Deadly and catastrophic flooding from Georgia to West Virginia

AccuWeather

At least 30 fatalities linked to Hurricane Helene have been reported.  AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter warns these life-threatening flood conditions will span from Georgia to West Virginia.

Transcript

00:00John, this has been a tremendously devastating flood event.

00:04You and I were talking about how, you know, it's a relatively short period of data in

00:09which these flash flood emergencies have been issued.

00:12Right now, you and I agree, this is the biggest, most widespread flash flood emergency event

00:16since these new warnings were instituted.

00:18That sure is, Jeff.

00:19Good afternoon.

00:20The flash flood emergencies are meant for just the highest end catastrophic flooding

00:26and the government's National Weather Service issues those to drive additional urgency.

00:31And of course, that verifies the concern AccuWeather has been talking about for days ahead of other

00:37sources about a catastrophic and historic flash flooding event from Bluefield, West

00:43Virginia, Boone, Asheville in North Carolina, Gatlinburg in eastern Tennessee, all the way

00:49to Clayton and Jasper in northeast Georgia.

00:52This entire corridor has had significant rainfall and we're dealing with catastrophic

00:59flash flooding.

01:00And, John, one of the recipes for a true disaster, and again, people threw that term around,

01:05this is truly a disaster, was that we had a trough set up shop earlier in the week over

01:10the south.

01:11That was one of the steering factors that brought this storm in, but it also dumped

01:138 to 10, 11 inches of rain in some spots before the hurricane even made it into the Gulf.

01:20And that was the big problem.

01:21We saw that there was going to be that early onset of heavy rainfall dropping 8 to 10 inches,

01:27as you mentioned, and then there was a direct feed of tropical moisture once the hurricane

01:32made landfall and those rain bands moved and the winds of the storm brought that moist

01:39air right up and over the terrain.

01:41That generates extra lift in the atmosphere and can wring out heavy rain.

01:47It's like a sponge wringing that out and that's why we have such heavy rainfall in

01:51the steep terrain.

01:52Absolutely.

01:53And here, just, but, John, we are aware of even 27 plus inch rain reports and they continue

02:00to come in here.

02:01So what is a flash flood emergency?

02:03How is this different from a quote unquote typical flash flood warning?

02:07Well, there, of course, we want everyone to take every flash flood warning seriously and

02:11move to higher ground.

02:12But flash flood emergencies are issued in the exceedingly rare situation where there's

02:17a severe threat from flooding and often from catastrophic flash flooding and also in scenarios

02:23where water rescues are ongoing and where there may be water that's just flowing through

02:29streets and creeks are rising very rapidly.

02:32So it's to elevate the concern and just show how significant that danger is.

02:38And Jeff, we've been talking about it for several days.

02:40We're seeing this now with many roads shut down across Western North Carolina.

02:44In fact, the Department of Transportation in North Carolina has said treat all roads

02:49as closed because there's so many roads that are being impacted by flooding and are impassable.

02:55Some communities, in fact, are essentially cut off at this time.

03:00Where this is speaking kind of over to the river flood aspect of these, this storyline,

03:06the French Broad River, for example, we're just absolutely obliterating a previous record

03:11crest.

03:12It's not even close.

03:14Take a look at this.

03:15The previous record was 20 feet in terms of the stage of the river or the river height.

03:20And look at what's being forecast overnight tonight, 30 feet.

03:24That's 10 feet above the previous record, clearly major catastrophic flooding.

03:29So now as we as since the rain has thankfully ended, we're going to still be dealing with

03:33the runoff and the creeks and the streams flooded.

03:36But this is going to translate to a river flooding problem here and this can last several

03:40days in the hardest hit areas.

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