The New Normal: Hurricanes Deadliest 100s of Miles Inland
Hurricane Helene struck the United States last week, causing widespread damage across multiple states in the Southeast. Recent reports have the death toll at 162 with hundreds of people still unaccounted for. When we think of deaths and property damage caused by hurricanes we traditionally picture images of gale-force winds pounding homes on the coast in Florida, where hurricanes most frequently make landfall, or approach nearest to it, in the continental US. Once a hurricane crosses over land its winds lose strength. Typically this is thought of as the end of the worst; that the danger has passed. But what Helene has showed us, along with the path of devastation wrought by other hurricanes in the past few years, is that some of the worst damage is now caused by huge amounts of rain, and the impact of this can extend 100s of miles in from the coast.
Consider the breakdown by state of the figure of 162 storm-related deaths given by this CBS News article updated a few hours ago (1 Oct 2024, 8:42pm EDT): 77 in North Carolina, 36 in South Carolina, 25 in Georgia, 14 in Florida, 8 in Tennessee, and 2 in Virginia. The deadliest place was North Carolina. And BTW those deaths are not in coastal North Carolina, where hurricanes sometimes do make landfall, but in far western NC, up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in towns like Asheville and Boone. These towns are not only hundreds of miles from the coast but also at elevations from 2,000' to 3,500'.
Part of this is the changing profile of hurricanes driven by climate change. As average temperatures warm, especially as average sea water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea warm, hurricanes forming in the region absorb more water into the air. This means when they lash rains out across the land, there's heavier rainfall. Western North Carolina, for example, got more than 12 inches of rain in one day. Rain at that level far from the coast is disastrous, and the infrastructure and the land itself cannot handle it. Rivers flood, overtopping their banks flooding entire towns. Bridges and roads are destroyed. Lakes flood and destroy nearby homes. Reservoirs become dangerously overfull and dam breaks become a real risk.
It's not just parts of the country hundreds of miles from the coast facing new risks from torrential hurricane-fueled rains. Houston in the last several years has experienced multiple hurricanes that caused widespread flooding. From 2017 record-breaking Hurricane Harvey to Hurricane Beryl just a week ago, the biggest source of damage has not been gale force winds; in fact, these hurricanes have been relatively mild in the wind department. What's caused so much devastation has been how much rain they've dropped. Harvey dropped 50 inches of rain on Houston over the course of several days.
This is the new face of hurricane damage nowadays. It's no longer the classic image of a ramshackle cottage next to the coast being blown down by strong winds but a city, possibly hundreds of miles inland, seeing its streets and neighborhoods flood from rain waters, highways and bridges rendered unusable, and public services such as electricity and phone lines cut off. All due to simply to overwhelming amounts of rain.
Consider the breakdown by state of the figure of 162 storm-related deaths given by this CBS News article updated a few hours ago (1 Oct 2024, 8:42pm EDT): 77 in North Carolina, 36 in South Carolina, 25 in Georgia, 14 in Florida, 8 in Tennessee, and 2 in Virginia. The deadliest place was North Carolina. And BTW those deaths are not in coastal North Carolina, where hurricanes sometimes do make landfall, but in far western NC, up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in towns like Asheville and Boone. These towns are not only hundreds of miles from the coast but also at elevations from 2,000' to 3,500'.
Part of this is the changing profile of hurricanes driven by climate change. As average temperatures warm, especially as average sea water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea warm, hurricanes forming in the region absorb more water into the air. This means when they lash rains out across the land, there's heavier rainfall. Western North Carolina, for example, got more than 12 inches of rain in one day. Rain at that level far from the coast is disastrous, and the infrastructure and the land itself cannot handle it. Rivers flood, overtopping their banks flooding entire towns. Bridges and roads are destroyed. Lakes flood and destroy nearby homes. Reservoirs become dangerously overfull and dam breaks become a real risk.
It's not just parts of the country hundreds of miles from the coast facing new risks from torrential hurricane-fueled rains. Houston in the last several years has experienced multiple hurricanes that caused widespread flooding. From 2017 record-breaking Hurricane Harvey to Hurricane Beryl just a week ago, the biggest source of damage has not been gale force winds; in fact, these hurricanes have been relatively mild in the wind department. What's caused so much devastation has been how much rain they've dropped. Harvey dropped 50 inches of rain on Houston over the course of several days.
This is the new face of hurricane damage nowadays. It's no longer the classic image of a ramshackle cottage next to the coast being blown down by strong winds but a city, possibly hundreds of miles inland, seeing its streets and neighborhoods flood from rain waters, highways and bridges rendered unusable, and public services such as electricity and phone lines cut off. All due to simply to overwhelming amounts of rain.