On Thursday, Sept. 26, Hurricane Helene made landfall on the Big Bend of Florida as a Category 4 hurricane. However, in less than 48 hours, its rains and winds stretched into over 500 miles of the southeastern United States, destroying entire towns in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee.

Almost every town and city in Appalachia was impacted, and many people are wondering how a hurricane could cause such massive destruction all the way in the mountains.

Appalachia is a temperate rainforest and karst region, meaning that the area is mainly made of limestone, a soft rock that dissolves in water. Given this, when met with record rainfall from the hurricane, the terrain created a perfect storm scenario that allowed flood waters to wreak havoc on the surrounding areas.

As the floodwaters roared through the mountains, countless homes and businesses were swept away. Hurricane Helene has been the deadliest hurricane since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with over 200 confirmed deaths and still hundreds of missing people.

A week later, more than 850,000 people across seven states are still without power, and thousands are also without food or water access.

Hurricane Helene Highway 70 NC 3

A man walking over what is left of a section of Highway 70 in North Carolina after the tropical storm from Hurricane Helene hit the area. 

Ally McNabb, a junior studying music business administration at the University of Tennessee, was celebrating her 20th birthday on Friday when she began to hear about the impact Helene was starting to wreck on her hometown in Newport, Tennessee — an hour away from Knoxville.

Newport is split by two rivers — the Pigeon River and the French Broad. Within the first few hours of heavy rainfall from the hurricane Friday, both rivers began to overflow. Cocke County Mayor Rob Mathis called for immediate evacuation of downtown Newport because of a supposed “catastrophic failure” from the nearby Waterville Dam in North Carolina around 3 p.m.

Although the dam did not break as initially feared, it still failed, causing catastrophic flooding in downtown Newport. Mathis’ evacuation order was a blessing in disguise as another dam became in danger of imminent failure.

Later that night, the Nolichucky Dam near Greeneville, Tennessee, also began to overflow as it rose by 2 feet per hour. By 11 p.m., around 1.3 million gallons of water were pouring over each second, according to the Tennessee Valley Authority — that’s twice the water flow of Niagara Falls, whose peak daily water flow is around 700,000 gallons per second. 

Despite this, both the Nolichucky and Waterville dams remained invincible.

McNabb told the Beacon that it was not unusual for Newport to experience flooding in the aftermath of a hurricane, but no one expected it to be this bad. She described how most people in Newport took the mayor's evacuation mandate seriously because they knew that if the dam were ever to break, they would only have about 30 minutes to escape before the water came crashing into Newport like a tidal wave.

“This was not a good way to celebrate my birthday,” McNabb said.

The next day, McNabb drove home to check on her grandmother who lived closest to the downtown area, which had been completely flooded.

Luckily, everyone in her family was safe, and thanks to the hill that her family home was built on, the floodwaters did not reach her house. However, her family is not without loss.

Fruit Jar Alley Hurricane Damage 1

The inside of the Fruit Jar Alley Boutique in downtown Newport, Tennessee, after it was flooded by the overflowing of the Pigeon and French Broad Rivers due to the heavy rainfall caused by Hurricane Helene Sept. 27, 2024.

The floodwaters devastated local boutiqueFruit Jar Alley, owned by McNabb’s aunt Allison Manes, and her family’s law firm and tax office in downtown Newport.

Office Space in Downtown Newport

Ally McNabb's aunt's tax office space that was flooded in downtown Newport, Tennessee. The water came from the overflow of the Pigeon River and French Broad River after the Waterville and Nolichucky Dams failed Sept. 27, 2024.

Several other small businesses alongside Fruit Jar Alley in downtown Newport were severely damaged by the flooding.

Layni Duncan, a sophomore studying kinesiology, is also from the Cocke County area and was stuck at school when she heard what was happening at home.

Duncan’s family home is fine, but they are all without water and power and will be for the immediate future.

Duncan said that the flood had washed away the town's main waterline, and the few running water sources in people's homes had to be boiled because it was contaminated.

Hearing this, she started a water bottle drive through her sorority, Alpha Omicron Pi. She collected hundreds of water bottles to take and distribute to those in need. However, no one had prepared her for what she saw on her way home.

“I came home yesterday … and honestly, it's like it's not home — it doesn't even feel like it because it's just so different. … I don't know how to explain it, other than just eerie,” Duncan said.

Duncan described how mud and water had completely befallen her small town. Roads were destroyed, trees were down and almost every home and business had been touched by water. She also described several properties with all their belongings sitting outside on their lawns, hoping the air would dry them.

Hurricane Helene Bridge in Newport

A bridge in Newport, Tennessee, affected by the flooding of Pigeon River and the French Broad River after dams in the area overflowed due to historic rainfall from Hurricane Helene.

Since returning home, Duncan has spent most of her time volunteering at her local church, distributing supplies to those most in need.

“I think seeing all the people coming in and like, ‘Yeah, we lost everything,’ and (we) had to just get everything that we had for them — that was really hard because my family was fine, thank goodness,” Duncan said. “And I was in Knoxville, so I think it wasn’t until then that I understood — wow, there's a lot of people in the county who literally don't have anything.”

Newport isn’t the only community Hurricane Helene affected.

Mckenna Mumpower, a junior studying speech pathology, is from Swannanoa, North Carolina — a small town just outside of Asheville. Her family was not so lucky.

“My town was not warned at all really that this was going to happen. No one knew anything other than a high level of rain,” Mumpower said.

A very large tree fell on her family’s home, and it was damaged from some mild flooding. However, everyone is safe and unharmed, and the damage to her home is repairable.

Presley Poehler, a junior studying psychology from Brevard, North Carolina, said that her family was also caught off guard by the storm's devastation.

“My family had collected an extra amount of groceries and flashlights, but no one expected to run out of running water or electricity. Thankfully, the neighborhood came together to ensure everyone was supplied with resources until rescuers were able to enter the town,” Poehler said.

Beetree Road NC

The flooding and destruction of Beetree Road in North Carolina after the impact the tropical storm from Hurricane Helene that made landfall Sept. 26, 2024.

Due to the loss of cell service in western North Carolina, Mumpower and Poehler were unable to contact their families for several days, and thus far, they have not been able to return home because of school and the hundreds of roadblocks.

“The scariest part of seeing what’s happening at home and being at school was the little to no contact with my family,” Mumpower said.

Despite all the destruction Hurricane Helene has caused, the community support that has followed in its wake has given many new hope.

“I have seen community like never before,” Poehler said. “The people of western Carolina, especially Brevard, have always shared a passion for their beautiful home. … To see so much of it torn up overnight was devastating. This week has shown true love in this world — strangers have been donating thousands of dollars, volunteers are coming from across the country to help and local communities are working together to rebuild the land that we know.”

McNabb explained that a similar thing is happening in Cocke County, too. She said that churches and schools have opened their doors and offered their spaces as shelters, and restaurants that were not severely impacted have cooked and served food to people for free.

“What’s happened is horrible, but also, it's been really beautiful to watch such a small, close-knit community kind of come together and make sure everyone's OK,” McNabb said.

Hurricane Helene Highway 70 NC 4

A North Carolina Wildlife Commission team paddling through floodwaters near Highway 70 in North Carolina. 

While the destruction and rainfall caused by Hurricane Helene are a historic one-in-5,000-years event, according to the TVA, hope remains.

It will take a long time for these affected communities to be wholly restored, but progress has already been made. TVA said that it is strategically draining reservoirs to build flood barriers back up and has closed locks at Fort Loudon and Chickamauga to decrease the floodwaters as well.

The Tennessee Valley Coalition for the Homeless has implemented a mobile shower trailer in Cocke County as part of their emergency response, and Newport Utilities crews and a newly formed dive team are working to help rebuild foundations for power poles.

In the Asheville area, more than 40 food and water trailers are arriving daily, and more than 1,000 hospital staff members have been working night and day with patients at Mission Hospital.

President Joe Biden has directed the Department of Defense to deploy 1,000 active duty soldiers to help aid the North Carolina National Guard in delivering food, water and other supplies to isolated communities. Volunteers through Samaritan’s Purse are also helping to clear roads and rebuild homes across the Southeast.

In addition, the Biden-Harris Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have provided more than $20 million in aid, and former President Donald Trump has created a GoFundMe for Hurricane Helene victims that has raised over $2 million

Hurricane Helene has the ability to unite people on common ground during a time of extreme disunity and political turmoil in America, and UT has the opportunity to band together to support its students and surrounding communities.

“I have no doubt that this small part of our world will recover,” Poehler said. “And our home will once again be full of love, lush and life.”

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