Hurricane Helene

swbradley1 said:

Hugo was big but just looking at the pic not nearly as big as Helene. We go to Myrtle Beach a lot and because they are north of where it hit they got the brunt of the high wind speeds before it went inland.
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Yep. My dad owned the 7th house down the coast from the Garden City Pier. He had spent almost a year sprucing the place up - and then Hugo hit as a Cat4 or Cat5 and wiped everything from the pier down to house #24 - except his. The waves ripped out the floor in the back two rooms where he had installed sliding glass doors. Guess the first or second big wave took out the cypress flooring... It was really impressive from the road side until you walked around to the back side of the house.

Light in the Dark said:

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That'd explain it, we got maybe a quarter inch of rain over the three day event, but wind speed was sustained 30mph, gusts in the mid 40s to mid 50s, 1200-ish miles from the eye.... Crazy

Satellite image showing the dark swath created by Helene

Here is a before photo;


It is a vivid difference. Western Virginia isn't getting much press, but it seems to be pretty lights out.

All the best,

2Pbfeet

The category system for talking about these storms isn't great... That's really just tied to the wind speed, and while that's somewhat informative, is doesn't help with size. Helene was huge. Sandy was even bigger at 900 miles across, and not even a hurricane when it hit us in NJ. (nobody would get excited about a "Post Tropical Cyclone", so it's a "superstorm")
There's always the discussion of where it's coming ashore. When you're looking at several hundred miles of width, the exact point it crosses a shoreline isn't all that important. I think coastal people miss the big picture when they're a hundred or more miles away from that predicted location.

The photos of the damage are just staggering this time.

Hugo in 89 was a big storm, dumping 11 inches of rain on Toronto, Canada and finally disapating at the Arctic circle! I was in Saluda, NC for a conference from Thursday through Sunday afternoon. My house suffered no apparent damages, but the power went out around 3 Friday morning and was restored around 3 Saturday afternoon. Aiken, SC and Augusta, GA have it a lot worse right now. Ft Gordon (Eisenhower) has no drinking water and no power yet (a week after the storm came through).

Has anyone heard from Tim (Old Grouch) Chief_919 out of Clyde, NC?

UPDATE: Tim posted yesterday on Facebook

CARNAC said:

UPDATE: Tim posted yesterday on Facebook

Has anyone heard from Tim (Old Grouch) Chief_919 out of Clyde, NC?

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Fixed it for you, CARNAC

Yes, Tim and his family are OK, but the store got about three feet of water in it and they are trying to dry everything out. He is on FB and has posted pictures there.