I’m an Asheville resident and was already a follower before Helene, but Geologist Philip Prince has been the man for the moment when it comes to making sense of why our landscape became such a hellscape during the storm. Thank you for continuing to add detail to the picture.
I moved from Montana into Western North Carolina 6 years ago and have been attempting to understand the topography/geology of the region. Your series have been instrumental in giving me a greater understanding of the home I have chosen. In coming East, my 1st choice was Asheville but due to various circumstances I've ended in Morganton and have been forever thankful. I feel for the folks further west. Again, thank your for your series!
Your videos have been extremely helpful in understanding the flooding and areas that were most affected. That area has been my home for 25 years. The lives of friends, acquaintances & neighbors have been forever changed. May God give them strength.
Thanks for making these videos. I was a subscriber before Helene because of my layman’s interest in geology. And as somebody who’s never been to western NC, your videos and drawings on these tragic floods really help show why these floods were so catastrophic in these areas.
Your videos are honestly some of the best content on the internet right now. I like the use of illustrations and topographical maps, and you articulate very well. I'm honestly shocked that you don't have a lot more viewers. I hope you get more exposure in the future, because videos like this one are true gems
Not one given to hyperbole, but your explanations are simply the best I've found to gain understanding of what happened and why. And your MSPaint skills very impressive. Thank you.
You do a great job of explaining the interaction of topography and weather to create an event like Helene. Your knowledge of the rivers of this part of western North Carolina is also impressive.
People don't realize how close WNC actually is to the ocean. Whenever we wanted to go to the ocean from anywhere in the area we always went to Folly Beach, SC, next to Charleston. It was a 4.5 hour drive. If we wanted to go to the Outer Banks on the Eastern seaboard of NC it was about a 7 hour drive each way! So imagine driving from Marshall, NC all the way down to the ocean is just 4.5 hour drive. Helene didn't need to drive. It just pulled ALL OF THAT WATER, crested the highest ridges and duuuuummmmped all of that water into the highest peaks and lowest valleys. The original storm was one thing. Once the water made it's way down from the ridges it was madness. Add to that the rain we already had and the debris flows and it was a catastrophe. People claiming it's man made is just nonsense. I get their disbelief, because we've always been the place everyone in the South and Southeast escape hurricanes. I would be going about my day and suddenly downtown was FULL of out of town plates and finally we would all look around and realize, "Oh, there must be a hurricane." Mid week is a weird time to suddenly see tourists pour in. We would look around and figure out where the most plates were from and base it on that until we could grab a newspaper to see what was going on. (That dates me, doesn't it? Yah, pre Internet, I know)
Enhanced isn't the same as man made. I'm a senior too and believe me, I get not wanting to entertain the idea that TPTB would do such a thing, for ANY reason. The facts are there that it's indeed possible and much as I tried to ignore it, I can't rule it out completely. I'm so sorry for what you've collectively suffered. I wish I could still say with confidence that the government I've supported my whole life had it's citizens best interests and safety as it's only imperative. Hours of independent study shows me I've been trusting past what's reasonable. This isn't inference or speculation, it's actual government documents and programs you and I aren't told about 😢
Josephine, I'm a senior too. I spent most of my life blindly trusting that the country I love was governed by people who always had my safety as it's first imperative. Enhanced isn't the same as man made. There's documents and programs that you and I haven't had wide access to until the internet. I'm so sorry this has happened to you and those around you. Other parts of our country and indeed the world have suffered catastrophic events that have, without doubt, been manipulated by an unseen force. When someone tells you what they're doing, you might want to consider they're telling the truth, however difficult that may be in your beliefs of the basic good of the majority. Praying for your area and for all of us my friend.
Man made the houses in that area, burned lots of fuel and released heat, cut the logging roads that looked like they spawned some of the slides. Surely some of all that has been happening historically but humans maybe encouraged it. Sorry for the loss, though. I have been to your town, very nice.
I am up by lake erie and some of those storms bring up the gulf air and ot smells totally different. Not so far for the storms and you are much closer.
Grateful for that initial over view of the placement of these valley and river systems within North America. Did notice that on some of the earlier videos that there was a slight presumption that folks, generally, would know where some of these place names were located. Also that, when the maps & models were rotated, it's still useful to know the orientation without a North arrow on the display. In the grand scheme it's just a minor point. Keep up these great explanations (the lectures pre-storm are also informative)
For some reason, this channel has been therapeutic for me following the storm. It brings reason to how it happened. The world seems so large, and this shrinks it a bit. Thank you for the content from WNC!
Your videos always give me a sense of understanding and I think so many of us in this expanded area of WNC, need to make sense of this storm. It was unbelievable to witness and even more so to see the devastation it left behind. We will be trying to make sense of all of this for years to come no doubt. You are a great part in helping us to understand. Thank you!
I live in Blantyre, Transylvania County, about 1 mile from the French Broad River. That river floods regularly with frontal passages, thunderstorms, but never has it ever turned my area into a lake the way it did 9/27. I’m higher than flood stage, some aren’t…I had tree damage to my house, I am lucky as many lost everything to these rivers. It also doesn’t help matters that county commissioners routinely allow construction in flood plains, all in the name of the all mighty dollar.
Those dollars mean tax revenue. We all take calculated risks that fail catastrophically at times. There is probably a vocal contingent of tax payers that want more revenue for public works. Are you part of the governing committee that makes these decisions or just an unaffected critic from afar? Why not become involved and let the governing bodies learn from your expert opinions?
@@gottasay4766 Hi - looks like the OP is affected and I’m an affected critic too. Construction tends to come from outside developers and public comments on these projects are usually so well hidden since the county obviously wants the $, we have no real way to change the course of the development.
@@gottasay4766the tediousness of government and council meetings is something that I can’t stand .. law is like sausage .. if you like it … you don’t want to see it getting made
@@ohheyitskevinc If you stay involved in your community, you’ll know what is going on in you area.Your choice. I live 1000 miles away from Helene damaged area but I live in a coastal state. If my state prohibited beachfront properties, there goes tourism and then there goes the state. I strongly disagree with your statement that “outside” developers are responsible for development. Most development has local interest or local support or local approval or local funding.. My mother always said “If you like the view, you better buy it, otherwise it will be gone.” Welcome to America.
Thanks for doing this one! I remember being one who asked for it. I pulled out a good old relief map of the Knoxville quadrant to illustrate to my daughter (tactile) how this event happened. Your videos are awesome!
Rural Burke Co resident. I have absolutely fallen in love with this channel over the last month. I have subscribed, and i have a great fascination with geology. Request: deep dive into Linville Gorge.....please?
Enjoyed. I drive a cab part time in Asheville. As a semiretired guy, I have driven alongside or over every river you mentioned, including out West of Brevard, where the French Broad looks more like the Swananowa when docile. We have a contract with Mission Hospital that can send us a 100 miles away or more. My only recomendation is to explain the color coding in the maps. I'm sure I got it right, but as a first time observer, it was not explicit as to what colors meant exactly what.
It didn't help that we'd been unseasonably dry most of the summer. Then we got a bunch of rain earlier that week that softened everything up before Helene even got here.
It's all about the terrain and population distribution. Johnson City Tennessee got the same amount of rain as Asheville North Carolina, yet Johnson City had minimal damage. Few people are in the lower elevations of the Appalachian Highlands here and the water pretty much just drained away.
Thanks for the video. I grew up in Botany Woods, which Driftwood Ct is part of. My parents still live in the neighborhood and I saw a glimpse of the destruction when I drove by the entrance to Riverbend Dr, the other street in the neighborhood on the Swannanoa River, a week after but the satellite image of the area from before and after really gives a scale to the destruction.
This is top notch content. Like a college lecture. Has me absolutely spellbound. I don't think it's necessarily your specialty but can you do a video covering the role that dams play in these river systems? There seems to be a lot of rather insidious misinformation out there saying that much of the flooding is because of dams, blaming it on the TVA, Duke Energy, the Asheville water district, etc. But when I look at the facts as I am able to discern, it seems that this is the opposite of the truth: in nearly every case where there is a dam, the flooding and destruction from Helene was much less severe downstream of the dam than what is seen upstream.
Subscribed today and have been telling lots of others about this channel. Thank you for covering how all of this devastation occurred in our beautiful mountain region.
I have learned so much from you in the last month. Thank you! I have also shared a LOT of info and clips with my sin and students. Many do find it interesting, but they have also laughed and teased me about my excitement and nerding out. They ask, "Why didn't you become a geologist?" Great question! If only we had more time.😊 Anyway, I appreciate this do much Thanks again!
Great explanation about the French Broad River and Swannanoa River drainage and why the flooding was so bad in the places where the river valleys get narrow. Maybe you have an older video explaining why the French Broad River is draining west into the Gulf instead of East into the Atlantic. That is an older geologic story, but it seems strange to have the drainage divide so far to the east of the high ridge of Blue Ridge topography here.
Thank you so much for these wonderful videos. Our school adopted a family to help in Swannanoa that was almost totally wiped out by the storm. Seeing the tremendous burm of debris at their property, I've been trying to understand how. It's like the whole bottom of the river was deposited beside their house. Debris at least 15 ft high, and multiple feet of silt and smooth river rocks. Thank you, and great work!
I live in Louisiana and am fascinated by geology, especially since the only rocks we have near New Orleans have been trucked in and purchased. You are an excellent teacher
@@TheGeoModels like, I love how clean and sterile your videos are by comparison to like, the remnants of a car, beaten to hell and back, wrapped in electrical wires, hanging suspended in the air (I guess it was carried up there by flood waters) off a telephone pole that is at 45 degrees off vertical--a scene which was present down at the end of Cane Creek road where it meets 74a. As a scientist (well, medical doctor...close enough) having had quite enough of the nonsensical unbelievable hellscapes around me, I find a lot of comfort in stuff like this video, where it's like "actually it's neither nonsensical nor unbelievable, here's a very reasonable scientific explanation for exactly WHY this crazy stuff happened."
9:36 The "funnel" effect is why New Orleans flooded so badly in Katrina, when Katrina hit Waveland in Mississipi, and not New Orleans directly. There was a shipping channel that focused the storm surge like a rifle barrel, it is called the MRGO. 9:36 this hydrology was argued in federal court, and the USACE, who cut the ship Channel, was found liable
Thank you so much for these videos. You are an excellent teacher and make me wish I had become a geologist. So informative to explain what devastation happened to my wonderful state.
Thank you very informative watching from west Wales some similar topography maybe not quite the same scale. The devastation is hard to fathom. Be well.
As global warming continues to accelerate, the added moisture content in the atmosphere does not bode well for these areas. All of us that call this land home might need to rethink where we choose to build and live. From landslides to flooding one might wonder where to go.
Don't forget the toxins all around us. It need not be a flood, other "natural" forces can be enhanced. Then there's regulatory agencies that are completely corrupted and protect businesses instead of citizens.
is there anyone like you doing topography of the pnw videos similar to this? cause i'd love to follow them too. this has been such a great education you're giving us.
Is it true that when the French Broad is so high, it acts like a dam to the Swannanoa river and backs it up even more inundating Biltmore Village area?
just glimpsing at the area i would have guessed asheville area would drain to the atlantic. so i guess the french broad must have existed before the appalacian mountain building even began? and as the mountains grew it just countinued. cutting through them? otherwise the area would have drained into the atlantic? no?
The level of destruction of Beacon village, where just 11 homes remain liveable (according to the press), suggests that this subdivision of Swannanoa which is situated close to the confluence of the North Fork Creek with the main river, may have suffered the effects of a particularly high force. This is where water released from the NFR at 12:30 pm on the 27th (confirmed by the County Briefing about the NFD) may have flowed after leaving the NF Creek, when the mechanical, automatic fusegates activated with "no possibility of manual control".
29-inches of rain. I think similar floods occurred in 1916. All feelings go out to the people, they have lost much. It's hard to say, stay strong, but the people of NC are strong.
How far down the river system did flooding have an impact? How does the impact diminish as it flows into larger rivers? Did the level at the Mississippi get impacted?
usually water flows from higher elevation mountains through narrow constrained flow channels eventually spills out onto wide open farmland. here it's opposite. wide open farm land has to get funneled into the narrow the mountain channel so it gets backed up.
Fabulous presentation again! For a curious layperson such as myself, are there any books that you would recommend on geology? Not overly technical, but I formative and interesting? Thanks
TLDR: ( I haven't watched the video at this moment ) A LOT of drainage (the FB is created by many stream branches and at least 3 major tributaries: the North, East and West Forks [as best as I can recall] and both rivers execute 90 degree turns right where they meet (just look at the map) which just backed everything up right there into Biltmore Village. I'm honestly suspicious of the Cecil's (Biltmore) in stopping modern flood mitigation efforts as it would naturally take some of their land in order to build flood walls and flood gates. Additionally, as the FB flows out of Buncombe it enters a gorge at Marshall which further backed things up. AVL is built in a natural bowl formed by the Swannanoa and the FB drainage systems. On top of a heat inversion situation that gives AVL pretty bad air quality, it's prone to floods. It's not new information, folks. The powers that be have chosen to ignore it for decades. I lived there from 2000-2012 and was there during Ivan in 2004. Actually, I was in Tampa when Ivan went through there and returned to AVL and had a hard time getting to my home on Riverview in W.AVL due to the flooding. It's not rocket science as to why because it's happened many times before. I just read an article about an attempt to install a damn on the FB by the TVA in the 60's that was defeated by 'environmentalists'. Based on how the TVA system has saved the Ridge and Valley area of the Appalachians from extreme damage by flooding in many high volume rain events for decades now including Helene, it's obvious the landowners and others who fought this back then got it wrong.
Can you do a model for the Barnardsville area. This area is along the Big Ivey River and had an extreme amount of flooding in that small area. The big Ivey feeds into the French Broad just above Marshall. Thanks,
@@TheGeoModels TVA has planned 13 dams further upstream on the French Broad and its tributaries, but local opposition shut it down in the 70's. I'm sure I would have sided with the locals because the lakes would have covered beautiful and well loved valleys. However, it's likely that the dams would have protected much of this area, just like they saved Knoxville and Chattanooga during this storm.
Fontana Lake (Little Tennessee) was drawn way down before the storms, as usual for this time of year, and got almost back up to full summer pool with all the rainfall--and that's in a drainage area that had a lot less rain. They're slowly drawing it down again but having that storage capacity also helped out the downstream areas.
With all of the Appalachian, Great Smoky Mountains, et al having such massive mountains, ridges, ravines, and valleys, there is concentrated watersheds. All of these higher angles of repose, with unstable organic layers atop the bedrock, have landslides of forests and soil into the rivers - much like a modern volcanic lahar of mud and debris flash flood. All of these ravines adding in their waters (instead of getting absorbed into the soil) these waters create their own mini-floodings that feed a positive feedback cycle of increased multiple ravines adding in their portions of flash floods, creating massive volumes of additional flash floods and flooding - that are beyond anything 100-year cycle, 500-year cycle, or a 1000-year cycle.
Are there rainfall weathermaps that show how much rain fell in a geographic location, both over 24 hour periods , and total rainfall for the storm?? To timeline when the rainfall & wind came, and which areas were hardest hit/ biggest impact wrt topography & effects.
The rain before the storm had already caused the flooding, the hurricane added more water what else could have happened but bad flood, strong winds didn't help, hills slid down, and waters came up and the debre in the water made things worse and on top of that we are talking about valleys not plains. It is easy to see why the flooding got so bad. When it spreads out it doesn't so much push as float things but when it is in a funnel type arrangement it pushes, pulls, and tears things off the land.
A flood risk management system is required. This would protect all areas of the Appalachian Mountains. This makes more sense than to continue to rebuild, and wait for the next Hurricane. This area will never be the same, what has been done since the increase in rainfall over the last 50 years to mitigate the problem?
Another informative video, but still somewhat confused. I think part of it is that I'm not visualizing some of the locations on the map, and I'm also unable to update things past 08/20/23 on Earth.
Did I hear you correctly? You can't cal the planar part of the landscape that floods a "floodplain" for fear of litigation? How is that going to help the public understanding of Earth Processes?
The north fork reservoir of the swannanoa did not release enough water before the storm that’s what swannanoa got pounded. It dumped too much all at once
The emergency evacuation of the North fork reservoir above the swannanoa River which then washed out a few lakes, and blew out a dam. Does that evacuation change the ultimate catastrophe in swannanoa?
Looking at what happened in Helene and how it scoured the geography something is clear. The flat spots that flooded in this event were formed by similar events over geography time. Time measured in millennium, epoch and era, not centuries
