ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Before Hurricane Helene’s landfall last week, the National Weather Service began an all-out blitz to alert emergency planners, first responders and residents across the Southeast that the storm’s heavy rains and high winds could bring disaster hundreds of miles from the coast.
Warnings blared phrases such as “URGENT,” “life threatening” and “catastrophic” describing the impending perils as far inland as the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. Smartphones buzzed with repeated push alerts of flash floods and dangerous winds. States of emergency were declared from Florida to Virginia.
And the weather service reached back to 1916 for a precedent, correctly predicting Helene would rank among the “most significant weather events” the Asheville, North Carolina, area had ever seen. But the red flags and cataclysmic forecasts weren’t enough to prevent the still-rising death toll . The number has soared to at least 215 across six states.
At least 72 of those were in hard-hit Asheville and surrounding Buncombe County from flash floods, mudslides, falling trees, crumbled roads and other calamities. “Despite the dire, dire predictions, the impacts were probably even worse than we expected,” said Steve Wilkinson, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service’s regional office in Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina. “We reserve this strong language for only the worst situations,” he said.
“But it’s hard to .
