#1 2024-09-28 10:19:32
Dozens dead as Helene unleashes life-threatening flooding. Dam break is imminent in Tennessee
By Dalia Faheid, CNN
Updated: 10:10 AM EDT, Sat September 28, 2024
Source: CNN
See Full Web Article
Helene continues to unleash its fury across the Southeast after leaving at least 49 people dead in multiple states, leveling communities, knocking out power and stranding many in floodwaters following the historic storm’s landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region Thursday night as a monstrous Category 4 hurricane. Here’s the latest:
• Dam break called imminent: A flash flood emergency issued for portions of Cocke, Greene, and Hamblen counties in eastern Tennessee has been extended until noon Eastern time. The emergency is for an imminent dam break on the Nolichucky River below the Nolichucky Dam and affects an area with more than 5,800 residents and two schools. The National Weather Service says “dam operators reported the imminent failure of Nolichucky Dam” in the flood emergency report. Several rivers in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee have risen rapidly. Even though the heaviest rainfall is over, an additional 1 to 2 inches should fall this weekend. River levels will take hours to days to recede back below critical levels. If the dam fails, flooding can result in “an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation,” the weather service said.
• Deaths across 5 states: Storm-related deaths have been reported in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. At least 19 are dead in South Carolina, including two firefighters in Saluda County, according to state officials. In Georgia, at least 15 people have died, two of them killed by a tornado in Alamo, according to a spokesperson for Gov. Brian Kemp. Florida officials reported eight deaths, including several people who drowned in Pinellas County. Six more deaths were reported in North Carolina and they include a car wreck on a storm-slick road that killed a 4-year-old girl. And in Craig County, Virginia, one person died in a storm-related tree fall and building collapse, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Friday.
• More rain predicted: Additional rainfall is expected this weekend across portions of the southern Appalachian region. Additional totals of up to 1 inch are expected for areas of western North Carolina, including Asheville, and eastern Tennessee, including Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Up to 2 inches is possible for portions of Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania through Monday. “Although rainfall amounts will be light, areas that received excessive rainfall from Helene may see isolated aggression of excessive runoff,” the National Weather Service office in Greenville-Spartanburg said Saturday morning.
• Hundreds of roads closed: More than 400 roads remain closed in western North Carolina, the state Department of Transportation said Saturday morning. “All roads in Western NC should be considered closed,” the post on X says. Since Thursday, Buncombe County has received over 5,500 911 calls and conducted more than 130 swift water rescues. Officials warned residents to stay away from the water because of downed power lines, sewage contamination and debris. An emergency shelter is currently serving 400 people at the WNC Agricultural Center near Asheville Regional Airport.
• Water conservation urged: Residents in the Greeneville, Tennessee, area are being urged to conserve as much water as possible after flooding due to heavy rainfall along the Nolichucky River washed out all of the Chuckey Utility District’s water lines crossing the river. Repairs to the water lines are expected to take place “as soon as conditions are safe for everyone,” the utility district said.
• Storm rescue missions underway: Nearly 4,000 National Guardsmen were conducting rescue efforts in 21 counties across Florida, the Defense Department said Friday. North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama have also activated guardsmen. The Biden administration has also mobilized more than 1,500 federal personnel to support communities affected by Helene, Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday.
• Severe flooding in North Carolina: Helene “is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of North Carolina,” Gov. Roy Cooper said. Western parts of the state were slammed by heavy rains and strong winds bordering on hurricane-strength levels, life-threatening flash flooding, numerous landslides and power outages. More than 100 people were rescued from high waters, the governor said. More than 2 feet of rain fell in the state’s mountainous region from Wednesday morning to Friday morning, with Busick recording a total of 29.58 inches in just 48 hours. In the hard-hit city of Asheville, a citywide curfew was in effect until 7:30 a.m. Saturday, officials said. About 20 miles southwest of Asheville, overwhelming, torrential rainfall was pushing the Lake Lure Dam into “imminent failure,” according to the National Weather Service.
• More than 3 million without power: The remnants of Helene continued to knock out power for several states across the eastern US on Saturday morning, with nearly 3.3 million customers left in the dark in South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio, according to PowerOutage.us.
• The threat isn’t over: Helene’s remnants will continue to bring rain and gusty winds over hundreds of miles of the East. Multiple states have recorded more than a foot of rain, with at least 14 different flash flood emergencies issued for approximately 1.1 million people in the Southern Appalachians of Western North Carolina and adjacent parts of Tennessee, South Carolina and Virginia. In addition to the rainfall, winds continued to gust 30 to 50 mph over the Ohio and Tennessee Valley regions Friday evening and more than 35 million people were under wind alerts heading into Saturday.
• Dozens rescued from hospital roof in Tennessee: More than 50 people stranded on the roof of Unicoi County Hospital in Erwin, Tennessee, were rescued after rapidly rising waters from Helene made evacuation impossible Friday morning, Ballad Health said.
• Helene disrupts travel and delivery services: Helene has caused numerous disruptions to travel and delivery services. Several Amtrak trains arriving or departing Florida and Georgia have been canceled, the company said. Delivery services were also impacted, with UPS announcing it has suspended service to Florida, North Carolina and Georgia because of the storm. FedEx likewise suspended or limited its service in five states. Water inundated countless roadways across the region, making them impassable. In North Carolina, 290 roads were closed throughout the state, and Gov. Roy Cooper said the state’s transportation department is shutting down even more roadways as severe flooding, landslides and washed-out roads pose serious threats to public safety.
• Helene is now a post-tropical cyclone: Helene – the strongest hurricane on record to slam into Florida’s Big Bend region – is now a post-tropical cyclone with winds of 35 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. That means Helene no longer has an organized center of circulation and is losing its hurricane-like features. But this change doesn’t alter much of Helene’s overall threat going forward, as Helene will continue to unleash heavy, flooding rainfall and gusty winds. Keith Turi of FEMA warned residents of the dangers remaining from Helene even after it passes. “There are a lot of dangers in those floodwaters, things you can see and sometimes things you can’t see that are going under the surface, and so really you need to stay out of those floodwaters,” Turi told CNN.
Trapped at home: ‘I really don’t know what to do’
Jennifer Replogle, a pregnant mother of two young children, is “completely trapped” at home in Tater Hill, North Carolina, elevation 4,200 feet, above Boone, where hurricanes are not the norm.
“We weren’t prepared for this,” she said via text early Saturday morning. “The roads are gone, like completely gone.”
Power has been out since early Friday, she said.
Replogle said she has no food and is running out of water.
The few narrow, windy roads from the mountain into Boone are impassable, she said.
“Our basement flooded yesterday. If they don’t get somebody to us soon, I really don’t know what to do,” Replogle said.
She is worried about the plumbing and water services business she and her husband own. They have seena a photo of it with the parking lot flooded and fear “we have lost most of everything.”
Their employees are also “trapped” at home or staying with friends, Replogle said.
Florida and Georgia communities devastated
Helene cut a massive path of destruction across Florida, Georgia and the Southeastern US, snapping trees and power lines, and mangling hundreds of homes. As millions were left without essentials like electricity and some with nowhere to return to after the ravaging storm, rescue crews set out to save people trapped in wreckage or underwater.
In Cedar Key, Florida, the devastation is so widespread that it’s not safe enough to allow residents or volunteers back into the small community off the Florida coast, city officials said Friday. The town doesn’t have any sewage water or power, “so there’s really not a whole lot to be able to sustain people being here,” Cedar Key Mayor Sue Colson said.
Scores of historical buildings and new homes have been decimated, while roads were blocked by downed wires and “extremely dangerous” debris, the mayor said. “It’s just a multifaceted mess,” Colson said.
Another small, tight-knit Florida community, Keaton Beach, is picking up the pieces of their lives left behind by the ravages of Helene.
“You look at Keaton Beach … almost every home was destroyed, or the vast majority, and some totally obliterated. It’s because they had such a massive surge that went in there,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday, adding that the storm surge might have been as high as 20 feet.
The town’s Beach Bums gas station was three days away from celebrating the five-year anniversary of its opening when it collapsed, said owner Jared Hunt, who spent the morning helping residents look for personal belongings, salvaging what’s left.
One Keaton Beach resident stood with his wife in front of the wreckage of what used to be their home, wondering where they might go next.
“Man, I just lost my house. I have nowhere else to go,” Eric Church told CNN. “My house is laying here in a pile. It was sitting right there. There are just pillars left in the ground. I got a wife and two dogs with me. What am I supposed to do?”
Church’s wife, Erin Peelar, said the couple had just purchased the home and expected some water from the hurricane, not for the house “to disappear.”
“The house has been here for 75 years and that’s the whole reason we bought it six months ago, having faith it would be here for another 75,” Peelar said.
DeSantis said he believes Hurricane Helene inflicted more damage than Hurricane Idalia in 2023, which at the time was the strongest hurricane to make landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region in more than 125 years.
Over in Georgia, multiple people were trapped after at least 115 structures in the southern city of Valdosta in Lowndes County were heavily damaged by Helene, Gov. Brian Kemp said Friday.
“The damage to our community is substantial and appears much worse than Hurricane Idalia,” the Lowndes County Emergency Management said on its Facebook page.
‘Complete pandemonium’ amid North Carolina floodwaters
Residents of Asheville, North Carolina, described “complete pandemonium” in their city after Helene brought several feet of floodwater and pushed large debris into streets overnight.
Samuel Hayes said he woke up with several calls from his employees telling him about fallen trees on their roofs, water pouring into their homes and mudslides.
“Complete pandemonium around the city,” Hayes told CNN’s Isabel Rosales. “It’s going to take us a long time to clean this up.”
Hayes and another Asheville native, Maxwell Kline, described the River Arts District neighborhood as being inundated with oil-contaminated floodwaters.
“A lot of businesses are completely wrecked … I’ve never seen anything like that since I’ve lived here. It’s absolutely a tragedy,” Kline said.
Gas pumps were down and they lost power, internet and cell phone service for hours, they said. “Can’t get anything right now – no food you can buy, no gas, nothing,” Kline said.
About 25 miles outside of Asheville, a lifelong resident of Hendersonville said she was traumatized by the onslaught of Helene. “I never knew anything like this could happen here,” Avery Dull, 20, told CNN.
Dull and her neighbors were “extremely unprepared” for the deluge, and she saw at least one person busting out of their window, she said. But her apartment is still intact because it’s on the second floor, Dull said.
“Luckily we were on high ground, but those people lost everything,” Dull said. “Half of my neighborhood is underwater and dozens of families are trapped inside of their homes. Cars have been completely submerged and totaled, and power is out across the county.”
Elsewhere in North Carolina, shattered glass, rocks and mud covered one couple’s car after a landslide triggered by Helene came crashing down onto Interstate 40 as they were driving through Black Mountain.
Kelly Keffer said her husband saw something coming from the corner of his eye and then they started to hear pounding on top of the car, so he stepped on the gas. Then, the whole side of the mountain started sliding, Alan Keffer said. Alan thought they would be able to speed past it, but it slid faster than he thought.
Within less than a minute, “the rocks, the dirt, everything hit us. It was scary,” he said. The back window was completely shattered, Kelly said.
In Erwin, Tennessee – just over 40 miles north of Asheville, North Carolina – flooding submerged houses, buildings and roadways.
Erwin resident Nathan Farnor said he evacuated the area on Friday afternoon, when his home was slightly above water level, then he fled to an area a few miles away that is at higher ground.
“The power remains out, and it appears that most businesses, homes, and campgrounds near the river have suffered a total loss,” Farnor said, “Sadly, the situation does not appear to be improving.”
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#2 2024-09-28 23:03:19
Yikes, that's a lot of individual's homes affected.
Reminds me that sometimes floods really sweep away the ways of living. Amongst those that pull together to rebuild something good, it can be so overwhelming. The sheer hardship and drudgery is a drag as slippery as swift floodwaters themselves.
The Grateful Dead wrote a song about the '49 Vanport Flood. The lyricist Hunter starts with an observation on enacting civic change for a better way of living. Pointing out positive social change is not going to be coming by dreaming. It's going to take getting down and bailing out with your neighbors.
Wake of the flood, laughing water, forty nine
Get out the pans, don't just stand there dreaming, get out the way
Get out the way
Here comes sunshine...
Dead songs are more than not allusions to the ups and downs of existence, but they sometimes slipped in the outcome of specific events.
Before the flood, Vanport was the 2nd largest city in Oregon. Built within Portland for a WWII shipyard. An apartment housing project of both black and white lower class workers that remained after the Kaiser shipyard closed. It was a Sunday and the city agencies weren't watching the levees they knew could fail and said the would monitor to warn the Vanport residents. Students from the intergrated Vanport college discovered the breach and raised the alarm. All structures were lost that housed 18500 people and families, 6500 of which were black. Luckily only 15 died in Vanport. Across the city of Portland, 650 blocks were flooded, but Vanport was razed and never rebuilt.
In the immediate aftermath, an amalgam of people began pulling together. At least initially to help both the thousands of blacks and whites who lost their homes. That unusual human outreach and the actual efforts at relief caught Robert Hunter's eye. In particular because Vanport was in the midst of an existing controversy over its future and post war civil rights changes that seemed to be coming due 20 years later in the late 1960s.
The flood response was led by working class community leaders, students at the post WWII integrated Vanport college, other labor activists and relief organizations like the Red Cross. This even included white middle class people in the upland inner suburbs next door providing temporary housing, food, clothes and emergency relief. Uncommonly even to black families. /https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer/a4/a3/a4a36f12-fa58-4dfe-a02f-2fbdf777dda4/vanport009.jpg)
Vanport's continued existence already was a hot button racial issue. Becoming decrepit, not built to last, lacking investment and the demographic shifting as white people moved out. When whites could afford it, find better, they left. Yet the blacks stayed, they weren't allowed to live many places elsewhere. They were prevented from owning property in all but a few neighborhoods, mostly the Albina. But now after the war there more black workers staying in what had been a predominantly white city. Going from a few percent to 3x more. Vanport was segregated by default, and its makeup in 1949 was 13000 white / 6500 black / 900 Japanese-Americans.
After the flood there just was not easy housing for so many families. And even less for thousands of black people displaced. From there the existing redlining of black neighborhoods was thoroughly institutionalized for the next 40 years.
Despite offering residents an integrated education and community centers, life in Vanport wasn't easy: Separated from Portland, miles to the nearest bus line, it was sometimes difficult to obtain daily necessities. By the winter of 1943-44, residents were moving out by as many as 100 a day—but not black residents, who, doomed by Portland's discriminatory housing policies, had nowhere else to go. When the war ended in 1945, the population of Vanport drastically contracted—from a peak of 40,000 to some 18,500—as white workers left the city. Approximately one-third of the residents of Vanport at the time of the flood were black, forced to remain in the deteriorating city due to high levels of post-WWII unemployment and continued redlining of Portland neighborhoods.
"A lot of people think of Vanport as a black city, but it wasn't. It was just a place where blacks could live, so it had a large population," Washington explains. But in a place as white as Portland, a city that was one-third black was a terrifying prospect for the white majority. "It scared the crud out of Portland," Washington says.
**********
In total, 15 people perished in the Vanport flood, a number kept low by the fact that the flood occurred on a particularly nice Sunday afternoon, when many families had already left their homes to enjoy the weather. Temporarily, the line of racial discrimination in Portland was bridged when white families offered to take in black families displaced by the storm—but before long, the racial lines that existed before the flood hardened yet again. The total number of displaced black residents was roughly equal to the entire population of Albina, making it impossible for displaced black families to crowd into the only areas they were allowed to buy homes. Many—like Washington's family—ended up back in temporary defense housing.
It would take some families years to find permanent housing in Portland—and for those who remained, the only option was the already overcrowded Albina district. According to Karen Gibson, associate professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University, "The flood that washed away Vanport did not solve the housing problem—it swept in the final phase of 'ghetto building' in the central city."
*********
The mere utterance of Vanport was known to send shivers down the spines of "well-bred" Portlanders. Not because of any ghost story, or any calamitous disaster—that would come later—but because of raw, unabashed racism. Built in 110 days in 1942, Vanport was always meant to be a temporary housing project, a superficial solution to Portland’s wartime housing shortage. At its height, Vanport housed 40,000 residents, making it the second largest city in Oregon, a home to the workers in Portland's shipyards and their families.
But as America returned to peacetime and the shipyards shuttered, tens of thousands remained in the slipshod houses and apartments in Vanport, and by design, through discriminatory housing policy, many who stayed were African-American. In a city that before the war claimed fewer than 2,000 black residents, white Portland eyed Vanport suspiciously. In a few short years, Vanport went from being thought of as a wartime example of American innovation to a crime-laden slum.
A 1947 Oregon Journal investigation discussed the purported eyesore that Vanport had become, noting that except for the 20,000-some residents who still lived there, "To many Oregonians, Vanport has been undesirable because it is supposed to have a large colored population," the article read.
Last edited by Johnny_Rotten (2024-09-29 00:00:27)
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#3 2024-09-29 16:42:14
And that history keeps reverberating in P-Town.
For such a "Liberal" city it is incredibly racist.
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#4 2024-09-29 19:56:22
DmtDusty wrote:
And that history keeps reverberating in P-Town.
For such a "Liberal" city it is incredibly racist.
I'm not even sure what "Portlandia" is anymore. I know to not assume that aging hipsters are liberals.
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#5 2024-09-29 21:32:17
Fred what's his fucking name opened up the gate for every wannabe stupid ass hipster with that stupid tv show. Totally fucked the town.
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#6 2024-09-29 21:56:03
It was already trending that way, Fred was just the high watermark. He was on Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" five years ago and it took 15 minutes to get a cup of coffee at one of the hipster joints.
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#7 2024-09-30 14:36:11
Baywolfe wrote:
It was already trending that way, Fred was just the high watermark. He was on Jerry Seinfeld's "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" five years ago and it took 15 minutes to get a cup of coffee at one of the hipster joints.
Seriously, if I see another man bun/hair-stylely thing along with a beard I am gonna puke.
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#8 2024-10-01 10:59:48
6 states, 500 miles, 1 storm: A timeline of Hurricane Helene’s destruction
By Rachel Ramirez, Sharif Paget, Aaron Fisher and Curt Merrill, CNN
Updated: 10:42 AM EDT, Tue October 1, 2024
Source: CNN
See Full Web Article
Hurricane Helene laid waste to the southeastern United States. Its sheer wind force and deadly floods left behind a path of destruction stretching over 500 miles from Florida to the Southern Appalachians.
In just 48 hours, vast swaths of the region became unrecognizable. The storm has caused at least 130 deaths, and officials fear the toll could rise as many people remain unaccounted for.
Communities were cut off and stranded as floodwaters washed away hundreds of roads, buildings, homes and vehicles. Communication infrastructure is in shreds. Millions of people have also lost power and access to water across at least six states.
Helene’s path of devastation started on Florida’s Gulf Coast, as it traveled to the Big Bend. At 11:10 p.m. on September 26, it made landfall near the city of Perry as a powerful Category 4 hurricane and brought record-breaking storm surge late into the night.
The region saw up to 15 feet of surge, according to preliminary reports from the National Weather Service.
In Tampa Bay, waters rose to at least 6 feet, submerging many vehicles and residences.
In Pinellas County, Florida, just west of Tampa, rescuers from the South Pasadena Fire Department and the county sheriff’s office waded through the rising waters by boat, searching for trapped residents. In one video, rescuers can be seen floating by a flooded, burning house.
Further north in Cedar Key, the storm’s devastation was so widespread, city officials warned residents and volunteers on Friday against returning to the small coastal community. Many historic buildings and new homes have been severely damaged from hurricane-force winds and flooding, while roads were blocked by downed wires and dangerous debris.
Flooding in Big Bend’s Steinhatchee community is not uncommon, but as Helene made landfall, locals say it spawned the worst flooding they’ve ever seen. One resident, Jules Carl, told CNN’s John Berman Friday morning she’s never had to worry too much about flooding in her home, but Helene came uncomfortably close.
“I’ve got a boat sitting in the road in front of me right now and fish in our yard,” she said. “(The water) was coming up our patio steps. It got very, very close to coming in.”
Some homes in Steinhatchee even floated away with the storm surge. Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby, who was riding out the hurricane in a house nearby, told CNN some homes “crashed into each other” as they were swept away.
The storm quickly churned its way inland. Daylight unveiled the full scale of destruction: homes flattened; roads inundated; cars flipped; trees toppled; and power lines felled.
Helene moved into Georgia as a Category 2 hurricane early Friday morning, after two days of heavy rain – not directly related to Helene – drenched large parts of the state. This made the ground unable to absorb additional moisture, leaving it more susceptible to Helene’s flooding.
Atlanta saw the highest 48-hour rainfall totals on record, which quickly triggered life-threatening flooding. As Helene lingered in the region, Augusta saw some of the heaviest rainfall in the state, totaling 12 to 15 inches — about four months’ worth of rain in just two days. Extremely strong winds from the massive storm also lashed much of the state.
Rescue crews saved a woman on top of a half-sunken car in the city of Mableton, northwest of Atlanta, just after sunrise on Friday. In Atlanta, authorities also rescued a family, including a woman carrying her baby, taking refuge on top of their car from the fast-flowing floodwaters; one of multiple such rescue missions across the region.
Hundreds of roads remain closed and inaccessible from fallen trees and scattered debris from torn buildings.
The storm pushed its way across the Blue Ridge Mountains, continuing to ravage everything in its path.
Helene weakened into a tropical storm as it moved toward the Carolinas, but its wrath didn’t lessen. It heaped heavy rain onto mountain communities. Hundreds of road closures hampered efforts to rescue residents and prevented the delivery of urgently needed supplies.
In South Carolina, Helene brought vicious winds and dumped “staggering” amounts of rain: up to 12 to 14 inches. Two firefighters died Friday night in Saluda County, about 43 miles west of Columbia, after a tree fell on their firetruck. Days later, the death toll rose to dozens, largely from fallen trees and power lines.
The western North Carolina city of Asheville was especially hard-hit. Many residents took refuge on roofs, though some collapsed into the floodwaters. Houses floated away, while roads and bridges crumbled.
Helene turned the beloved city into a mess of sludge, floating debris and toppled vehicles. Officials described it as “biblical devastation.”
Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder summed up the situation at a news conference Monday morning: “Don’t come.”
“We know you want to help, but please do not come here,” she said. “We do not have water, and we do not have power across the county, most of the county. The roads are still incredibly dangerous, and we simply cannot accommodate people.”
Floods from Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on the western North Carolina village of Chimney Rock and the region surrounding Lake Lure. Charlotte City Council member Tariq Bokhari, who filmed the destruction, likened the storm to a “blender that was just taking out anything in its path.” He noted it will take years to rebuild the area.
Farther inland, Helene’s landscape-altering impacts reached Tennessee. Heavy rainfall washed away a part of Interstate 40, a major highway connecting North Carolina and Tennessee.
In the town of Afton, Tennessee, Helene washed out the Kinser Bridge on Highway 107, which is normally about 60 feet above the Nolichucky River. The bridge is also about 12 miles northeast of the Nolichucky Dam, which authorities warned on Saturday was also at risk of collapse.
In nearby Erwin, more than 50 patients and staffers at the Unicoi County Hospital didn’t have enough time to evacuate to safety. As floodwater rose, they scrambled to seek refuge on the roof, where fierce winds made rescue challenging. Fortunately, crews brought them all to safety by Friday afternoon.
Parts of Virginia also suffered Helene’s blow, leaving two dead from storm-related tree fall and building collapse, and hundreds of thousands without power.
Helene became a tropical depression midday Friday. By Saturday, the storm had dissolved into remnants. Yet the true scale of its devastation remains to be seen.
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