Residents trapped, I-40 closed at NC-Tennessee line as hundreds of thousands remain without power

Helene will end up being one of the most significant weather events of the modern era in western North Carolina, verifying messaging from the National Weather Service distributed to the public on Thursday.

The guidance served as a stern warning for North Carolinians in the mountains, with flood totals projected to be comparable to the 1916 flood in the Asheville area. The complete scope of the damage may not be fully realized yet, but it’s becoming clear Helene was a historic storm.

The official rain gauge in Asheville stopped collecting at one point on Friday morning. Even with that, the 12.17 inches of rain recorded over a three-day period was the largest three-day total on record in the city with data having been stored since 1879.

Weather officials with the Greenville-Spartanburg bureau of the NWS warned the public about the potential impact being greater than that of Tropical Storm Fred, which caused at least five deaths in 2021 in Haywood County.

According to Rutherford County EMS, more than 25 people were rescued from flood waters.

Rutherford County EMS also said the Lake Lure Dam was no longer at risk of imminent failure and flood waters were receding. Some areas saw record-breaking storm surge from several areas in the mountains as Helene moved through.

“This is one of the worst storms in modern history for western North Carolina,” Gov. Roy Cooper said. “Turn around, don’t drown. We have lost too many North Carolinians to driving through floodwaters.”

The National Weather Service declared a flash flood emergency for much of the area Friday morning. According to WRAL meteorologist Chris Michaels, flash flood emergencies are extremely rare.

“It’s pretty rare. In 2023, less than 1% of all flash flood alerts in the country were flash flood emergencies,” Michaels said. “It’s because we’ve seen close to 1 foot of rain in Asheville.”

The flash flood emergencies are continuing in multiple western North Carolina counties on Saturday.

Flooding sweeps away I-40 near NC-Tennessee line

Authorities with the North Carolina Department of Transportation closed Interstate 40 at the North Carolina-Tennessee line. According to NCDOT, I-40 had “several road failures within a four-mile stretch” along the Tennessee border.

“We do have detours in place, and we don’t have a timeline for repairs yet,” an NCDOT spokesperson said.

Earlier in the day, NCDOT told residents to consider all roads in the area closed due to flooding. Linda Pryor, a farmer, said she has not seen flooding like this in her lifetime.

“I remember my parents talking about a flood in 1916 and it was a very similar scenario where it was two systems back-to-back,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve experienced that first hand.”

Officials at UNC Asheville said the flooding compromised school safety and infrastructure around the campus. According to the school, the university is experiencing the following:

• No electricity.
• No water.
• No cell service, or the ability to send or receive text messages.
• Dangerous conditions due to fallen trees and limbs.
• Damaged trees.
• Downed powerlines.
• Unstable saturated soldier.

“Our immediate attention is on supporting the life and safety of our students,” a spokesperson for the university said. “We will provide an update on campus operations by tomorrow morning, Saturday, Sept. 28, so students that can travel home can do so when it’s safe and in the daylight.”

Helene caused several events for Appalachian State University’s parents’ weekend to close as students braced for the storm. The school’s football game on Saturday was also canceled.

Tropical Storm Helene kills two in NC

As of Friday afternoon, two people died from Helene in North Carolina.

One person died when a tree fell on a home in northwest Charlotte early on Friday morning. Another person was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. WCNC reports this is the first known Helene-related death in the Charlotte area.

In Catawba County, 4-year-old girl died and three other children were taken to the hospital after two vehicles collided heavy rain.

Widespread outages sweep through NC mountain towns

Cooper said while he has been able to contact some town officials, cellphone service is still out in several areas in the western part of the state and widespread outages have made it difficult for people to tell loved ones that they are okay.

“There’s not a way for a lot of people to communicate,” Cooper told WRAL News.

Some areas in the mountains saw wind gusts around 70 and 80 mph. Cooper said the winds have been so strong that representatives with AT&T and Verizon have had difficulty restoring cell service and power in the area.

“There are some problems people are having in that winds are just to high for them to be able to get to their equipment,” Cooper said. “I have told them what we are hearing from people in western North Carolina, so they are working to try and restore service to people as quickly and safely as they can.”

According to poweroutage.us, more than 700,000 customers were still without power in the western region of the state on Saturday morning. Duke Energy said it’s closely monitoring the projected track of Helene as the hurricane makes its way to North Carolina.

Duke Energy said it plans to use self-healing technology to help restore power.

“It automatically detects power outages and then reroutes power to other lines to help restore service faster for customers,” Duke Energy representative Jeff Brooks said. “This is like a GPS for the power grid. It looks for alternate ways to reroute power.

“It doesn’t take the tree off the line or fix the broken pole; we still need our utility crews to do that. But it can reduce the number of customers impacted by the outage by as much as 75%.”

You can report power outages on Duke Energy’s website or through the mobile app; you can also text OUT to 57801 or call 1-800-769-3766.

To see which areas are experiencing outages in real time, go to outagemap.duke-energy.com.

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Several residents already battered from rain before Helene’s arrival

Conditions began deteriorating Thursday afternoon. with several areas dealing with flooding before Helene moved through the mountains.

Rain has been hammering western North Carolina since Wednesday afternoon, with some areas reporting seeing tornadoes. Rachel Aranson, an Asheville resident, said the rain made it difficult to tell the difference between the river and the road.

“It’s crazy,” she said. “The river just completely turns into the sidewalk and into the street. I can’t imagine how deep it’s going. I’ve never seen it this deep before.”

Torin Kexel, the owner of the Flying Bike tour company, has already removed everything from his storefront as Asheville prepares for flooding the town hasn’t seen since the early 20th century.

“From what I’m hearing, the flood is going up to 1916 levels, which is above our basement windows,” he said. “Our space might be submerged.”

Businesses around the area closed up shop days earlier as the town is told residents to shelter in place Thursday night.

“We’ve had to give thousands of dollars in refunds this weekend, and we have to move all this stuff,” Kexel said. “So, it’s renting trucks, getting people here; all of that. If this place floods, then we might be out of a home for the foreseeable future.”

Christina Sanchez was visiting Asheville for the first time this week, a trip that is now cut short.

“The street is flooded. The dock has lifted in the air [and] there are rails underneath the water,” she said. “It’s crazy.”

‘This is going to be a crisis’

The mayor of Canton, Zeb Smathers, said he was mostly worried about flash flooding and mudslides, adding it brought back memories of Tropical Storm Fred.

“I’m going to lose a lot of sleep the next few nights,” he said. “We have been preparing for this storm since Sunday,” Smathers said. “Right now, it’s about making sure lives are taken care of… because we know this storm is coming.”

Smathers added he was concerned that neighboring cities and towns are not prepared for Helene.

“We’re afraid this storm is so massive [and] so dangerous to the entire region, especially west of Canton, that our sister cities and towns may not be prepared,” he said.

Smathers and other officials in mountain towns urged residents to prepare for the worst.

“This is going to be a crisis for the entire region,” he said. “If you are near a body of water or stream bed, anywhere in western North Carolina, please take precautions, heed advice of emergency services, use common sense and check on your neighbors.”