Storm Helene

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Kidd-7

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How’s everyone on the east coast holding up? The rain was crazy for a couple Hours and just stopped. I’ve seen some pics from friends, some areas have been hit hard with flooding and trees down. Hope all the MN12s are safe.
 
We came out ok here in Charlotte. It was a bit windy this morning, lots of leaves and small branches down. I went out for lunch and saw a few trees down and flooding in a local flood plain. The lights at the house only flickered once but the power stayed on.
 
The cops ran us and everyone else off from the dam overlook parking lot. 😡 As of the time we left the flood gates on the Catawba Rivrt dam had not been opened. I’m pretty sure they’re giving time for evacuations downstream before opening them.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in NC:

www.yahoo.com

Lake Lure Dam ‘Imminent Failure’ Due to Hurricane Helene Explained

Get out now if you can. The post Lake Lure Dam ‘Imminent Failure’ Due to Hurricane Helene Explained appeared first on Mandatory.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com
 
My family made it through safe thank God, somehow our house and garage got through unharmed. Family and I live East of Cedar Key in a rural town. Cedar Key was absolutely decimated. It's really sad because most of it was small local businesses and restaurants.... very old school Florida.

Our house is 25 or so miles SE of where the eye wall came through. Somehow we ended up with no damage to our house and garage. Our property is a mess now and full of down trees and huge branches. Oak trees were literally broke in half and some uprooted and tipped over.

Last night while it was going through, outside smelled very strongly like a lumberyard from all the broken branches and downed trees.

Having a beer now and finally kicking back while the generators hum away. Somehow the fiber internet is still working :unsure:
 
We got lucky the storm surge didn't get to the house. Grandpa bought it in the 70's cause it was the highest ground in the area. I was getting worried I would be driving down to try and dry it out after seeing some pics from the neighbor down the street that backs up to the creek.
 
Good to hear from everyone that you made it through safely! I hear it's still raining pretty good in some areas.

Joe
 
For those who aren't local or native to western NC, I can't describe the destruction. This is the Asian tsunami in the mountains.

All of WNC is cut off. I-40 and I-26 are destroyed. Entire towns are gone without a trace. There's no way in or out without a helicopter. Bodies are floating down the rivers and being found everywhere. We have zero knowledge of the status of my family members in Avery county. We do know that much of Banner Elk was essentially washed away.

I am also a ham radio operator and volunteer in some disaster relief work. I'm not working this disaster because of the new baby, but I do have my radios on and am listening to the airwaves.

The amount of BOLOs I am hearing and seeing is unfathomable. There were no mandatory evacuation orders put in place until after the storms began and flooding began. Voluntary evacs were also not widely issued. Which to me is unbelievable considering we knew how bad the storm was and we knew exactly where it was headed. This area was hit with three back-to-back-to-back hurricanes in the same manner back in 2006, so it's a known risk.

It sounds like a great number of people got the word to evacuate — whether voluntarily or mandatory — and were subsequently stranded in the process of doing so. Or worse.

If you're interested, here's the latest official report from NCDPS: https://files.constantcontact.com/e3c2b32c801/085209af-e3f5-4952-a6ce-8d3528571951.pdf
 
I had a tree limb fall, take out the neutral on my power line feed, Blew up the LR stereo and my microwave. City crews were here at midnight replacing the line; hopefully, thats all the damage, but I'm still checking computers. Hope everyone's ok, we got about 3-4" of rain, and while the lake is up, It's only a few feet up from normal, and it has to rise ~20 feet to get to me. I've seen it 15 feet high back in 91, but never higher.
 
How's flooding over your way? We peaked at 6.5 feet over normal, Saturday, and it's down now.
 
This is not far from where I live. This is Mountain Island Lake, which is downstream from Lake Norman. They often catch the brunt of Lake Norman dumping excessive amounts of water to keep the millionaires homes on lake Norman from flooding.


 
We were initially in the bullseye as we are 20 miles N of Tallahassee. I watched radar till 1130 and the following screen capture at 1015 showed that it was going NE not westward. My parents who live near Helen GA lost power till Sunday and we never lost power or internet. I have a friend in Augusta who had trees on his roof. That was one helluva storm. getting 24 inches of rain in a day is like 1/3 of a years total. There is no designing storm drainage for that level of rainfall, even for the dams. It breaks my heart to hear of the unaccounted and the deaths. So many people were un-prepared as forecasts showed a westward track.
 

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Good to hear you came through alright.

Generalee0527 said:
I watched radar till 1130 and the following screen capture at 1015 showed that it was going NE not westward
Click to expand...

I remember that radar shot well. All day most of the models showed landfall around Tallahassee, so early on I wasn't worried very much. Then once it got closer to landfall it was tracking way more east. By the time it was dark out I had that "oh shit" feeling get worse with every radar update.

What is really strange to me was how little rain there was. My area got at most 2" of rain, nothing like the more northern states. Apparently being on the east side has the more intense winds, that was by far the most damaging part here.

Never going to forget sitting outside on the porch having a beer while listening to the branches and trees fall
 
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