Catastrophic Flooding in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee- Why Is It So Bad There?
Summary
TLDRThe video discusses the severe flooding in the Southern Appalachian region, particularly Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, caused by Hurricane Helen. The geography of the area, with steep terrain and high elevations, has worsened the situation by trapping large amounts of rain, resulting in unprecedented damage. Many rural areas are cut off due to washed-out roads, and the response is challenging. The speaker highlights the importance of donating food and water, as many affected areas may remain inaccessible for an extended period due to the difficult terrain and damaged infrastructure.
Takeaways
- 🌊 Severe flooding has impacted Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, particularly in the Southern Appalachian region, causing unprecedented damage.
- 🚨 The situation is dire due to a combination of the hurricane's force and the geography of the region, which is exacerbating the flooding.
- 🌀 Hurricane Helen made landfall in Florida and weakened to a tropical storm as it moved north, but its counterclockwise rotation is pushing a lot of water up into the mountains.
- 🏔️ The Southern Appalachians, which have some of the highest elevations, are trapping storm clouds, causing excessive rainfall and worsening the flooding.
- 🌧️ This region is one of the wettest in the U.S., and the combination of its steep terrain and large amounts of rain is leading to severe water funneling and flash floods.
- 🚧 Key infrastructure, including roads and highways, are severely damaged, cutting off towns and making it difficult to deliver essential goods like food and water.
- 💡 Asheville is one of the few places with electricity and communication, but most rural areas are completely isolated due to washed-out roads.
- 🚁 Emergency response is challenging due to the vastness of the region, with a need for airlifting supplies, but resources are limited compared to the scale of the disaster.
- 🥫 The speaker emphasizes the need for direct donations of food and water, as money will likely be used to purchase those supplies anyway.
- ⚠️ The mountainous terrain, limited roads, and steep landscapes make this recovery much more difficult compared to typical hurricane responses in flat regions like Florida or Louisiana.
Q & A
What caused the unprecedented flooding in the Southern Appalachian region?
-The flooding was caused by the remnants of Hurricane Helen, which brought heavy rains to the region. The storm hit the Southern Appalachian mountains, forcing moist air to rise, which led to even more rainfall in an area that is already one of the wettest in the U.S.
Why is the geography of the Southern Appalachian region contributing to the severity of the flooding?
-The mountains in this region cause the storm system to push upward, exacerbating rainfall. The steep terrain funnels water into narrow valleys and canyons, causing rapid flooding. Additionally, the area already receives high rainfall, which contributes to the problem.
Why was Chattanooga, Tennessee not as affected by the storm as other areas?
-Chattanooga was not heavily impacted because it lies to the west of the Appalachian mountains. The storm had already dumped most of its rain over the mountains before reaching Chattanooga, leaving the city relatively unaffected.
Why are food and water the most important items to donate for flood relief in this region?
-Food and water are the most needed because many roads have been washed away, leaving people in rural areas cut off from supplies. Donating food and water helps get essential resources directly to those in need, rather than relying on monetary donations that might have delays.
What role does the French Broad River play in the flooding of Asheville?
-The French Broad River is the main river in the Asheville region, and it flooded the city due to the large amount of water from the storm. The river's large size meant that it carried significant water downstream, leading to flooding in the most populated areas.
Why are roads in the region particularly susceptible to damage during storms?
-Many roads in the Southern Appalachian region run through steep, mountainous terrain, which makes them prone to landslides and washouts during storms. Roads like I-40, which goes through the Great Smoky Mountains, are often narrow, winding, and vulnerable to rain.
What makes this region different from other hurricane-affected areas like Louisiana or Florida?
-Unlike the flat terrain of Louisiana or Florida, the Southern Appalachian region has steep mountains that trap storm systems and cause them to release more rainfall. This makes the flooding and damage from storms in this region more severe and complex.
What are some challenges faced by emergency responders in this region?
-Emergency responders face significant challenges due to the difficult terrain, washed-out roads, and the large, rural area affected by the flooding. Airlifting supplies is necessary in some areas, but the sheer scale of the region makes it difficult to reach everyone quickly.
What concerns does the speaker have regarding missing people in the region?
-The speaker is concerned that many people in remote campgrounds or hiking along the Appalachian Trail may be missing, as they could have been unaware of the severity of the storm and are now cut off by the floodwaters and washed-out roads.
How is the steep terrain both a natural beauty and a hazard in this region?
-The steep terrain creates beautiful waterfalls, lush greenery, and stunning landscapes, but it also funnels rainwater into narrow valleys and canyons, causing dangerous flash flooding. The same topography that makes the region scenic also makes it more vulnerable to storm damage.
Outlines
🌧️ Flooding in Southern Appalachia: Unprecedented Damage
The speaker discusses the ongoing severe flooding in the Southern Appalachian region, specifically Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, following Hurricane Helen. The geography of the area exacerbates the situation, with mountains forcing storm clouds to rise, resulting in massive rainfall. The speaker encourages donations of food and water, explaining that while money is useful, immediate supplies are more urgent. The storm's counterclockwise rotation, combined with the mountainous terrain, has intensified the flooding, and the speaker predicts the situation could be worse than expected.
🏞️ Geographical Challenges: Why the Region is Suffering
The speaker explains the specific geography contributing to the disastrous flooding. The Southern Appalachian region is already one of the wettest in the country, second only to parts of Washington. The high mountains are trapping the moisture from the tropical storm, causing unprecedented rain. The terrain, while beautiful, amplifies the disaster, funneling water into narrow valleys and making the flooding more severe. Despite the widespread damage, some areas, like Chattanooga, have been spared due to their location outside the mountain range's impact zone.
🚧 Roads and Infrastructure: Cut Off and Isolated
The speaker illustrates the damage to infrastructure, particularly the roads in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee. Many highways, including Interstate 40, are washed away or closed, isolating rural areas. Asheville, the largest city in the region, remains somewhat functional, but much of the region is entirely cut off, leaving many communities without access to essential supplies. The steep terrain, lack of roadways, and heavy flooding have compounded the isolation, making recovery efforts difficult. Aerial transportation is being used, but it's insufficient for the scale of the disaster.
🏞️ Recreational Areas and Missing Persons: A Hidden Crisis
The speaker expresses concerns about recreational areas affected by the flooding, particularly campsites and hiking trails such as the Appalachian Trail. Many people may still be trapped or missing in these areas, potentially worsening the death toll. The speaker is worried that the damage is far more extensive than initially reported due to the isolation of rural and recreational spots, making rescue operations difficult. They note the region’s popularity among hikers and campers, who may not have expected the flooding due to the hurricane making landfall in Florida.
🌊 Terrain and Storm Path: Amplifying the Flooding
The speaker continues discussing the unique topography of the region, explaining how the mountainous terrain funneled the storm’s rainfall into valleys and rivers, causing extreme flooding. Irwin, Tennessee, and nearby areas are among the worst hit, with steep slopes and narrow river valleys directing large amounts of water into low-lying areas. The geography is making recovery efforts particularly challenging, as the infrastructure wasn’t designed for such a large-scale disaster.
🚁 Response and Recovery Challenges: A Difficult Road Ahead
The speaker reflects on the complexities of the recovery efforts, noting that the mountainous terrain and damaged infrastructure will make it hard to deliver aid and supplies. Unlike hurricanes that hit flat areas like Louisiana or Florida, this disaster involves steep terrain, landslides, and mudflows, making it more difficult to assess and address. The speaker, with a background in emergency management, warns that the response will be slow and difficult, especially for the rural and isolated communities that are entirely cut off.
🔄 Atypical Hurricane Response: Topography Matters
The speaker emphasizes that this hurricane's response differs from typical disasters due to the unique geography. With mountainous terrain, the region is dealing with landslides, mudflows, and washed-out roads, unlike the flat terrain responses seen in other hurricane-hit areas. While hoping for the best, the speaker remains realistic about the challenges and stresses the need for donations of food and water. They compare the situation to isolated areas like Big Sur in California, where people are used to being cut off, but worry that many in the Southern Appalachians may not be as prepared.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Southern Appalachian Region
💡Hurricane Helen
💡Counterclockwise Rotation
💡Right Front Quadrant
💡Appalachian Mountains
💡French Broad River
💡Flood Plains
💡Landslides
💡Rural Areas
💡Emergency Management
Highlights
Tremendous flooding and unprecedented damage in the Southern Appalachian region, especially Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee.
Hurricane Helen made landfall in Florida, and its counterclockwise rotation has worsened the storm impact in the mountainous region.
The southern Appalachian Mountains' high elevation exacerbates the flooding by forcing storm clouds to rise, causing heavy rainfall.
Western North Carolina is one of the wettest parts of the U.S., which adds to the severity of flooding in the region.
Asheville, North Carolina, is one of the major cities affected by the flooding, but surrounding rural areas are almost completely cut off.
Many major roads, including Interstate 40 and other highways, have been washed away, complicating recovery and emergency response.
The steep terrain and narrow valleys funnel large amounts of water, causing severe flooding in smaller canyons and rural areas.
The French Broad River is one of the main rivers flooding Asheville and its surroundings due to the large volume of rain.
Eastern Tennessee is also heavily affected, particularly around Irwin, due to the storm's rotation pushing water into the region.
Helicopters are being used for emergency response, but the affected area is too large for effective airlifting of goods.
Emergency management officials express concerns about recreational campers and hikers being stranded, especially on the Appalachian Trail.
The region’s rugged terrain makes recovery efforts more complex than typical hurricane responses in flat areas like Florida or Louisiana.
There is a possibility that many more people are missing or stranded, as communications and roads are cut off in remote areas.
Many backroads, such as Tail of the Dragon, which are popular for recreation, are also critical highways for residents and are now impassable.
Donations of food and water are strongly encouraged to help affected residents, as access to essentials is severely limited.
Transcripts
all right guys I'm sure you've heard
about what's going on in Western North
Carolina and Eastern Tennessee just a
general Southern Appalachian region as a
whole just tremendous flooding just
unprecedented damage going on in this
region and here I want to talk about the
kind of geography of this and why it's
so bad and why I hate to say it but it
might actually be worse than we're
thinking um before I start if you want
to make a donation I strongly recommend
donating food or water um money is great
but it's just kind of adding in
middleman because the money is going to
go to buying food or water anyway um I
don't have any specific charity to
recommend but food and water is what
they need um so to kind of give a recap
of what's what happened hurricane Helen
made landfall here in the What's called
the Big Bend area in Florida and
hurricanes are Cyclones so they rotate
counterclockwise so you think about my
thumb and my index finger if that's the
hurricane what part of it is getting the
worst of end of it so my finger by
rotating counterclockwise is that's
going to get the worst of the storm so
you talk about the they call it the
right front quadrant so it's rotating
like that the part getting it is the
worst so this is coming up like
this and but these are the Appalachians
and this the southern part are the
highest elevations in the appalachin so
what's going on is here's this hurricane
it's now a tropical storm it was
Hurricane all the way up into mid
Georgia but tropical
storm again roads hitting
counterclockwise it's hitting the
mountains so if these mountains weren't
there it could just kind of go and
dissipate and it would be bad it be
flooding but it wouldn't be like we're
getting right now
so I mean the water just going up there
so the clouds this whole system is being
pushed up against the mountains and
being forced to rise so you're already
getting a ton of water because of the
storm system in the first place now
you're just exacerbating it by having it
make contact with the mountains it's
just causing unprecedented rain and one
thing about this region it's already one
of the wetest parts of the entire
country only
this part of the coast of Washington has
more rainfall than here and normally
it's beautiful you think about just how
gorgeous the scenery is it's so green
beautiful Fall Foliage waterfalls a lot
of beautiful things you know what makes
it beautiful can also be really bad
you're seeing with some of the flooding
but that's why you're getting it so
badly here is because the storm rotates
here so I live here in Chattanooga so
you you haven't heard Chattanooga at all
in the news as to what's being affected
we're really close we're at the Eastern
end of what wasn't affected but we're at
the West we're over the appala and so
these storms they've dumped all that
rain here Western North Carolina and
Eastern Tennessee in the mountains there
was nothing left we just got hardly any
rain really wasn't bad at all here in
Chad noua I've seen many many worse
storms so that's why it's so bad here
just everything getting pushed up there
with that rotation if that storm would
have made landfall here then yes we
would have been heavily effective but
that mountain that mountain range really
keeps it from you know unfortunately
keeps all that rain all that water in
the one spot and I'm going to switch
over to a different spot I'm going to
show you the USGS Topo quads as to
specifically this region why it's just
really really bad right here okay so
this is the North Carolina Tennessee
Border area this is the state line
itself so this is Asheville where you've
been seeing a lot of the news from but
this entire area has been just
incredibly affected um it's just that
Asheville is the biggest city in the
region that's the only spot where you
have any type of electricity at all any
type of Wi-Fi any type of communications
any type of road so most of these roads
almost all of them in and out of this
region are completely down so
um there aren't that many roads on here
in the first place so you hear this is
one of the major ones this is one of the
major roads to get down to this area
it's closed interstate 40 goes
here it's closed it's been washed away
so even in normal times if you've driven
I40 around here it's around the Great
Smoky Mountains area it's really bad
it's really windy it's a you know it's a
beautiful drive but even in a regular
kind of main rainstorm it might get uh
washed away and shut down for a while um
so in all these roads you don't see many
of them and the terrain here is very
very steep it's not the highest
elevations but the the the uh the
steepness is very high so again not many
roads and a lot of them are washed away
so you can see the French Broad River
this is the main river in this region uh
that's what's flooded Asheville down
here so you can see it's the largest
river and that's why you had just the
largest amount of pure water flooding
but these are back in these hollers back
in these Canyons there's just water
being funneled it's just so Steep and
again it can often be beautiful with the
waterfalls and then with the Fall
Foliage after a wet spring but that is
what is keeping these areas just so wet
the the canyons are just funneling
everything in so you're just getting all
this water and you can just see how many
Creeks here and like I was mentioning
this is one of the wetest parts of the
entire country so it's just I mean
you're just getting a ton of rain in an
already wet area um so this is Asheville
itself so see the orange here that's the
bigger city um this is i26 from what I
understand i26 is still open that's the
most important Lifeline there going to
have right now because that can get you
down to Greenville South Carolina uh
there can be some things trucked in
there this is I40 um I40 right here I
think it's mostly shut down you see some
orange here but what do you not see is
any orange around here so nobody lives
here I mean no I'm sorry people do live
here but nobody in terms of uh you know
there aren't any big towns there so
these people are entirely cut off and
also on the the other page I was on the
rural areas they are cut off like
completely they're only a few roads so
if you're familiar with that road Tail
of the Dragon it's a well-known Road for
people that have a sports car or a
motorcycle can wind around it's just
really fun road to drive on but those
are there only a few roads like that and
those are the roads you have to use
those are the actual main US Highways
roads like that so they're all shut down
so I don't know how folks are going
going to be getting stuff Goods um
things are having to be airlifted but
this is a huge region this isn't just a
couple of small towns and you'll need
more than five or six helicopters so the
response is going to be incredible I
used to work in emergency management I
know the scale of this and just what has
to go on and these are some pretty rural
counties and not they don't always have
the strongest capabilities they rely on
the state but the state relies on being
able to get to these areas they rely on
some roads being able to uh be accessed
so and also a concern is this is a
popular spot for recreation um a lot of
hikers a lot of campers a lot of people
on the Appalachian Trail uh you know I
doubt many folks canceled their camping
trip because of a hurricane in Florida
so you've got people in
campgrounds I mean there's there I think
there are a lot more people that are
missing and just I I mean I hate to say
it's probably going to be worse than we
think but there's so many there's just
so much back here and you can't get to
it and um I'm going to go to the
Tennessee one
next so this is the area just north of
what I just showed so this is North
Carolina but you can see here not much
as different Irwin Tennessee is I I
believe for what we know right now is a
city that's gotten at the worst in
Tennessee so
um same situation here just incredibly
steep lot of
water yeah and just again the the storm
was coming this way so all that water
got dumped over here
these areas I mean it's still got a ton
of rain but uh yeah it's really bad so I
think that I'm familiar with this region
pretty well and just the terrain just
the difficulty of getting trucks through
there getting things back there this is
not going to be a normal type
recovery uh it's it's going to be
difficult so um yeah I just wanted to
talk about a little bit about the
geography of it because you might not
know why it's so bad here and why it's
more dire than you might be expecting uh
you know quote unquote normal hurricane
hitting Louisiana or Florida I mean it's
flat terrain um it's still a mess and
look how bad those are this is that same
type of mess but with the terrain and um
yeah so I don't want to be all doomsday
but I'm very very concerned about how
bad this is going to really be and the
to Topography of it is you know
geography of it isn't helping at all but
again if you can donate food and water
that's what's going to be needing cuz I
think people that are going to be back
here are going to be cut off for a while
um I used to live in Monterey California
and there's a spot called Big Sir you've
seen all the photos is that beautiful
spot with the you know right along the
coast The Cliffs but that road washes
away all the time and people that live
back there know to stockpile stuff but
I'm not sure if people that live here
stockpile thinking they might have to be
cut off for a few weeks or it might be
much longer than that so we'll have to
see um this is a
uh you know again not a ton of people in
terms of total population but the vast
majority of people that do live here are
cut off because there's again very few
roads interstates washed away so that's
that's pretty crazy when interstates are
being washed away but um so yeah that's
the situation here I'm not going to get
into specifics I'm not the local news or
anything like that so people have asked
where is the government where is the
National Guard they're there um they're
there
uh this response is different so yeah
it's uh again I don't want to be
doomsday but this this one's a little
bit different in that regard in terms of
what needs to be done from a response um
capability but um yeah so that's you
hopefully it's not as bad as it is
hopefully it's just people that are have
no communication they're just sitting in
their house chilling you know wishing
you know life was better but they're
doing okay otherwise i' hope that's the
case that people are just cut off but
safe um but we'll see but that's why why
they are cut off because these roads
aren't many of them and the few there
are are washed away um lot of spots that
are flood planes are flooded um a lot of
haulers got washed away so it's it's a
normally hurricane response you're not
talking about haulers and mountains and
landslides and mud flows but you are
with this one so um hopefully it isn't
as bad but this is the kind of geography
of the situation in case you were
curious um you're going to hear a lot of
the scientists and the politicians talk
about what going on here but this is
just kind of the geography of it and why
it's happening here and why it's so much
worse here as opposed to other spots
around the region
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