Unpacking the Unthinkable

When Helene hit western North Carolina on September 26, 2024, it had weakened from a Category 4 hurricane to a tropical storm. But the damage it caused was immense. Between eight and 24 inches of rain fell over three days in parts of the mountains, saturating the land and teeing up one of the worst natural disasters western North Carolina has experienced. Raging rivers and mudslides washed away roads and homes, and at least 98 people lost their lives in North Carolina. Many mountain communities were without power, water or internet for days. And as days have now turned to weeks, some still lack these essentials.

Evan Fisher, a meteorologist and graduate student in NC State’s Master of Geospatial Information Science and Technology program, has called western North Carolina home for the past 14 years. He lives in Black Mountain, a community ravaged by the storm, and throughout Helene and its aftermath, he’s been posting updates on social media: sharing town-meeting times, passing along health and safety information about drinking water, and posting pictures of the storm’s wake. “This will always be home to me,” Fisher said. “Helping the people in my community and making sure they know what’s been going on has never been more important to me than it is now.”

Staci Kleinmaier, NC State magazine’s associate editor, caught up with Fisher by video call on October 10, a day after crews restored power and internet to his home. Until that point, he’d relied on satellite internet to learn what was happening in the larger western North Carolina area.

In situations like these, the ability to share information literally saves lives: What roads are passable? Where are supplies? Who needs medical help? But there was a communication blackout for the first few days after Helene. When people could connect to the internet, they gravitated to social media, to post pictures, ask questions and gather information. But social media soon became a space ripe with disinformation about Helene, with debunked stories being spread about FEMA, state-government aid and weather manipulation.

Fisher spoke to NC State magazine about these false narratives, the topography changes post-Helene and the awe and grief extreme weather inspires.

When you went into meteorology, did you imagine that you’d be fighting so hard just to disseminate facts? No, not at all, and that’s been such a difficult thing to navigate over the last six to eight years. As we’ve been navigating through this storm, there has been so much terrible rhetoric out there about the government response and weather modification. This is a natural disaster. There’s nothing nefarious about how the hurricane came up from the Gulf. It’s just really, really bad luck on our part.

What is the root of your interest in extreme weather? Western North Carolina is beautiful, and people come here for the nice fall colors and snow and skiing, but it can also be extreme to the max in some of our higher elevations, and I wanted to explore that. In some ways, it is a bit of an unknown front of meteorology.

What’s the most extreme weather that you’ve experienced? One of my favorites is the extreme wind on Grandfather Mountain. Some regulations have changed in the last 12 months, so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back out there, but there are these extreme winds that come over the mountain well in excess of 100 miles an hour. If you were out on the edge and not really taking care of yourself, you could get yourself blown off the mountain by wind that strong. I usually say that is my most extreme. But now that we’re coming out of Helene and the impacts of the last few weeks, I would say that Helene might circumvent that and become my new extreme. I can make sense of those winds on Grandfather Mountain. But there’s a lot of things about what happened during and after Helene that, even as a meteorologist, are still blowing my mind. And there are some things that I don’t really know how to fully explain.

I can make sense of those winds on Grandfather Mountain. But there’s a lot of things about what happened during and after Helene that, even as a meteorologist, are still blowing my mind.

Like what? The quantity of water that came down the mountains Friday morning on September 27 was unfathomable. I know these rivers. I thought I knew what they were capable of. And I would say our weather forecast was almost perfect. We knew how much rain was going to fall, and that much rain did fall. But we failed in translating that rainfall forecast into impacts because we had no modern precedent for what unfolded. The ground had to have been fully saturated; it just couldn’t take in any more water. Every drop that was falling on the surface was rolling down the hills. I never thought I would see that in western North Carolina or, really, anywhere.

Our art director, Vickie Cumbee, showed me a video of what looked like a river with rapids, and she said, “This is a creek.” That’s one of the other things that continues to shake me: there are so many small creeks and places where water doesn’t even normally flow that became raging rivers. There’s a community called Garren Creek just on the other side of the mountain from where I am now, and when I first saw the photos, I was horrified. That community should not be flood prone. They’re near the top of the mountain. There’s really no room for water to build up above them, and yet, the whole community was wiped out. They had 13 deaths. The ground was so saturated that the mountain just liquefied. They didn’t even need a creek or a stream; the mountain devoured those communities.

The ground was so saturated that the mountain just liquefied. They didn’t even need a creek or a stream; the mountain devoured those communities.

How did the topography of the area play into this disaster? I’m constantly thinking about this myself. Our mountains are very flood prone. That’s always been the case, and we have had big floods in the years past. In 2021 we had Tropical Storm Fred, which dumped a catastrophic amount of rain out towards Canton, [N.C.], and Haywood County, and they had a localized but extreme flood, similar to what happened with Helene last week.

Helene, unfortunately, is one of those cases where there was a 1 in 1,000 year rainfall event over such a large area that every creek, every river that could flood, did flood and flooded to the fullest degree. There’s so much steep topography here, it channels into the communities. All of our roads run alongside rivers and streams, so those were the first to go, and then just above the roads are the houses. In many communities, like Bat Cave and Chimney Rock, those homes are right on the river, and the Broad River over there is scary on a normal day. I can’t imagine the volume of water that must have been pushing through some of the gorges of western North Carolina during Helene, as the terrain funneled it down towards those homes.

I’ve seen some before-and-after aerial views that show topography that has clearly been changed. Is that permanent? It is. It’s almost as if Helene accelerated the geologic timeline by 500 or 1,000 years in some parts of western North Carolina. It’s bizarre to look at, and it’s one of those rare instances where, truly, you don’t recognize what you’ve known. I saw a video of some men in Yancey County near Cane River. They were lost in their home community after the flood waters receded because the river had completely rerouted itself, the trees were down and the homes were all gone. They could not figure out where they were. That is the case for so many places now. There are huge swaths of forest up on the mountain that have been blown down — 80% tree loss. That will take decades to recover.

It’s almost as if Helene accelerated the geologic timeline by 500 or 1,000 years in some parts of western North Carolina.

I grew up in Fairview, just southeast of Asheville, and the Cane Creek runs through there, and it chose a new channel in some areas. Those changes are permanent, and we’re going to have to rebuild around them. We’ll build new roads where the old river was, because that’s where the rocks are now, and the river is where the road was. So it’s like we’re flip-flopping.

How do you balance the awe and grief that extreme weather inspires? Not well. The past two weeks have been a roller coaster. The first day was exciting for me because I did not realize what had happened around us. We had no cell service. It was bad in my neighborhood, and we had homes across the street that were severely damaged, but there weren’t any immediate fatalities or total home losses. And then the next day was down the roller coaster. I drove to the other side of town to help my parents gut their basement and saw the schools that I grew up in severely damaged and a whole trailer park that had been washed into the fields and significant loss of life all through that area.

From a meteorologist perspective, there is a lot of really interesting data to learn from. And I do find myself, with each passing day, wanting to get back into that. We’re reaching the stage in this disaster where we’re reconnecting with our neighbors, with our co-workers and with our loved ones. And I’m very blessed to not know, directly, anyone who perished in the storm. I know many people who have lost loved ones, though, and it will be difficult for years to come.

You can donate to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund at nc.gov/donate.