Western North Carolina is experiencing a nearly unprecedented crisis in the wake of Hurricane Helene’s devastation. Entire counties have seen their transportation and utilities infrastructure literally washed away. While electricity and communications are being systematically restored, travel options and food supplies remain highly limited in many areas, and clean water systems may take months to rebuild. Many thousands of families are hurting.

Provide Relief

Public funds and private donations are pouring in aid as rapidly as logistics can deliver it, but much more help will be needed for months. Reliable ways to contribute with assurance that your help will reach those in need include the following:

• North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund 
• American Red Cross Hurricane Helene Relief
• Consider giving at the links on our Provide Relief to Unseen Communities page.

Concerned donors are being cautioned to verify the legitimacy of unknown fundraising campaigns that contact you before contributing to them.

Misinformation

In a disaster of this scale, misinformation quickly becomes a problem. So many unfounded rumors about aid being blocked, diverted, or confiscated have cropped up that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has created a Rumor Response page to address them. False claims about the emergency response efforts have entered the political campaigns. In public statements, Donald Trump has made claims about the federal disaster response effort that have already been conclusively debunked. NC Governor candidate Mark Robinson has made similar false claims.

Connection to Climate is Certain

While getting help to impacted communities is clearly the primary focus at this time, a robust public discussion is already underway about why the storm itself was so severe, and the damage it caused in the mountains and foothill areas so catastrophic. Some online commentary asserts that the storm had no connection to climate change—but North Carolina meteorologists respond that the connection is “certain.” 

Helene was a massive hurricane—one of the largest recorded storms to make landfall on the continental United States—and it carried an extraordinary amount of moisture, much of which dumped rapidly in volume onto the steep slopes and constricted valleys of the Appalachian mountains. The power of that massive surge of rushing water catastrophically overloaded water and stormwater pipes, blew out roads, and swept away bridges and buildings alike.

How Does Climate Change Affect Storms

How did climate change contribute to that result? It starts with the record warming (within human history) of ocean waters and atmosphere. Warm water is the “fuel” for hurricanes, and we are ending what will likely be recorded as the warmest summer on record. The eye of Helene entered the Gulf of Mexico as a diminished tropical storm. Once it began to draw on the Gulf’s superheated waters, Helene rapidly intensified, reaching hurricane Category 4 status by the time its center impacted Florida’s Big Bend area. The massive storm was able to carry such an enormous load of water because the much warmer air holds more moisture. 

Helene was the third hurricane in 13 months to take that previously unusual storm track. Unlike the previous two, however, Helene did not dawdle over the coast itself, discharging much of its moisture there. Instead, the prevailing winds allowed it to continue charging inland, until it met the mountains and colder air, where it flushed most of its extraordinary load of water. 

500-Year Storm

Helene has been called a 500-year storm for the mountain region of North Carolina, meaning that a storm of that intensity and flooding has a 0.2% chance of happening in any given year. However, climate change is increasing these probabilities. Larger, more intense storms are already occurring more frequently, and that trend is expected to continue or grow worse. 

As another relevant result, the maps which are supposed to delineate risk zones are also increasingly out of date. FEMA maps of flood zones are behind the curve of climate change, and residents haven’t yet realized the degree of added risk that they face. 

Legislature’s Head in the Sand

In addition, another factor is at work in North Carolina. Decisions by the state’s legislature over the past decade have left our housing and planning infrastructure more vulnerable to the impacts of these intensified storms. Dan Crawford, our director of governmental relations, recently discussed that history of blind-eye planning and weakened safety regulations with a reporter. 

They report:

“While North Carolina was once a national leader in renewable energy and climate change resiliency policies, that changed in the early 2010s when Republicans secured control of both chambers of the state’s legislature and a former utility company executive moved into the governor’s mansion. Since then, GOP politicians and their big-business allies have sabotaged climate resiliency projects, delayed plans to embrace renewable energy, and stonewalled efforts to prepare the state for stronger storms and a rising sea. ‘The Republican approach to climate change has been much like an ostrich with its head in the sand,’ said [Crawford]. ‘And if you’re ignoring all of these things that are happening in the world, it’s going to have effects.’” 

In short, climate denialism and legislative capture by short-sighted development special interests have combined to leave North Carolinians at high risk from the more destructive storms that are visiting our state. 

The Legislature’s Responsibility

Other analysts have made similar evaluations of the destructive anti-regulatory attitudes of the pro-polluter legislative majority over the past decade in North Carolina. A New York Times report sums up the problem thus: “Over the past 15 years, North Carolina lawmakers have rejected limits on construction on steep slopes, which might have reduced the number of homes lost to landslides; blocked a rule requiring homes to be elevated above the height of an expected flood; weakened protections for wetlands, increasing the risk of dangerous storm water runoff; and slowed the adoption of updated building codes, making it harder for the state to qualify for federal climate-resilience grants. Those decisions reflect the influence of North Carolina’s home building industry, which has consistently fought rules forcing its members to construct homes to higher, more expensive standards” or to protect environmentally sensitive areas like floodwater-absorbing wetlands.