Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina in late September of 2024. The storm exceeded historical flood events and caused billions of dollars in damage across the entire western side of the state. The storm began over the Gulf of Mexico and reached Category 4 status before it made landfall over Florida’s Gulf coast on September 26th. Though the storm had devastating effects on Florida and parts of Georgia, the storm moved relatively quickly at a speed of 20 miles per hour. By the next day the storm began to hit the southern Appalachian mountain region and didn’t dissipate until two days later (National Weather Service).
Over those two days, parts of North Carolina saw over 20 inches of rainfall, which caused extreme flooding along the many rivers that feed through the Blue Ridge mountains between Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. These rivers and streams flooded extremely quickly and saw unprecedented flooding that no one could have predicted. Lansing, North Carolina, less than 10 miles from the Virginia Border, a town with a population of 128 people, but more in tourist season, is a place that my family and I would visit often in the summer. The town experienced flooding as shown below. The stream that sits on the west side of the Main Street flooded and caused extreme damage in the storefronts along Main Street with water levels reaching above six feet high in the local post office (Norman, 2024). Even though the town sits in a 100-year floodplain, this kind of event is extremely rare and unlikely to be exceeded like was seen in Hurricane Helene. The town is still rebuilding from hurricane damages with the local general store holding a limited reopening in December, but many other stores are still recovering and trying to obtain funding to rebuild and reopen.
Images from: “Lansing NC Facebook Page” and “Rebuild Lansing GoFundMe”
Beyond the more remote areas of Western North Carolina, the City of Asheville was without clean drinking water for almost two months and UNC Asheville, with a campus of almost 3,000 students was closed for over a month before welcoming students back to housing, but remained in virtual learning for the rest of the semester. This hurricane completely obliterated parts of Western North Carolina and caused extreme damage that communities, large and small, will be recovering from for years.
Sources:
https://www.weather.gov/mrx/Hurricane_Helene
https://www.facebook.com/Lansing.NC/
https://www.gofundme.com/f/rebuild-lansing-nc-after-hurricane-helene