3 weeks ago
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Hurricane Helene is set reach the Carolinas Thursday night, bringing “catastrophic, life threatening” flooding with 9 inches to 14 inches of additional rainfall, according to a National Weather Service advisory in Greenville, S.C. Forecasters expect the region to be inundated with significant water over the course of the evening.
“Many landslides will occur as a result, with a few large and severely damaging slope failures or debris flows are likely,” the National Weather Service warned.
Wind gusts will range from 60 mph to 70 mph in the North Carolina mountains, northeast Georgia and the western portion of upstate South Carolina. The combination of strong winds and super saturated soils is expected to bring trees down and cause widespread power outages.
Damage is predicted to compare to the Asheville floods of 1916 and exceed other extreme weather events in the region such as Tropical Storm Fred in 2021, the weather service said.
The Asheville floods occurred more than a century ago and claimed the lives of at least 80 people, causing millions of dollars worth of damage.
The Greenville weather notice asked all in the state to “heed” evacuation orders from local emergency managers and prepare to go to a storm shelter in serious weather conditions.
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