Hurricane Helene continued its destructive path through the Southeast on Friday, leaving millions without power and more than 20 people dead as federal and state officials began assessing the extent of its impact.
Making landfall at 11:10 pm ET Thursday with winds of 140 mph after strengthening to a Category 4 storm as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico, Helene ranked as the most powerful storm on record in the Florida’s Big Bend region near Tallahassee.
Weakening to a tropical storm about six hours later, it continued to bring heavy rain and flooding as it moved northeast through Georgia and into the Carolinas. The heavy rains caused flooding in Georgia and the Carolinas, and record flood crests were recorded on several rivers in western North Carolina, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Water overflows North Carolina Dam
Rutherford County Emergency Management issued an evacuation order for the area below the Lake Lure Dam in Lake Lure, North Carolina, a small mountain town of about 1,400 people, saying in a Facebook post at 10 a.m. Friday that water was overtopping the dam and its failure was imminent. .
According to the city’s website, the dam was built in 1926 by hydraulic engineer Mees & Mees, impounding approximately 720 acres and generating hydroelectricity.
Water levels in the Broad River at Lake Lure Dam as measured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported a sharp rise to flood stage at 991.3 feet above normal of the pool 990 feet above sea level.
As elsewhere in western North Carolina, steep terrain with heavy rainfall means flash flooding. Lake Lure is located within Hickory Nut Gorge. Chimney Rock, which looks down on Lake Lure, is 2,280 feet above sea level.
In a briefing call with reporters Friday morning, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Brig. Gen. Daniel Hibner said he had not yet received reports of any dam failures as of 11 a.m., but pointed to the thousands of vulnerable local municipal and private dams across the country.
“In an event like this, saturation-flooding can sometimes compromise the structural integrity of a levee or dam, and when that flash flood occurs, it can lead to failure,” he said. “I can’t say I’m very surprised to hear there was a dam failure, and I’d be surprised if there weren’t multiple in that area.”
Power outages, widespread flooding Friday
As many as 4.4 million people were without power because of the storm, according to Ken Buell, deputy director for cybersecurity, energy security and emergency response at the U.S. Department of Energy. He says more than 50,000 utility workers from 27 states are on hand to help restore power.
Days before the storm, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) issued an executive order declaring a state of emergency for 41 of Florida’s 67 counties, with expected impacts including damage to critical infrastructure such as interstates, bridges, airports, schools and power grids. Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina are also issuing states of emergency ahead of Helene’s landfall.
As of 10:30 a.m., more than 1 million customers were without power in Florida and Georgia, and more than 1.3 million in South Carolina, according to online tracker poweroutage.us. Just under 670,000 were without power in North Carolina, 97,000 in Virginia and nearly 75,000 in Tennessee.
Florida Power and Light (FPL) reported that more than 65 percent of its customers affected by the hurricane had been restored as of 6 a.m. Friday, with a total of more than 460,000 customers and approximately 214,000 still without power. FPL deployed more than 10,000 workers from 23 states for the effort, conducted at 14 locations.
Duke Energy, which serves customers in Florida and the Carolinas, reported that the company’s 8,000 workers who had been put on the scene at seven locations in Florida were still working to restore power to more than 400,000 others nearly 198,000 customers had been restored by 7:30 a.m. Friday. .
Western North Carolina experienced severe flash flooding from Hurricane Helene’s rains, including at Lake Lure, where a nearly 100-year-old dam was at risk of failing after water began to flow over it. Photo courtesy of NCDOT via Facebook
Aaron Moody, a spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), says several interstates and other primary roads, and dozens of secondary roads, have been flooded. Some have also been affected by landslides, while he says it is too early to know the full extent of the damage.
A major project in Helene’s path is NCDOT’s Interstate 26 widening project in Henderson and Buncombe counties, and Moody says the interstate will remain closed until NCDOT can safely assess the damage.
“It’s going to take time before we can answer that question in detail and with a lot of confidence,” he says of Helene’s impact on the state’s highway infrastructure, noting that along with I-26, Interstate 40 also it has been affected by floods and landslides as well.
Crews have set up barricades to keep people out of affected areas and are working to clear downed trees and other debris from roadways, Moody adds, with crews coming from the eastern part of the state to help.
In South Carolina, Department of Transportation spokeswoman Hannah Robinson says more than 2,300 employees have been mobilized to clear fallen trees, downed power lines, debris and downed traffic signals.
“SCDOT prioritizes interstate and primary routes, and those with critical facilities like hospitals,” he says. “At this point, I don’t currently have a number [of impacted roads] to share with you.”
The online state road condition tracker shows dozens of road closures, mostly in the western part of the state, centered around Pickens.
Jennifer Pippa, vice president of disaster programs for the American Red Cross, reported that there are at least 9,400 evacuees in 143 shelters, and that the Red Cross is supporting another 45 emergency shelters in cooperation with emergency operations centers state emergency
Data collection, ongoing damage assessments
In a conference call with media Friday, federal officials from FEMA, the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Weather Service, the Corps of Engineers and others updated reporters on the status of the storm and their response, saying that it is still too early to tell how damaging Helene was in the southeast.
“It’s early,” FEMA Deputy Administrator Erik Hooks said of the property and infrastructure damage assessment. “We are in contact with communities across Florida and are coordinating the damage assessment plan as it is safe to do so.”
Vice Admiral Nathan Moore, commander of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Atlantic area, said more than 8,400 personnel from across the Atlantic region were responding to the hurricane and that personnel are flying over the cost to identify the areas to identify precisely for a more detailed assessment in order to focus the work and identify structural impacts.
According to Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, a maximum storm surge has yet to be confirmed, but a surge of more than 6 feet was measured in Tampa, which was at least 100 miles to the east from the center of the storm, and that tropical storm force winds of at least 75 mph were measured 350 miles from the center of the storm, “which is pretty amazing.”
He said the waves likely would have measured up to 15 feet in some places.
“It really shows the extent of this thing,” he said, noting that inland rainfall amounts were measured as high as 11 inches in some places and as high as 2 feet near Mount Mitchell in western North Carolina .
In Florida, Hibner said efforts are being focused on the Big Bend area around the capital city of Tallahassee, an area he noted has been hit frequently by storms in the past.
“We are still in the process of doing our assessments to determine exactly what kind of infrastructure may have been damaged,” he said. The Corps has mobilized more than 100 civilian and military personnel for the effort with about 170 contractors.
