News continues to come in post-Helene now, and to give us an update, we turn to Corey Davis from the State Climate Office of North Carolina. Let’s start with the bad news first.
“Yeah, that’s right, Mike. In North and South Carolina, the death toll continues to rise after Helene. Now that’s not a surprise. We know what the devastation was like in the western part of both states. So coming up, but already in North and South Carolina, Helene has become the deadliest hurricane on record. In South Carolina, death toll is now at 49 that surpassed the death toll from Hurricane Hugo back in 1989 and in North Carolina, as of Wednesday this week, the governor’s office has confirmed 88 deaths. So that goes beyond the reported deaths from that July 1916 storm that hit the same parts of the state, in the mountains, but again, those numbers already passed anything we’ve seen before, and expected to continue going up as that damage assessment continues.”
There is some good news to this. Let’s talk about flood levels right now.
“Yeah, you know we saw those record river levels, especially in the Asheville area along the French Broad River and the Swannanoa River. Well, that was just two weeks ago, and already those rivers have now come back down out of their flood stage all across the western part of North and South Carolina. So you think back some of the other storms we’ve had this season, like Tropical Storm Debby back in August, it took a couple weeks for some of those coastal gauges to really see those levels drop down out of flood stage. But that is one bit of good news after Helene here, we have seen the river levels come down. So again, just giving more time, more ability for folks to get out and help with that cleanup and assessment process, and I’m sure some of the dry weather we’ve had since the storm has really been a blessing in those areas. They haven’t had to worry about the rain, they haven’t had to worry about even more flooding. It’s just given a chance for those levels to come down and for that process to start.”
Yeah, that’s good news. We’re starting to get some crop updates to to find out the impact of Helene. What have you heard and seen?
“Mike, we talked the week that Helene was coming in about how it was just awful timing, especially for the cotton growers. It was the time of year where they’re starting to defoliate their crops, that the crops weren’t quite far long enough yet to really start harvesting, and Helene was sitting right in the middle of that window. And the reports we’re getting, especially from South Carolina this week, are telling us exactly that, is that the cotton is in pretty rough shape. A lot of areas it looks like it may be a total loss. There’s cotton fields that were just totally flattened by the wind or flooded by the heavy rain, and then even some of the cotton bowls that had already opened are just tangled and twisted. Not a lot there that’ll be harvestable. So there’s concerns about both the quality and the quantity of the cotton based on what’s happened with this storm.”
How about livestock? What are you hearing about that we know a lot of livestock was lost.
“Yeah, that’s always a concern, especially in these flood affected areas. Of course, we’ve seen that happen in eastern North Carolina after storms like Floyd and Matthew and Florence. But important to note that there is still a lot of livestock production in the western part of the state as well, especially with cattle. For one, knowing how widespread the power outages were during and after Helene, that meant that the dairy cows really couldn’t get milked using that machinery that rely on electricity. But also, we know that livestock that sit out in the fields in those floodwaters are at more risk of diseases. That’s one of those things that could add mortality, not just now, but several months down the road, as those impacts become clearer. One other thing to note is that in eastern North Carolina, where the winds were not quite as strong from Helene, the cotton there is in better shape. We’re seeing more than 90% of the cotton there reported in at least fair condition, and also the soil moisture continues to be pretty good across eastern North Carolina. So I think South Carolina definitely took the brunt of the storm’s damage in terms of ag impacts. But we also know for far-western North Carolina, again, things like vineyards, apple orchards, pastures, all those are going to suffer a pretty big hit because of the wind and the flooding from Helene.”