Helene Recovery & Info
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aGDevil2k
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In a lot of areas, they are getting power back way faster than I imagined. It's more impressive given the amount of roads that are absolutely GONE.
WCNC
Official YouTube channel of WCNC Charlotte. Get more of the Carolinas' leading news and weather at http://www.wcnc.com/
www.wcnc.com
Well that's a new way to raft the New
I agree with your post and you likely (hugely likely) know a ton more about this than I do.
It’s completely hypothetical on my part; but, I expect we’ll be seeing 100-year, 500-year, thousand-year storms with much greater frequency……every 10-20 years……..now the storm might track 25-50 miles west or east of Helene’s track……some might say that changes that storm’s category……the reality is we’ve built in places we shouldn’t build. We won’t change from doing that.
The developers and landowners in WNC will insist on rebuilding where they were…….and before 2050, we’ll see a comparable storm hit WNC…….Trumplicans will say, “Who could have foreseen this?”
And, we’ll again rebuild where we shouldn’t build.
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There are some vacation home owners on Lake Lure who would disagree. The dam is owned by the town of Lake Lure and already had funding lined up to replace it before this weather event happened. I agree that some reflection needs to occur. And I agree that if the dam is to be rebuilt, then Lake Lure should be drained until the rebuild is finished. But a 100 year old, high risk dam that had funding lined up for its replacement did survive a 500 year flood event.
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My paternal grandparents lived in West Jefferson. I spent a lot of time there as a kid and teen and my family frequently rafted the New River (and then would crash my grandma’s house, ravenous — my dad was her Rosie the Riveter baby (just the two of them together from 1942-1945 wild my grandfather was at war, and she delighted in spoiling him, but don’t think she was so keen about all five of us showing up out of the blue wanting fed. LOL)).In a lot of areas, they are getting power back way faster than I imagined. It's more impressive given the amount of roads that are absolutely GONE.
WCNC
Official YouTube channel of WCNC Charlotte. Get more of the Carolinas' leading news and weather at http://www.wcnc.com/
Well that's a new way to raft the New
sringwal
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On the other hand, civilizations rebuilding where they shouldn’t rebuild has been a thing for millennia. Granted, up until relatively recently, a big part of that is because people had to build near a water source, but even today, the vast majority of the human population lives either in, or near, a floodplain, or an area that has the potential to be devastated by earthquakes, forest fires, or tornadoes. We can certainly do a great deal to mitigate that loss, but I don’t see that changing, as the world’s population continues to grow.
sringwal
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Flood risk already affects 1.81 billion people. Climate change and unplanned urbanization could worsen exposure
A new analysis just published in Nature Communications estimates that 1.81 billion people face significant flood risk worldwide.
blogs.worldbank.org
There is actually a retail and office building in Biltmore Village that is elevated with parking underneath to allow for flooding. There is a Chico’s and Talbots and Williams Sonoma, etc along with some office space. I’ll be curious to see how that fared and if it was elevated enough.
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Shore-mounted dredge of some kind? (No idea if feasible, just spitballing.)
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Drain the lake. Let it dry until you can get heavy equipment in?
aGDevil2k
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Yep! And that's going to be the only way to rebuild in that area for sure
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Short answer: I don't know.
Long answer: Proceed with the previous planned and funded dam replacement. But alter the plans to completely drain Lake Lure during the rebuild. When the lake is drained, go in with front end loaders and scoop-up all the debris that was floating on the lake before it was drained.
ETA: Sorry, didn't see Grimes70's response until after I posted. I really need to read to end before posting my half-ass ideas.
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For Hours, He Clung to a Tree and Cried for Help. But None Came.
Bruce Tipton, 75, was in his trailer home when it was washed away by Tropical Storm Helene’s floodwaters. As his agonized family watched, he slipped into the raging river.
Jason Blankenship said that when firefighters came through the neighborhood that morning, he urged them to help evacuate Mr. Tipton, who was standing in his doorway. He said a firefighter told him that Mr. Tipton had already refused their aid on Thursday night.
As the water continued to swirl Friday afternoon, Mr. Tipton remained in his doorway, waving to his family up on the railroad tracks. Then, all of a sudden, his doorway — and the rest of his home — disappeared into the water, leaving behind only a few pieces of foundation.
“One minute he’s standing in the front door, and the next minute, the trailer’s gone,” said one of his nieces, Annie Meadows, who watched the horror unfold. “It kind of exploded.”
Watching from the tracks, his family all feared for nearly an hour that he was lost. Then came a shout from behind a tree in the water: “Help!”
It felt like a miracle at first, Ms. Meadows said, but it was soon apparent how bleak the situation was.
The houses on the riverbank were flooding, and there seemed to be no way to get to Mr. Tipton. Though Ms. Meadows’s fiancé, Cody Rice, cannot swim, he tied a cable around his waist and got up on the roof of a nearby house to see if he could reach Mr. Tipton. The cable was too short.
From the tree, Mr. Tipton continued for hours to plead for help. Trying to encourage him to keep going, relatives called out that they had rescued his dog and asked him if he could see them. He said he could.
As dusk neared, a group of firefighters arrived, including the county’s only river rescue team. But they said that the water was too dangerous to enter, and that they would return at daybreak. Family members expressed shock.
“When they told me they wouldn’t put boats in the water, I lost it,” Ms. Meadows said.
Mitch Hampton, an assistant chief of the Walnut Volunteer Fire Department and the leader of its river rescue team, said that the water was too turbulent for his squad, which does not have the powerful equipment that teams in larger regions do. All of the team’s rescue boats are inflatable, and none has a motor.
“The resources we have are for normal conditions,” Mr. Hampton said. “This is nothing that any of us have ever seen before.”
At that point, all Mr. Tipton’s family could do was watch and yell as his cries for help grew intermittent.
At 10:51 p.m. — the time is seared into the minds of the people who watched it happen — Mr. Tipton’s body went limp and he fell headfirst into the water, which carried him out of sight.
Mr. Hampton, a Coast Guard veteran, said that if he and the other rescuers had perished while attempting to save Mr. Tipton, the entire county would have been without a river rescue team. The team carried out several dramatic rescues in other places during the storm, he said, including pulling five people from a hotel and saving two older residents from their home in Marshall as a rush of large debris flew down Main Street.
But the situation with Mr. Tipton was heartbreaking, he said.
“That was the worst one,” he said. “Because the family’s there, because you can’t do anything. We couldn’t get to him.”
On Sunday, a group of volunteers walked through the wasteland that Main Street in Marshall had become, searching through buildings with shovels for bodies. All they found to rescue were some American flags from a government building.
Mr. Tipton is survived by a daughter, his nieces and nephews, and a sister, Betty Pressley, 84, who lived across the road from him and left before the water rolled in.
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Friend of mines son cleans up or tries to clean up the Anacostia river in DC
As the world’s population grows, we damn well better stop building in floodplains, narrow mountain valleys, on barrier islands, and near sounds.
Or, we should constantly be prepared for natural disasters.
aGDevil2k
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That's horrificSome longtime Rollins Road residents who initially dismissed the warnings to leave the area last week ended up fleeing as the storm approached. But Mr. Tipton, whose trailer house had weathered previous storms, apparently did not change his mind. On Friday, the river continued its advance, making an island of his low-lying plot of land.For Hours, He Clung to a Tree and Cried for Help. But None Came.
Bruce Tipton, 75, was in his trailer home when it was washed away by Tropical Storm Helene’s floodwaters. As his agonized family watched, he slipped into the raging river.www.nytimes.com
Jason Blankenship said that when firefighters came through the neighborhood that morning, he urged them to help evacuate Mr. Tipton, who was standing in his doorway. He said a firefighter told him that Mr. Tipton had already refused their aid on Thursday night.
As the water continued to swirl Friday afternoon, Mr. Tipton remained in his doorway, waving to his family up on the railroad tracks. Then, all of a sudden, his doorway — and the rest of his home — disappeared into the water, leaving behind only a few pieces of foundation.
“One minute he’s standing in the front door, and the next minute, the trailer’s gone,” said one of his nieces, Annie Meadows, who watched the horror unfold. “It kind of exploded.”
Watching from the tracks, his family all feared for nearly an hour that he was lost. Then came a shout from behind a tree in the water: “Help!”
It felt like a miracle at first, Ms. Meadows said, but it was soon apparent how bleak the situation was.
The houses on the riverbank were flooding, and there seemed to be no way to get to Mr. Tipton. Though Ms. Meadows’s fiancé, Cody Rice, cannot swim, he tied a cable around his waist and got up on the roof of a nearby house to see if he could reach Mr. Tipton. The cable was too short.
From the tree, Mr. Tipton continued for hours to plead for help. Trying to encourage him to keep going, relatives called out that they had rescued his dog and asked him if he could see them. He said he could.
As dusk neared, a group of firefighters arrived, including the county’s only river rescue team. But they said that the water was too dangerous to enter, and that they would return at daybreak. Family members expressed shock.
“When they told me they wouldn’t put boats in the water, I lost it,” Ms. Meadows said.
Mitch Hampton, an assistant chief of the Walnut Volunteer Fire Department and the leader of its river rescue team, said that the water was too turbulent for his squad, which does not have the powerful equipment that teams in larger regions do. All of the team’s rescue boats are inflatable, and none has a motor.
“The resources we have are for normal conditions,” Mr. Hampton said. “This is nothing that any of us have ever seen before.”
At that point, all Mr. Tipton’s family could do was watch and yell as his cries for help grew intermittent.
At 10:51 p.m. — the time is seared into the minds of the people who watched it happen — Mr. Tipton’s body went limp and he fell headfirst into the water, which carried him out of sight.
Mr. Hampton, a Coast Guard veteran, said that if he and the other rescuers had perished while attempting to save Mr. Tipton, the entire county would have been without a river rescue team. The team carried out several dramatic rescues in other places during the storm, he said, including pulling five people from a hotel and saving two older residents from their home in Marshall as a rush of large debris flew down Main Street.
But the situation with Mr. Tipton was heartbreaking, he said.
“That was the worst one,” he said. “Because the family’s there, because you can’t do anything. We couldn’t get to him.”
On Sunday, a group of volunteers walked through the wasteland that Main Street in Marshall had become, searching through buildings with shovels for bodies. All they found to rescue were some American flags from a government building.
Mr. Tipton is survived by a daughter, his nieces and nephews, and a sister, Betty Pressley, 84, who lived across the road from him and left before the water rolled in.
Curious, I looked up where this was. Rollins Road is literally riverside... Right at the banks.. To not have evacuated seems mind-blowing
