Hurricane Helene

[bueller]

We have an aunt that lives near Ashville, NC. When we went to bed last night she texted the family that they already had gotten 13” of rain with plenty more forecasted. Had a foot of water in their basement already…


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Brother-in-law and family just moved to that area a few months ago from the Midwest. Hell of a first hurricane for them to experience.

 

[Tree Spud]

Well it looks like we have escaped any major damage. The storm did reach CAT 4 status and made landfall at Perry, FL.I was up most of the night looking and watching reports, storm conditions, etc.. so I am burnt ... very draining.

I am only going on neighbors reports and our video cams. Amazing how we were in the path, approximately 40 miles to eye upon landfall, but had low winds and about 14"-20"' of rain. I still have to get a better eye on our place to directly inspect, but so far so good.

Hopefully Big Bend and Bill's brother, and others, made it through ok.

Thanks for everyone's support!

 

[Tree Spud]

Very interesting dynamics with the hurricane. On the east side of it, winds were 130-140-mph, huge amounts of rain, and storm surges over 15'. On the west side of it, which is where we were at, neighbors only recorded winds at 20-35 mph with not much in the way of a storm surge. The storm was rotating counter clockwise and we were on the backside of the rotation. We did get a lot of rain and big wave action on the beach, but not what was happening on east side.

 

[BenA]

Very interesting dynamics with the hurricane. On the east side of it, winds were 130-140-mph, huge amounts of rain, and storm surges over 15'. On the west side of it, which is where we were at, neighbors only recorded winds at 20-35 mph with not much in the way of a storm surge. The storm was rotating counter clockwise and we were on the backside of the rotation. We did get a lot of rain and big wave action on the beach, but not what was happening on east side.

Front right quadrant is always the worst.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Just now seeing this thread, having been a bit busy since Helene started approaching and then we found ourselves out of power for 3 days (got it back last night ). Ain't going to lie... MENTALLY weathering these storms isn't for the faint of heart.

This one was as nerve wracking as any we've had since Michael (though Idalia was close). I actually started worrying about 10 day out from the storm when a few meteorologists I follow started talking about a Central American gyre system likely setting up for a future gulf hurricane. Even though there wasn't even a tropical depression formed at that time, multiple forecast models showed a strong system building and heading our way. Every darn day models wen't back and forth with windshield wiper forecasts putting the storm between 60 miles west of us to 40 or so miles east of us and also changed multiple times a day on strength going between cat 2 to cat 4.

Since moving to the Tallahassee area in 2002, only run from two storms - Idalia and Helene. I was ready to run from Michael but it shifted west enough in the final forecast that I stayed put. Idalia and Helene were identical in that both had final forecasts before landfall shifting them from cat 2 range to cat 4 and putting the forecast centerline almost directly over my place. With Idalia, I packed up the wife, daughter, and dogs into my truck and we made the drive to Dothan AL to park overnight in a Wally World parking lot. This time we decided to only go about 2/3 that distance and parked in a Wally World parking lot in Marrianna FL just over 70 miles to the west. Though super sad for folks in Perry who also bore the brunt of Idalia and Debby, I breathed a sigh of relief as I tracked it touching land east of us again. Eye actually tracked a tad closer to us than Idalia, putting us only about 15 miles to the west as the storm rode up by us. White star represents my home site.




So here's the craziest thing about Helene for us... despite close proximtiy to the eye, best I can tell I didn't lose a single healthy mature tree. Only lost some limbs and tree tops damaged by Idalia, May tornado, and Debby. Friends living just 4 miles or so east of me got far more damage with many trees down.

Guess techincally I did end up with 3 healthy trees down, but due to my cutting them in ADVANCE of the storm. When I bought our place it had 5 big tulip poplars growing close to the house. Idalia took one down (blessedly parallel to the house) so in advance of Helene I made the decision to cut down the 3 closest to the house that could potentially fall on the house and damage it. So still have quite a bit of clean up work to do.



Have cut lots of trees down in my days, but first one leaning towards a house... thanks to tractor, ropes, and patience managed to miss house and HVAC units by about 3 feet.



And as if our good fortune wasn't hard enough to believe, discovered my hometown in upstate SC near Greenville got walloped MUCH worse than my own place, and friends in Newport TN and Asheville NC are dealing with catastrophic flooding beyond belief (as guessing many of y'all have seen on news). This power outage graphic shows just how much of a punch the storm packed way, way, inland and how heavily the Carolinas got impacted. Last I heard South Carolina had recorded twice as many deaths from the storm as Florida... again, just hard to comprehend.

 

[BenA]

Glad to hear you're safe. That was smart cutting those trees down. The damage and life taken by this storm is still climbing. My son sets up and maintains communications and IT for shelters in disaster recovery situations. They sent him east of Tallahassee on Tuesday before it came through. He called yesterday saying they were still finding and pulling bodies out. They're about to send him up through Georgia and then to Asheville. There's another disturbance in the Caribbean. Let's hope that one behaves.

 

[bigbendmarine]

They're about to send him up through Georgia and then to Asheville. There's another disturbance in the Caribbean. Let's hope that one behaves.

For those who haven't seen footage of the flooding in TN and NC, this video shares quite a bit of video. Prayers that your son stays safe, BenAllgood.

 

[Foggy47]

My heart goes out to all those affected by the hurricane and storms......expecially in the SE USA. Not sure I could deal with the worrying and storm related clean up and repair these hurricanes bring. Seems each year brings more and bigger tragedies. We've been through a bad tornado or two in MN.....but that flooding destruction has to be devastating. Last report on TV says over 100 Billion in damage. 100 lost lives.....and growing.

 

[Tree Spud]

Here is what the Gulf area has experienced the last 7 years. A total of 9 hurricanes last 7 years. These are all CAT 3 or higher storms. We have experienced 4 of the hurricanes in last 4 years.

 

[Kdog]

There is one couple that lives in the condo next to ours year round and said we had about 1' in the parking deck, but it is elevated 3' above the road which of course was flooded.

We have had roughly 7" here at the house with wind around 30, and gusts up to 45. My property east of us had less rain, but have had winds around 40 with gusts up to 65.

Edit: we are getting much stronger wind now.

I just got back from a few days of helping out down there and should have stayed through the weekend/ It is much worse than I could have imagined and we actually had roughly 3' pf storm surge in the parking deck that I would guess is 15' above normal hightide. No damage inside our condo, but everything at ground level is trashed. Didn't take many pictures, but will try to post some tomorrow.

 

[Kdog]

 

[Tree Spud]

Pics did not show. What group did you with while down there and what did you do?

 

[Kdog]

Not sure what the issue is with postimage right now, but I can see them if I go to edit my post, but not when I post it.

I did not go with a group, went down to help with cleanup at our place, and we also helped out the neighborhood that is behind our condo. I should have planned better and taken a week off to help out.

 

[Kdog]

And here we go again with Milton.

 

[TenPoint]

Is that the new beach? Yikes. I can’t imagine cleaning up after these storms. Makes sitting through 30 below seem not so bad. Milton looks like a POS too. Hopefully it weakens significantly before landfall.

 

[Kdog]

That was about a mile north of our place. We did not have as much sand accumulated where we are. I have no idea what Milton will bring and expect to use a fair amount of my hunting time this year down there helping with the cleanup efforts. As of now, we have canceled all rentals at our place through mid November and sent notices of possible cancelations through the end of the year.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

What a mess. I hate sand. I’d rather bring a lounge chair to a corn field in Illinois than go to the beach so this would be my hell!
With that said what is the cleanup process for that much sand? Front end loaders and dump into dump trucks and haul to stagging areas to eventually put back on the beach? It’s not like snow that will eventually melt. You have to have a plan for that stuff

 

[BuckSutherland]

I will never ever believe that all these monster hurricanes the last 2 decades are naturally occurring. Climate change my ass...

 

[West_Fork]

I will never ever believe that all these monster hurricanes the last 2 decades are naturally occurring. Climate change my ass...

Over the years, the way that hurricanes have been observed has changed radically. As a result, many hurricanes are now recorded that would have been missed in the past. Furthermore, satellites are now able to continually assess wind speeds, thus recording peak wind speeds that may have been missed in pre-satellite days. Unfortunately, temporally inconsistent and potentially unreliable global historical data hinder detection of trends in tropical cyclone activity.

Hurricanes & climate change: detection

by Judith Curry I am preparing a new Special Report on Hurricanes and Climate Change.

judithcurry.com

 

[SD51555]

How to Steer Hurricanes, Flood Homes, and Steal Lithium

https://gregreese.substack.com/ https://banned.video/channel/greg-reese https://reesereport.com/#donate

rumble.com

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