Hurricane Helene / Invest 97L

[Nuthatches]

There are valleys in the mountains, obviously. The water runs off the mountains and falls into the valleys. When you have up to four feet of rain, that adds up fast. Many communities are in these valleys and they obviously got fucked over by it. As people already mentioned, there was rain before Helene herself (which is meteorologically defined as a Predecessor Rainfall Event, or PRE) and that saturated the soil, meaning it couldn't absorb much, if any, water/rainfall anymore, which led to even more water trickling down into the valleys and not getting absorbed. This also helped cause landslides.
The Appalachians also has many rivers and lakes, which are also present on higher elevations outside of creeks. Many of them massively overflowed, causing record-breaking flooding across a very large area. Because of the PRE, this was already a problem, and dams in the area needed to slowly let out water to prevent flash flooding, which is a relatively normal practice. Because even more intense rainfall occurred, this exacerbated the effects of flooding in the valleys, and overwhelmed dams, causing water to go around or on top of the dam, and in some cases, causing structural damage and dam failures.
It's really just a combination of everything that's out of anyone's control going as wrong as it possibly could. Even Asheville, a city outside of the valleys and on top of the mountains, even advertised as a "Climate Haven" away from any dangers by the media, got fucked up by it. I probably missed some more factors as well.

There were no actual dam failures. Many dams had "imminent failure" warnings, but they all held despite some sustaining structural damage and overflowing. The ones people are saying failed: Lake lure, Bee Tree Dam, and Nolichucky dam have all held for now.

 

[Squishie PP]

Seeing how nobody in charge can seem to bring themselves to care about hundreds if not thousands of Appalachians dead and countless more suffering and displaced combined with how they all completely fucking ignored the East Palestine disaster which will poison generations to come has genuinely made me seethe. These people don't fucking care about us. The rural poor are completely disposable to them. Who cares if some hicks are dead, right? These uncaring fucks are fundamentally evil, evil people and I hate them with all of my heart.

This is what the resource curse looks like. Plentiful resources create more people, and the more people there are, the less valuable we are. When this happens, there are fewer material consequences for people dying.
This creates an incentive for subhuman psychopaths to exploit us, since we are all collectively devalued.

There is no way around this until the population decreases. Until then, make sure you don't live within 400 miles of a critical component of the global supply chain, such as an ultrapure quartz mine. That is all that can be done.

 

[Death of an Ego]

This is a late reply to this catastrophe, but it's really difficult to put into words the way I feel about all of it. I've mentioned before that I'm a longtime NC resident, and seeing and hearing about all this just...

I know people up there, or in some cases did, and when Helene was threading the Yucatan-Cuba channel, I was watching the models and cone, and I called up everyone I knew up there and told them to get them and anyone they knew the fuck out of the mountains as quickly as possible. I don't know if I'll hear from friends of friends again. Some of those types are very stubborn and wouldn't listen on a good day. I just hope against hope that I'll see them being curmudgeonly and brashly independent at some point in the future, and not swirling dead in a new river eddy or being taken out of a formerly submerged tree.

I'm in contact with several aid organizations, and I'm trying to coordinate some things, but everything is just now starting to come into place.

This is a total aside, but anyone who tries to inject current year politics into this disaster, there is not a big enough, loud enough or more brutal way to simply say FUCK YOU.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

There were no actual dam failures. Many dams had "imminent failure" warnings, but they all held despite some sustaining structural damage and overflowing. The ones people are saying failed: Lake lure, Bee Tree Dam, and Nolichucky dam have all held for now.

Thank God. Trying to rebuild the TVA infrastructure would have been a nightmare.

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

Thank God. Trying to rebuild the TVA infrastructure would have been a nightmare.

And that's before factoring in the high likelihood of big green/eco groups trying to do everything they can to prevent dams from being rebuilt if totally destroyed. Not to mention all kinds of non-thought out, feel good, green nonsense.

 

[mindlessobserver]

And that's before factoring in the high likelihood of big green/eco groups trying to do everything they can to prevent dams from being rebuilt if totally destroyed. Not to mention all kinds of non-thought out, feel good, green nonsense.

I'd say it would be silly for the eco warriors to be opposed to a form of energy production that not only emits no carbon, it also doesn't have radioactive waste product. But then I realize the eco types are essentially retarded by and large.

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

I'd say it would be silly for the eco warriors to be opposed to a form of energy production that not only emits no carbon, it also doesn't have radioactive waste product. But then I realize the eco types are essentially retarded by and large.

It is, they are, and the war against hydro started over a decade ago.. out west they are already destroying dams.. even hydroelectric ones. They were able to continually use things like natural multi year fish cycles and bullshit "expert" opinion to great effect as a talking point.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

And drone footage (if the time stamp doesn't work, the plastics place is about 1:30 in and is the yellow tubing debris)

Water is incredibly powerful, and once it's more than a few inches deep, you're completely fucked if you don't have appropriate gear and boats and shit.

Corollary: the very moment anything you're in or around starts to flood, you get the absolute fuck out of there and get to high ground in any and every way possible. If you ever see flowing water on your street, etc, get out and get away and get up as high as you can on natural ground as flowing water can easily destroy buildings, trees, and vehicles.

Even standing water is suspicious as fuck and you should GTFO first and ask questions later.

 

[TrainWreckWatcher]

Water is incredibly powerful, and once it's more than a few inches deep, you're completely fucked if you don't have appropriate gear and boats and shit.

Corollary: the very moment anything you're in or around starts to flood, you get the absolute fuck out of there and get to high ground in any and every way possible. If you ever see flowing water on your street, etc, get out and get away and get up as high as you can on natural ground as flowing water can easily destroy buildings, trees, and vehicles.

Even standing water is suspicious as fuck and you should GTFO first and ask questions later.

I think it only takes about a foot of water to knock someone off their feet too.

 

[glass_houses]

I think it only takes about a foot of water to knock someone off their feet too.

In the 2011 Toowoomba mountain top tsunami, there was an infamous video of a man desperately clinging to a tree as he tried to fight against the water. Not long afterwards he did an interview that I cannot find , saying that he saw the water and wasn't all that concerned, until it reached a couple of inches high and he realised that he might be in trouble. He decided to hug a tree just in case... very quickly it was up to his shoulders and then he saw a car tumbling towards him. He ducked his head and the car slammed into the tree, but he managed to hold on. Fucker lived, it was incredible.

 

[Bunny Tracks]

People often forget that the Appalachians aren't a "normal" mountain range like what they picture when they think of the Rockies, with very defined sharp jagged rock cliffs. It's a very old mountain chain that has a lot of little pockets and valleys all the way up to the tops of the hills, lots of lakes and large bodies of water at higher than usual elevations due to the terrain.

Someone else can explain it more intelligent than me, but the mountains aren’t just a range, it’s more like a huge area of very bumpy elevated land riven with canyons, river valleys, lakes, bowl like areas.

For the non-Appalachian kiwis here, this is what the Appalachian Mountains look like.

Notice how they're not really stony, jagged mountains so much as they are really big, heavily forested hills with a bunch of narrow, crevice-like dips, and valleys between them?

Now look at this photo of an Appalachian settlement. Do you see the problem?

All that water is just going to go careening down from the those hills, right into those narrow crevices where it's only gonna get faster, and then completely wipe out that place, and everything else afterwards.

Appalachians are no strangers to floods. But ones like this? Yeah, no. We're just use to the rivers overflowing. Not for the valleys themselves to become the rivers that are overflowing.

 

[mold]

I've never understood the need for horses in situations like this. Just use a bike, gas is being rationed and you aint dead yet. So get off your ass and propel yourself with whatever you had for breakfast this mourn.

I’m a long term bicycle commuter

Any biking that isn’t flat and on well paved roads is for fun and fitness, not function. There’s a reason the Dutch bike so much.

Hauling cargo, being off-road, and going up grades is for horses if you actually need it done.

 

[mold]

The scale of devastation is well beyond the capabilities of FEMA. The hard truth is the cost to have resources on standby and the maintenance of those resources for an event like this that seldom happens …it’s cheaper to just cut a check to cover some of it and walk away.

You’d need to mobilize the army to deal with this on the scale that it is. And even then we can’t have the army building new homes for people.

.

we can’t use those resources for Americans we pissed them all away in Afghanistan

the idea that the army shouldn’t be out there building new houses… stop being buckbroken, the only reason we can’t get the entire area tourist ready within 18 months is YOUR GOVERNMENT HATES YOU

 

[MadStan]

For the non-Appalachian kiwis here, this is what the Appalachian Mountains look like.
View attachment 6479429
Notice how they're not really stony, jagged mountains so much as they are really big, heavily forested hills with a bunch of narrow, crevice-like dips, and valleys between them?

Now look at this photo of an Appalachian settlement. Do you see the problem?
View attachment 6479432
All that water is just going to go careening down from the those hills, right into those narrow crevices where it's only gonna get faster, and then completely wipe out that place, and everything else afterwards.

Appalachians are no strangers to floods. But ones like this? Yeah, no. We're just use to the rivers overflowing. Not for the valleys themselves to become the rivers that are overflowing.

Areas of Appalachia get these floods often enough where the hollows get destroyed. Sometimes the wall of water coming down the hills is higher than the roofs; but these locations are disappearing more and more each year as people realize you just can't live in these locations, and the insurance companies give insane rates if you are insane enough to live in these valleys.

One area in WV was hit twice in 6 years and the insurance company has told the people that refuse to leave that they are on their own - and rightly so.

 

[Catgirl Tyranid]

I know this sounds strange to ask and kind of pales in comparison to the human loss of life... but how many legends / campfire critters were wiped out by this event?

You have stubborn old timers who didn't leave when they could have, you have landscapes being irreversibly altered. I can't help but feel this damaged one of the few bastions of non-globalized uniquely American culture the US has left.

 

[FatalTater]

Patara gives an update from east Tennessee about how well the people are coming together to help each other, and points out that there are no celebrities or government officials giving a damn
from Appalachia's Homestead with Patara

edit
Pinball Preparedness talks about Newport TN delivery and things

 

[Squishie PP]

repoosting here

If somehow anybody here hasn't heard about it, the Sibelco high-purity quartz mine in North Carolina has been shut down indefinitely due to the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene: https://www.yahoo.com/news/helene-shutters-spruce-pine-nc-004044203.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

This ultrapure quartz is used for various different steps in the manufacture of every single semiconductor post-1990s. Which means that if this mine is closed for too long, the price of all computer components is going to spike regardless of manufacturer. So if you are looking to buy anything with a semiconductor chip, now would be a good time to do so before prices increase.

 

[Bob's Fuckass Head]

I'm glad people are posting positive examples of people coming together to help each other. The people and culture of greater Appalachia have always been fascinating to me. It's such a uniquely "american" place, and I'm encouraged that so many of these people seem determined to stick together - despite the undeniable losses - in support of one another.

repoosting here

Thanks for this. I'm in the process of building new work PCs for my parents and we were all okay with it being a lower priority, but this tells me I need to get the parts ordered before the end of this business week.

 

[FatalTater]

Patara was live and upset.
Damages are worse than are being shown.
TPTB do not care.
Vet the places you give money.
If you make this shit political you can fuck off, die, be resurrected and die again.
Whole towns are gone, people need help. Real help.
American government does not care.

 

[Squishie PP]

I'm glad people are posting positive examples of people coming together to help each other. The people and culture of greater Appalachia have always been fascinating to me. It's such a uniquely "american" place, and I'm encouraged that so many of these people seem determined to stick together - despite the undeniable losses - in support of one another.

Thanks for this. I'm in the process of building new work PCs for my parents and we were all okay with it being a lower priority, but this tells me I need to get the parts ordered before the end of this business week.

I honestly have no idea when the impact will hit as I imagine most fab sites have a stockpile of this quartz/components derived from it, but being early never hurts.