Hurricane Helene devastates Southeast states with 116+ fatalities, causing widespread destruction & flooding. Death toll highest in NC, GA, SC. Reconstruction efforts face major challenges & expected to cost billions in property damage.
Photo courtesy of NCDOT
U.S. 70 near Silver Creek
The death toll from Hurricane Helene and its remnants reached at least 116 people in six Southeast states as of noon on Sept. 30, the Associated Press (AP) reported, following the tropical storm's rampage north from the Gulf of Mexico.
North Carolina was hardest hit, both in terms of the lives lost and damage incurred.
The hurricane's catastrophic winds and floods left 44 dead in the state, while South Carolina counted 29 fatalities. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said during a news conference Sept. 30 that the death toll in his state had risen from 17 to 25. Elsewhere, Florida recorded 12 people had lost their lives, while four were killed in Tennessee, and two in Virginia.
Officials from Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia and Tennessee warned that rebuilding from the widespread loss of homes and property would be lengthy, difficult and expensive.
In addition, countless roadways have buckled or collapsed in the affected states, and although no dams were breached, floodwaters poured over several in the region.
Helene roared ashore late Sept. 26 in Florida's Big Bend region as a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph winds. It quickly weakened into a Category 1 storm as it moved through Georgia, then soaked the Carolinas and Tennessee with torrential rains that flooded creeks and rivers, and strained dams.
As it did so, Helene tracked slightly more to the East than anticipated and brought tropical-storm-force winds and heavy rainfall across Georgia and the Carolinas.
North Carolina
Western North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains, known for its high peaks and deep valleys, took the brunt of the hurricane.
Gov. Roy Cooper predicted that the toll would rise in the Tarheel State as rescuers and other emergency workers reach areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding.
He described it as "one of the worst storms in modern history." While supplies have been deployed, at least 280 roads are still closed throughout the state, making it hard for officials to get them into areas in need, Cooper said in speaking with CNN.
Buncombe County, N.C., which includes the scenic mountain city of Asheville, reported more than 30 people killed there.
Photo courtesy of NCDOT
Interstate 40, North Carolina's primary east-west route, runs straight through the area and connects the state with Tennessee along a particularly rugged stretch along the scenic Pigeon River, normally a prime recreational waterway for whitewater enthusiasts. But the storm dumped upwards of 2 ft. of rain along the corridor, turning the Pigeon into a raging caldron that broke off a section of the freeway.
To the east, in the McDowell County town of Old Fort, a landslide blocked another section of I-40. North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) officials noted that crews are already at work to clear that slide, but the highway's collapse near the state line will likely take much longer to repair.
The state was sending food, water and other items toward Buncombe County, but the mudslides blocking the interstate and other highways prevented them being delivered. That prompted a crisis to unfold over the weekend to rush those much-needed goods to areas without power and cellular service as soon as possible.
Supplies were being airlifted to Asheville, which has a population of about 95,000 residents, noted Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder, who pledged food and water to the city by sometime Sept. 30, a full three days after Helene's rampage.
"We hear you. We need food and we need water," he said during a Sept. 29 call with reporters. "My staff has been making every request possible to the state for support and we've been working with every single organization that has reached out. What I promise you is that we are very close."
Asheville's water system was severely damaged due to the storm, and the county's own water supplies were on the other side of the flooded Swannanoa River, away from where most of the 270,000 people in Buncombe County live, officials told the AP.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said Sept. 30 that hundreds of roads were closed across western North Carolina and that shelters in the area were housing more than 1,000 people.
Cooper implored residents in the western part of the state to avoid travel, both for their own safety and to keep roads clear for emergency vehicles. More than 50 search teams spread throughout the region in search of stranded people.
Videos showed a mass of debris, including overturned pontoon boats and splintered wooden docks covering the surface of Lake Lure, a picturesque spot tucked between the mountains outside Asheville.
The storm ended up unleashing the worst flooding in a century in the Tarheel State. One mountain community, Spruce Pine, was doused with over 2 ft. through Sept. 28.
Further north along the state's Blue Ridge, the communities of Linville, Newland, Boone and Blowing Rock all experienced tremendous rainfall amounts that caused roads, highways and bridges to buckle and more landslides and downed trees to block traffic.
Photo courtesy of NCDOT
In speaking to CBS News on Sept. 29, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said that the "historic flooding" in North Carolina has gone beyond what anyone could have planned for in the area.
"I don't know that anybody could be fully prepared for the amount of flooding and landslides that they are experiencing right now," Criswell said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."
She added that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is working to see what can be done to get water systems back online and bring in satellite communication in the state.
"We're hearing [about] significant infrastructure damage to water systems, communication, roads, critical transportation routes, as well as several homes that have been just destroyed by this," Criswell explained. "So, this is going to be a really complicated recovery in each of [the] states that have had these impacts."
President Joe Biden described the impact of the storm as "stunning" and said he would visit the Southeast as long as it does not disrupt rescues or recovery work. In a brief exchange with reporters on Sept. 29, he said the administration is giving states "everything we have" to help with their response to the storm.
He also approved a disaster declaration for North Carolina, making federal funding available for affected individuals.
Tennessee
The damage in the rugged, eastern portions of Tennessee is "vast," according to that state's Department of Transportation (TDOT). As of Sept. 29, the agency noted that the hurricane forced the closure of 27 state roadway sections and 14 bridges, while another five bridges were destroyed.
In response, the TDOT Region 3 Strike Force and bridge inspection crews were dispatched to East Tennessee on Sept. 28 to help with recovery and make repairs following the historic flooding.
Five bridge inspectors, 16 Strike Force members and Region 3 Director of Operations Nathan Vatter deployed to Cocke and Sevier counties to assist Region 1 personnel with slope failures, debris removal, drainage restoration, sinkholes and bridge inspections.
TDOT's Strike Force is a specialized group that can deploy quickly with necessary equipment. It is made up of engineers, equipment operators and transportation experts with the mandate of providing immediate relief and beginning the recovery process in flood-affected communities.
As a result of flooding from Helene, the Nolichucky Dam near Greeneville, Tenn., came close to failing, but ultimately withstood nearly twice the water flow of the iconic Niagara Falls, TDOT said Sept. 29.
On the night of Sept. 27, after a day of heavy rainfall in the Great Smoky Mountains, the Nolichucky River was rising at 2 ft. per hour.
Around 1.3 million gal. of water were pouring over the dam each second at 11 p.m., Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) officials told the Knoxville News Sentinel. In contrast, the peak daily water flow of New York's Niagara Falls is around 700,000 gal. per second.
"That gives you a sense of how large of a rainfall event that we're looking at dealing with here," Will Reid, TDOT's deputy commissioner and chief engineer, said during a virtual news conference.
TVA, the dam's owner and operator, issued a "Condition Red Alert" on Sept. 27 warning that a failure of the Nolichucky Dam was imminent. The 94-ft. structure, completed in 1913, was invisible under a muddy torrent of water.
However, the utility posted a video of the dam the next morning showing the water receding by 1 ft. each hour.
Despite the highest water levels the dam had ever experienced, it stood firm and was "stable and secure" by the evening of Sept. 28, TVA told the Knoxville news source. The river's water level was 9.5 ft. higher, and the water flow was more than double the previous record set during a regional flood in 1977.
Reid said that Helene was more than a "500-year event" for TDOT's infrastructure.
The storm led first responders to make hundreds of water rescues, including in East Tennessee's rural Unicoi County, where dozens of patients and staff were plucked by helicopter from a hospital rooftop on Sept. 27.
Georgia
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Sept. 28 that it looked "like a bomb went off" in his state after viewing splintered homes and debris-covered highways from the air.
In eastern Georgia near the border with South Carolina, officials notified Augusta residents on the morning of Sept. 29 that water service would be shut off for 24 to 48 hours because trash and debris blocked the ability to pump water.
More than 370,000 people still had no power across the state, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported at mid-afternoon on Sept. 30, after Helene entered South Georgia as a Category 2 hurricane during the early hours of Sept. 27.
Homes were destroyed, and neighborhoods were flooded across the Peach State as the hurricane made its way north. Operations at dozens of U.S. Postal Service facilities throughout Georgia also have been disrupted, and many were still without cellphone service as the storm also knocked out cell towers.
While Atlanta escaped the brunt of the damage, flooding issues have persisted after the city experienced the most rainfall it has seen over a 48-hour period since the 19th century.
Several roads remain closed due to the damage, according to the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), including portions of Ga. Highway 283, Ga. 296, Ga. 86, and U.S. 341/Ga. 27.
South Carolina
Helene was the deadliest tropical cyclone to hit the Palmetto State since Hurricane Hugo made landfall north of Charleston in 1989, killing 35 people.
More than 850,000 electric customers remained without power in South Carolina as of 11 a.m. Sept. 30, with more than half of those being Duke Energy customers in the Upstate region.
Meanwhile, multiple rivers — the Enoree, Saluda, Broad, Catawba, Wateree and Congaree — in the Upstate and Midlands of South Carolina reached major flood stage Sept. 29 and 30, according to the National Weather Service. The Saluda and Reedy rivers in Greenville and the Broad River near the North Carolina state line also hit record highs over the weekend.
As that water flows downstream, the Congaree River in Columbia is forecasted to crest near levels seen during historic flooding in 2015 when a deluge of rain from Hurricane Joaquin prompted voluntary evacuations in low-lying areas.
The South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) reported that there were more than 300 full or partial road closures due to downed trees and power lines statewide as of late morning on Sept. 30, as well as 17 roads washed out by the storm.
Most of the state's 29 fatalities were the result of falling trees, according to the South Carolina Daily Gazette.
More than 2 million Southeastern homeowners and other utility customers were still without power the night of Sept. 29. South Carolina had the most outages, leading Gov. Henry McMaster to ask residents for patience as crews dealt with widespread snapped power poles.
"We want people to remain calm. Help is on the way, [but] it is just going to take time," he told reporters outside the airport in Aiken County on Sept. 29.
Florida
Approximately 1.3 million people lost power across the Sunshine State, from the Tampa Bay area to Fort Lauderdale and Key West, on Sept. 26 when the storm was at its full strength over the Gulf of Mexico.
As the hurricane moved north along Florida's west coast, it caused a 9.5-ft. storm surge at the small, isolated community of Steinhatchie in the state's Big Bend region. Severe damage to homes and roadways continued through the Florida Panhandle before the storm exited the state.
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) announced Sept. 30 that it had shifted efforts towards debris pickup on local and state roads, involving 334 agency and contractor personnel, as well as 372 pieces of heavy equipment.
In addition, FDOT noted:
- It had completed bridge inspections on all accessible state-owned and locally-owned bridges. A total of 129 inspectors reviewed and cleared 1,400 bridges across the impacted areas.
- A 16-mi. stretch of Fla. Highway 789 in Sarasota and Manatee counties experienced extreme damage, leaving the roadway inaccessible. Within 24 hours after the storm's landfall, FDOT began an emergency repair contract to temporarily fix the roadway.
- Its crews had restored access to the southern portion of Ga. 789 in Longboat Key, just a day after initiating the work. The road opened Sunday afternoon to residents following the removal of sand and debris.
- Emergency road repairs are ongoing in Bradenton Beach, and Longboat Pass Bridge is still closed.
- All three causeways in the Greater Tampa Bay region experienced storm damage that caused FDOT to close them to traffic. Ultimately, each one was repaired and cleared within 24 hours of Helene's landfall.
- Crews are working to clear approximately 60,000 dump trucks worth of sand and debris from the roadway on Gulf Boulevard in Pinellas County and Fla. 789 in Manatee and Sarasota counties.
Damage Costs Will Be Expensive Across Southeast
The tropical storm caused lesser amounts of wind and rain damage in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio before weakening considerably as it tracked across Indiana and Illinois by Sept. 30.
Moody's Analytics said that it expects $15 billion to $26 billion in property damage as a result of Hurricane Helene.
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