HIGHLAND WEATHER HELENE REMEMBRANCE
September 27th, 2024, Hurricane Helene made it’s way into the Carolina’s, devastating the community, and breaking records.
Hurricane Helene first formed in the Caribbean, in which the first forecast models noticed a chance of this system making it’s way into the mountains. The National Hurricane Center put the Carolina’s in the track within a week out.
As we drew closer to that time, a cold front stalled in the Tennessee Valley as Helene grew in the Gulf, making it so the outer bands of Hurricane Helene pushed over Western North Carolina, saturating soils, and increasing the flood threat well before the arrival of Hurricane Helene. During that time, the dam at Lake Lure was starting to fail, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a “considerable” Flash Flood Warning for areas near around Lake Lure, 11 hours before Helene, and many flood alerts including downtown Asheville.
At around 12 AM September 27th, Hurricane Helene made landfall along the Florida Panhandle, before pushing it’s way up into the mountains of the Carolina’s. At 3 AM, the National Weather Service issued the first Flash Flood Emergency for Lake Lure due to imminent dam failure. This was only the first, as rain continued to fall, prompting the Greenville-Spartanburg National Weather Service to issue Flash Flood Emergencies for all of the Western Carolina mountains.
At or around 9 AM, Helene finally started to move out of the Carolina’s, but winds from 55-65 MPH continued. By this time, millions of customers were without power. By 12 PM, skies finally started to clear up, but that’s when the devastation showed. Interstates were flooded, houses gone, communities missing. Many customers then started to lose water by 2 PM, as many pipes were damaged from Helene, costing millions of dollars of damage. At 3 PM, all cell towers cut out, making it impossible to contact love ones. That didn’t return until 3 AM Sunday morning.
Helene is a storm here at Highland Weather we will never forget, and always will remember in our prayers and thoughts, to see the devastation in the community was something we hope will never see again, and thank everyone who listened to Highland Weather when we said to please evacuate.
Damage can still be found in the River Arts District in Asheville, and some locations, but as the damage gets cleaned up, our minds will never forget that day.