in a wreck on Thursday that occurred as Helene's outer bands were slamming the state. In Charlotte, North Carolina, a person died and another was hospitalized after a tree fell on a home just after 5 a.m. Friday, according to the Charlotte Fire Department.
Virginia also recorded its first storm death from a falling tree and building collapse in Craig County, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced in a video on his Facebook page Friday.
Helene hit Florida’s Big Bend first, crashing in with sustained wind speeds of 140 mph. The small area along the state’s Gulf Coast near Tallahassee has seen many bracing storms over the years but none with the force of Helene.
Peters, the owner of Crabbie Dad's bar, is among those whose property the storm flattened at Steinhatchee, a small town just dozens of miles from where Helene made landfall.
The town took on a record-breaking 9.63 feet of storm surge, leaving what was dry land submerged in 40 to 50 inches of water, according to Bowen of the state guard.
John Kujawski, another local, told USA TODAY the storm reopened wounds from Hurricane Idalia, which whacked the town in August 2023. Roofs that had been repaired were destroyed all over again, docks tossed ashore, and boats overturned and jammed into marina pilings.
The storm wrecked dozens of homes at Horseshoe Beach, another coastal town south of Steinhatchee. Some of the homes were shoved off their concrete footings, while others had their roofs flayed off by the wind.
Helene ripped away the staircases to Bill and Debbie Dotson’s home so the couple are staying in a tent on the ground beneath it. The house, like many in the area, is built atop concrete footings in case of flood waters.
The Dotsons said they thought Helene caused more damage to the area than Idalia, which destroyed about 40 houses. The 2023 storm also destroyed one of their staircases and damaged another, a $15,000 repair job a local contractor had only recently finished.
Helene is the couple’s fourth hurricane since moving to the area in 2021
“We had the discussion about hurricanes but you never imagine something like this. You just don’t,” said Debbie Dotson, 63. “We sure are grateful that it’s standing.”
Helene’s winds died down as the storm bore into Tennessee and North Carolina, but it dumped enough water to nearly swallow a hospital, send rivers soaring to record highs and prompt local officials to urge citizens to flee for high ground ahead of potential dam failures.
Officials from Florida to as far north as Virginia urged people to make for higher ground.
"The hospital has been engulfed by extremely dangerous and rapidly moving water," the Ballad Health wrote in a cry for help on X earlier in the day and hours before conditions calmed down enough for rescue vehicles move into the area.
The Pigeon River running through Newport blew past record levels to reach a height of 27 feet. The nearby French Broad River is also expected to almost reach record levels by Saturday morning.
Surging water levels in downtown Newport prompted officials to evacuate the jail, which sits at the bank of the Pigeon. Approximately 60 inmates were taken from the Cocke County Jail to the Jefferson County Jail, a representative for Jefferson County said.
Contributing: Trevor Hughes, Christopher Cann and Dinah Voyles Pulver, Eduardo Cuevas, USA TODAY; Reuters; Knoxville News Sentinel; Asheville Citizen Times
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