by C.S. Beamer
In my neck of the woods in the small mountain town of Hendersonville, North Carolina, they’re calling Hurricane Helene a 500 year event. Some say a 1000 year event. The problem is that all around the country I keep hearing of these supposedly rare storms, but they aren’t feeling so rare anymore. If the next hurricane hits the North Carolina mountains in say four years due to climate change, will we still be trying to convince ourselves it is an every 500 year event?
I worry that telling ourselves this was a 500 year storm is giving people an “out” to explain the devastation without accepting accountability or calling for change.
Not to minimize something that has caused western North Carolina more than 100 deaths, but climate change tends to be trivialized around here. For example, Henderson County Commissioner David Hill recently described it as ‘junk science.’ His comment was not disparaged.
Asheville, in Buncombe County, is 26 miles north of Hendersonville. It was ground zero for Hurricane Helene’s wrath. The city had no potable water for 53 days after the water plant was severely damaged. In spite of the storm beginning Thursday September 26, the ensuing rising waters had Helene raging for what seemed like two days, the rivers cresting on the 28th. The French Broad, which runs through the center of Asheville, rose 24 feet. The Swannanoa River near the Biltmore home, the largest in America, peaked at 26 feet.
These rivers flow into Henderson County, and joined with other local rivers in causing destruction and death. People here and elsewhere were literally washed away inside their homes.
Anecdotally, I can report some of the stories I’ve heard and read. With three days of rain preceding Helene’s arrival, the mountains were already saturated. When Helene reached us, it was the perfect storm to bring the worst kind of devastation.
When hurricanes hit coastal communities the topography is flat, but the steep mountain terrain of Western North Carolina makes for an entirely different scenario. Imagine the difference between dumping a full glass of water on a flat surface versus dumping it out through a series of funnels. The water builds in intensity and power, instead of spreading evenly. For many locals the need to evacuate was not recognized until it was too late.
Those who had not evacuated, living deep in the hollers (small sheltered valleys) where roads are carved into the hillsides, were told to write their names on their arms in case the worst happened. For some it did. The rising waters in the creeks and tributaries became roaring rivers, the floodwaters rising at rapid speed. Believe me there’s a reason they call them ‘flash floods.’ Mudslides were powerful and devastating. Residents often had little to no warning. The intensifying waters were filled with silt and fully mature trees and any debris picked up along the way, easily sweeping away even large homes in their paths.
Steve Freeman, who is the Bat Cave volunteer fire chief, reported to the local newspaper The Lightening that he was at home in Possum Holler with his wife when the flooding began.
“We were standing on the front porch about 8:45 or so watching the driveway wash away and the house shook… I went from the front porch, through the house and went through the back door to see what it was. I had parked my vehicle ahead of time above the house, way away.”
He parked the car on ground he assumed would be high enough. “I come to the kitchen door to look out. I’ve got a ‘67 Mustang, which is my first car. I looked out my kitchen window just in time to see it get parked right in my wood shed in front of my deck… And I heard more racket after that, so I went on out the door… It was another slide coming down the rest of the holler. I started running back toward the house, and I had an old backhoe setting there and the shed collapsed on me and pinned my head against the backhoe. My wife’s standing there watching all this. She thought I was dead… I freed myself and yelled at her to get in the truck, and we both ran and got in the truck. I just knew the whole mountain was coming down at that point and I figured if we got into the truck, if it washed the house away, we might have a chance of rolling in the truck.”
Freeman and his wife made it out alive. They crawled out of the truck, which at that point was lying sideways, and began hiking to neighbors’ homes to check on them. Roads and driveways were impassable.
Water continued to rise. One elderly man was washed out of his house and was spotted by neighbors in the middle of the river clinging to a tree. He held on for several hours before disappearing. His body was found the next day. Sadly, his story is not unique.
An Asheville pharmacist tried to ride out the storm in his first floor apartment. When the swollen Swannanoa River crashed in, he made it to the second floor. The building’s foundation was above ground, but the waters rose so high the apartments were swept away. Several days later, his body was discovered. He had a wife and two children.
A contributor to the destruction and death is that construction is allowed in flood plains. In fact, this year the Henderson County Commissioners voted to loosen the restrictions on building in floodplains. The entire area is somewhat of a bowl and has lots of wetlands that now have structures on them and concrete parking lots that cannot absorb storm water. The county’s floodplain administrator has been tasked with checking the 700 structures in the county’s floodplains after the storm, a seemingly insurmountable task for one man. Perhaps that is the goal? Will local authorities change the building codes for wetlands? That remains to be seen.
I had a tree fall on the roof of my condominium building, but no one was hurt and the building wasn’t compromised beyond needing a new roof. When I got out and walked around the neighborhood once the sun came out, it was a war zone of downed trees. Most of the roads and highways were impassable. Huge trees, many of them towering white pines and oaks, were uprooted, left on the ground with their massive root systems exposed. The loss of these trees is particularly tragic since the tons of carbon they sequester are lost.
Beyond the human toll and property damage, the full ecological destruction has yet to be assessed. The U.S Forestry Service reported over a million trees destroyed in the Nantahala and Pisgah Forests, two large National Forests. Over 900 miles of beautiful trails are gone.
Numbers about wildlife are not being discussed, but they have to be staggering. I can anecdotally report that as I walked the streets in my neighborhood, the roads shimmered with the dead bodies of small, silver snakes, undoubtedly washed out of the ground. A friend told me two rarely seen white squirrel babies were thrown from their nest in her yard and perished. To me these stories are indicators of the enormous loss of small animals and amphibians, and larger mammals and countless birds. Livestock and pets too, perished.
Amazingly, two hummingbirds who had stopped at my feeder before the storm emerged into the sun alive, looking soaked and dazed, but able to sip the nectar. They left the following day to continue their migration.
The hummingbirds’ determination to survive is inspiring and gives me hope that other animals found a way to weather the storm. Nature’s resiliency is always amazing.
Sadly, I can’t help but feel that this storm—be it the 500 or 1000 year storm—was caused by human beings choosing to ignore the effects of human-caused climate change. I grieve for the loss and folly of mankind, the choice to be oblivious.
The storm’s aftermath did bring out goodness and charity in humans. Neighbors helped neighbors. Volunteers handed out food and water to anyone who needed it. Help arrived from FEMA and individuals from all over coming and pitching in. A lot of veterans arrived to help in many ways. I only wish awareness of climate change was the lightbulb going off in everybody’s head. I so wanted to hear the words, “We’ve got to do something about climate change so this doesn’t keep happening.” I’m still waiting.
