Life in North Carolina’s mountains will never be the Same after Tropical Storm Helene

Heartbreak on the Hill: The French Broad River HTML and Swannanoa River HTML King Street in Boone was transformed into an rushing river Interstate 40 has a series of closures.

• After nine hours of tension, Rutherford County Emergency Management reported that engineers inspected and examined the dam.

Why it is important:We won’t know the extent of destruction for several days

• The jagged terrain and widespread cell phone outages, combined with road closures and wide-spread avenues, made it impossible to assess the scope.

Rescue effort Emergency crews In Buncombe County alone, emergency crews performed over 130 rapidwater rescues Friday. Local officials called it a “natural catastrophe in progress.”

• Adam Tamburin reports for Axios Nashville. Just across Tennessee’s state line, 54 trapped people were on the roof of a building for seven hours. They were rescued just after 5pm.

Status: On Friday, Asheville and its surrounding areas were declared to be in a state of emergency due to a flash flood.

• The NC Department of Transportation sent out an alarming message at 11:15am, saying that “All roads are closed in Western NC.” Avoid travel unless in an emergency or if you’re looking for higher ground.
• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned of landslides, and said that the storm in western North Carolina was the worst to ever hit the area.
• Knoxville’s WBIR confirmed that a portion of the eastbound lanes of 1-40 along the North Carolina/Tennessee border at the Pigeon River Gorge disappeared.
• By Friday afternoon, the rain had reached more than a foot in most areas. The Governor’s Office reported that Yancey County, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, received almost 30 inches.

Helene, a category four hurricane, made landfall in Big Bend on Thursday night. This is one of the most destructive and extensive hurricanes in Southeast due to its unusually big size and rapid intensity.

• According to the AP, as of Friday afternoon at least 40 people were dead in four states because of the storm.
• According to poweroutage.us more than 1 million customers were without electricity in western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina as of Saturday.
• Helene was unusually large, so her effects were felt in an unimaginably large triangle of South, from southern Florida up 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.

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