Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Helene came ashore as a strong Category 4 hurricane, which means winds of more than 100 mph, near Perry, FL at around 11pm on Thursday, September 26th, 2024. What followed was a harrowing, life-threatening, and sometimes sadly fatal event that impacted almost all of the Southeast US. I was fortunate and escaped without any damage to my house, but I’ve been sick to my stomach all weekend looking at the damage reports coming in from all over the region.

Flooding from Hurricane Helene

Inland, flooding was the worst threat that Helene brought to the Southeast. Helene dumped rain on an area that had already had 24 – 48 hours of rain before the storm came. This exacerbated the issues because the ground was already saturated. And it really made things horrible in a lot of places.

1-40 washed out from flooding caused by Hurricane Helene — 1-40 Washed out

North Carolina / Tennesee Impacts

Unfortunately, Western North Carolina got the worst of the flooding. Western North Carolina is devastated, entire communities flooded, roads washed away and now needing to shovel tons of dirt and debris before cleanup can even begin.

Western North Carolina road closures from flooding caused by the leftovers of Hurricane Helene.

Road Closures in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene — A small portion of the road closures list, available on DriveNC.gov

Hurricane Helene Impacts Athens

Athens got lucky. For a while, it looked like the storm was tracking West, which meant we would get the hardest edge of the storm, the Eastern part. But it tracked East and Athens was largely spared from the strongest gusts of wind. But places like Agusta, GA, and Greenville, SC got that part of the storm. And North of those places? Well, I am so, so sorry for the hell those people have gone through since Thursday.

The image below shows the line the storm took, and everywhere to the East has much worse damage and power outages than to the West. Athens-Clarke County is circled on the map to show just how lucky we in Athens got. Just a little track West and we would have been much worse off. Like I said, we got lucky.

Hurricane Helene Power Outages map — Power Outages map

Southeast Impacts

1.5 million+ people have no power across the Southeast. Maybe for a while, too. Some people in Agusta, GA won’t have power restored until Saturday. Places in North Carolina won’t have power or water for longer. People on well water don’t have water without power. City water systems are inundated and will take a lot of time to repair and get back online. So many trees are down, and so many houses and other properties are damaged. It’s hard to understand the full scope of the destruction.

Hurricane Helene and Loss of Life

The death toll is at 125 people dead from the effects of Hurricane Helene. This includes people in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and more. At least 40 people have died in Asheville, NC, and its surrounding area. That area is also almost completely inaccessible by car. My heart goes out to everyone affected by Helene, it’s been such a horrible thing to watch play out.

Advanced Warning of Hurricane Helene

Some people have been saying that there was not enough warning from officials. But that’s not true. I saw it all! There was a ton of warning, even posts that very clearly said how bad it could be. So those saying that there wasn’t enough warning that this event could be so bad probably saw the warnings but didn’t have any way to fathom just how bad it was going to be. It’s easy to tune out weather forecasts after so many of the time there’s a lot of hype before an event and it turns out to be not so bad. A boy who cried wolf type situation. When weather events are sensationalized over and over it’s so easy for people to brush them off. Unfortunately, they shouldn’t have brushed these warnings off this time.

Warnings about Hurricane Helen were given prior to the event that foretold the severity of the flooding and destruction. Unfortunately, many did not heed these warnings.

Sometimes I post about local issues like Hurricane Helene. I mostly post MM Romance Reviews, about the games I play and my hobbies like crocheting and knitting. But an unprecedented event like Hurricane Helene merits a post about it.