A vehicle, a golf cart and a playhouse are submerged from flooding Friday in a neighborhood in Atlanta.
The deadly Tropical Storm Helene is dumping devastating rains on southern Appalachia, particularly in western North Carolina, where a large dam near Asheville is on the brink of failure and officials have told residents to consider all roads closed.
Several storm-related deaths have been reported in Florida, North Carolina and Georgia, and the numbers are expected to rise as cleanup begins. Heavy winds and tornado warnings are expected to continue throughout the day.
Here’s some of what we’re following:
People who live downstream from the Lake Lure Dam near Asheville, N.C., are being told to get to higher ground immediately.
Helene is moving at a fast-paced 30 mph, a speed that allowed it to deliver a prodigious storm surge.
Watch the Coast Guard rescue a man and his dog from a sinking boat, and a TV news reporter rescue a woman from her car.
The rainfall totals are staggering: 29.58 inches for Busick, N.C.; 24.20 for nearby Mount Mitchell State Park; about 13 inches in Boone, some 55 miles away.
In all, more than 20 weather stations in North Carolina have measured more than a foot of rain, from 8 a.m. Wednesday through 10 a.m. Friday. Western North Carolina is now in a flood crisis due to the massive amounts of water falling there — and Tropical Storm Helene is only partly to blame. As the storm arrived, it met up with a system that was already soaking the earth.
“It’s been raining very heavily across parts of the southeastern U.S., especially in the southern Appalachians, for several days now, which is why we’re seeing such catastrophic flooding there,” Colorado State University research scientist Phil Klotzbach tells NPR.
In a normal circumstance, a fast-moving hurricane like Helene (it’s been traveling over land at more than 30 mph) brings a higher risk of storm surge but a lower risk of rainfall-related flooding.
“However, Helene is a different story because moisture from Helene got entrained into a stalled front across the southeastern U.S. for the past couple of days,” Klotzbach says.
North Carolina stands out for the highest rainfall totals, according to the Weather Prediction Center. But in both Georgia and South Carolina — two more states suffering flood emergencies after Helene’s arrival — more than 12 inches of rainfall have been reported at numerous locations this week, from 13.91 inches at Table Rock State Park (S.C.) to 14.06 inches in Dillard, Ga.
Along with floods, the persistent rains have created landslide conditions in western North Carolina, as member station WFAE reports.
