Nicole Campos Villaran
After making landfall as a category 4 hurricane on Sept. 26 and tearing through the Gulf Coast of Florida, Helene plowed north through Georgia and walloped the Blue Ridge Mountains, washing out roads, causing landslides and knocking out power and cell service for millions of people. Hurricane Helene has left people without homes and around 200 deaths, and hundreds are missing.
Search and rescue operations are still active, hoping to find more survivors.
Helicopters rescued dozens of people stranded on a hospital roof surrounded by floodwaters in eastern Tennessee. The Nolichucky Dam came close to failing before the water there started to recede. It was recommended in some of these states that the residents should evacuate because of the high risk. But in this dangerous time, some people refused to evacuate. Of course, we have seen many people post this on their social media, sharing their experiences.
One of my relatives living in Tampa, Florida, was not ordered to evacuate because their area was at low risk, even though they live 40 minutes away from the beach. They did not lose power but extreme winds and heavy rain. The floods were so extreme that many sea creatures were in the neighborhoods. Many biologists and wildlife conservation commissions are rescuing manatees in Florida that were left stranded in the aftermath of the hurricane. Residents were recommended not to handle it and instead call if they saw any sea creatures.
More than half of these deaths are from North Carolina, where several feet of fast-moving water destroyed entire communities. Across western North Carolina, towns were destroyed, water and fuel supplies were disrupted, and residents were in a communications black hole, scrambling for Wi-Fi to try to reach friends and family. Officials raced to rescue survivors, locate victims and restore flood-damaged water systems. The heavy rain barreled down the mountains, liquifying the slopes in some places into devastating mudslides that wiped homes off their foundations. But eventually, it all ended up in rivers.
Over 18 inches fell across southern Yancey County, western McDowell County, southeastern Buncombe County, and northwestern Rutherford County. That included 24.41 inches at our ECONet station on Mount Mitchell and 19.99 inches at our station on Bearwallow Mountain.
President Joe Biden visited North Carolina yesterday and announced that up to 1,000 active-duty soldiers would join the North Carolina National Guard in delivering supplies, food, and water to isolated communities.
Helene is the deadliest tropical cyclone to strike the mainland United States since 2005, when Hurricane Katrina caused nearly 1,400 deaths on the Gulf Coast, according to statistics from the National Hurricane Center.
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