Hurricane Helene / Invest 97L

The northwest quadrant hit right into the mountains there too. That section of hurricanes is always the strongest. It gets forced into a land rise which forces the clouds into the land to release more water than otherwise would release. This isn't Florida where it's flat and water can drain out I'm all directions. It goes down the mountains in to the creeks and into the rivers.
Some places got 30 inches and add in all the places upstream that also got 30 inches.

There are hundreds of places where the valley is only wide enough for the river, road, and maybe a small occasional house.
 
Nope, there's plenty of guys who know how to ride one handed or no handed who could make better use of a horse than me. 'sides, I use my bike, much better for patrolling in the streets.
I know of gothic rockstar cowboy who’s a bit of a badass and let me tell ya, he rides bike:
 
I will update with a list of the best organizations to donate to, once they come down the wire, if it’ll be helpful to folks.
It will definitely be appreciated. I have friends in Charlotte trying to get resources together for their place of worship up in Hickory and the folks up there are trying to help others as best they can. Any links and all that are great. I'm not in that area so I have no idea where to send people.
 
I know there are flood plain maps and shit, but are there any simulators that take topography into account where you can select a place and say "dump X inches of rain over X hours" and it simulates what would happen to a particular property?

In other words, something that would show these effects before hand? I'm reconsidering whether my floodmaps are enough.
 
I know there are flood plain maps and shit, but are there any simulators that take topography into account where you can select a place and say "dump X inches of rain over X hours" and it simulates what would happen to a particular property?

In other words, something that would show these effects before hand? I'm reconsidering whether my floodmaps are enough.
FEMA has something similar where it overlays water levels from historical floods, including the 1926 floods. I don't remember what it's called, but I did see it somewhere.
However, it would be very hard to simulate flooding like that when you have to account for many factors, such as a possible PRE (Predecessor Rain Events), soil saturation (how much water the soil can absorb), dam failures, landslides, and other things, which are all factors that played a major part in Helene's flooding.
 
At the risk of doxing myself, I can give my input from a smaller town south of Asheville. First off, it was basically pouring down rain starting on the 24th, though it was still sprinkling a bit beforehand. At some point on Friday, cell service and internet went down for the entire town, though luckily most of the town still had power (and those that didn't ended up getting it back within a day or two). There were a few hot spots within the city where people could get cell service, but only certain carriers. A lot of businesses here stayed open and just went cash only, since we were lucky enough to still have power. The water supply was unaffected, thankfully. There was little to no flooding here from what I've heard, though the highway up to Asheville was flooded so travel up there was anywhere from impossible to dangerous to fine depending on who you asked and when.

I took a trip east to Charlotte yesterday because I had business there, but also took it as an opportunity to pick up supplies that may be a bit more annoying to get in town. Honestly the roads out weren't that bad. A lot of downed trees that were pushed to the side of the road, some precariously hanging over the street, but there was really only one spot that had a very minor detour around some downed trees. At least in the area south of Asheville, Hendersonville seems to have been hit the worst. Save for buildings with back up generators like the hospital, the whole town is without power, not even street lights are working. It was pretty eerie driving through there in the middle of the night and not seeing any signs of life at all. I did see some military on their way in while I was on my out though, so they're likely getting some aid.

I was honestly expecting it to be days or even weeks before we got cell or internet back in town, but I was surprised to find that it was restored while I was out yesterday. I hope Asheville is able to recover soon, I like to take day trips up there on the weekends sometimes, but it seems like it'll be a while before I can do that again.

ETA: I also forgot to mention that a number of the road closures that I was seeing in the early days were just completely wrong. I saw a map that marked the highway running through my town as being entirely closed but that was incorrect, there wasn't even a tree in the road. It could have just been an assumption based on the lack of ability to communicate with the area, but take road closures with a grain of salt. They could be wrong entirely, or they could be cleared up already with water draining and trees getting cleaned up.
 
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I also forgot to mention that a number of the road closures that I was seeing in the early days were just completely wrong.
You know, I have been seeing a handful of YouTube videos being pushed out in the last few days by people who live in the area and, despite having to maneuver their vehicles around downed trees, power lines, and occasionally risk fording a flooded roadway or two, people do seem to be able to get around mostly fine despite concerns.
 
Operation Airdrop

Samaritan’s Purse

AEROBridge

NC United Way

Please donate to these fine organizations. I will have a better local list if NC forum users would like, but these are tried and true for anyone in the world to donate to.

I’m MAYBE coming to Charlotte Saturday if any Kiwi frens need a talk or emotional support. Always DM me. Much love. ♥️
 
You know, I have been seeing a handful of YouTube videos being pushed out in the last few days by people who live in the area and, despite having to maneuver their vehicles around downed trees, power lines, and occasionally risk fording a flooded roadway or two, people do seem to be able to get around mostly fine despite concerns.
Reminder that survivorship bias is a thing. The places not hit as severely are more likely to be the ones getting word out.
 
North West North Carolina is fucked. It is beyond grim, and difficult to put into words. The things other users have pointed out, such as water contamination and accessibility issues, along with the general flooding and mudslides, will have a cumulative effect. Unfortunately, many are being overly optimistic about most of the towns and villages being opened any time soon. If at all.

I’ve been out and about since Friday. I thank the Lord that my home and family are safe, and that we have power and internet. But the shit you see out in the world? Fuck that. Gimme a power level, but i’m an alcoholic. This past weekend, i had some beer. The amount of shit i have seen and heard about is probably going to be with me for awhile. Forget about towns getting washed away and decimated, which is already fucked to begin with. I’m talking about corpses in trees and corpses casually floating down rivers. I’m talking about half clothes kids wandering around alone, because their parents are missing. So yeah, it is way worse than you can imagine.

As others have said, Semaritan’s Purse is probably the best place for any donation. I pray for all of you kiwis and your families that were in this storms’ path.

Sorry for blogging frens.

P.S. @Burd Turglar you’re a retard.
 
The statement by the company is astounding
“At no time were employees told that they would be fired if they left the facility. For employees who were non-English speaking, bilingual employees were among the group of managers who delivered the message,” the company stated.

Rainfall had been intense Friday morning, but it eased as the morning progressed, the company's release stated. Employees were dismissed, however, when water covered the parking lot and the adjacent road, and the plant lost power.

I'm sure it was more of an implied veiled threat from management and not a memo. Based the the employees family members, if we looked up the I-9s would they have been legal? (It is still a tragedy regardless of their legal status and the owners should be held criminally liable for manslaughter)

Edit, here's the video of the truck being sept away I got from another article

And drone footage (if the time stamp doesn't work, the plastics place is about 1:30 in and is the yellow tubing debris)
 
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The statement by the company is astounding
Never ever stay at a job if you don't feel safe. It's not worth risking dying because big boss says you need to keep wageslaving. Being alive and broke is better than dead.

I was finally able to ride down my usual road to the main road and the water has eroded away the land and turned the creek into a river. There is a constant stream of water running over grass at one point, I assume thats a new path because it hasn't dried up yet. It looks borderline unrecognizable now. So much trash and debris too. Someone had a bridge crossing the little creek to get to their house, the bridge is gone and its not a little creek anymore.
I haven't heard anything about an area where peoples houses are on the other side of a river, many of these people use bridges to get to and from their house. Hopefully they managed to avoid destruction.
 
Never ever stay at a job if you don't feel safe. It's not worth risking dying because big boss says you need to keep wageslaving. Being alive and broke is better than dead.
The Mayfield Consumer Products factory had the same thing happen and a bunch of people died there during the tornado. Same for the Edwardsville Amazon warehouse on the same day. This happens time and time again.
 
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