🌧️🌪️ Tropical Storm Helene

[GordMay]

TV reporter interrupts live broadcast to rescue trapped woman during Hurricane Helene
➥ https://www.yahoo.com/news/fox-meteo...191200410.html

“... Bob Van Dillen was reporting from North Atlanta, Georgia — which has been gripped by flooding and massive gusts — when the woman could be heard frantically calling out for help from her submerged white car in his live shot.

“Oh man — it’s a situation. We will get back to you in a little bit. I’m going to go and see if I can help this lady out a little bit more you guys. I’ll be back,” Van Dillen told viewers..."

[Tenedos]

Originally Posted by caradow

Just want to personally say thank you for the brave souls in our Coast Guard!
They deserve all the love and thanks from the women and men who go to sea.

Strong +1. So very much thankful to CoastGuard and to their people and efforts.

[caradow]

[QUOTE=GordMay;3937745]Hurricane “Helene” left an enormous path of destruction, across Florida, and the entire southeastern U.S., on Friday, killing at least 44 people.
Among those killed, were three firefighters [trees struck their trucks], a woman and her one-month-old twins, and an 89-year-old woman, whose house was struck by a falling tree.

Yes all these deaths were tragic however I am going to say this anyway.

I will never understand how some people can be so ignorant to completely disregard the dire warnings with wording like "catastrophic" and "unsurvivable" and stay in their homes. Then after first responders risk their lives to save these people their first words were "gosh I didn't think it would be this bad".
There are those who for various reasons had no way to leave but there were numerous announcements stating that transportation to shelters was available.

It would be interesting to know of the 44 deaths so far what percentage could have been saved if the warnings were taken seriously.
That is the tragedy.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by caradow

...
Yes all these deaths were tragic however I am going to say this anyway.

[1] I will never understand how some people can be so ignorant to completely disregard the dire warnings with wording like "catastrophic" and "unsurvivable" and stay in their homes...

[2] It would be interesting to know of the 44 deaths so far what percentage could have been saved if the warnings were taken seriously.
That is the tragedy.

Indeed.

[1]

Originally Posted by GordMay

...
"Please write your name, birthday, and important information on your arm or leg in a PERMANENT MARKER so that you can be identified and family notified," the sheriff's office in rural Taylor County warned, in a Facebook post, to those who chose not to evacuate.
➥ https://www.facebook.com/permalink.p...00064410957245

[2]

Originally Posted by GordMay

...
Among those killed, were three firefighters [trees struck their trucks] ....

[GordMay]

Weather radar showed a strange blue mass in the eye of Hurricane Helene. What was it?
➥ https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/37...scover_science

[GordMay]

“Helene” killed, at least, 132 people, across six states [North Carolina: 56,
South Carolina: 30, Georgia: 25, Florida: 13, Tennessee: 6, & Virginia: 2]. One North Carolina county, that includes the mountain city of Asheville, reported 30 people killed.
There are also, many more who are lost, or unaccounted for, due to the hurricane [at least 600 in Asheville, alone].

Nearly 638,000 customers were without power in South Carolina, and almost 474,000 others in Georgia were without electricity on Monday evening, per poweroutage.us.*
Nearly 379,000 in N.C., almost 75,000 in Virginia and over 70,000 in Florida also had no power.

* Electric Customers Without Power ➥ https://poweroutage.us/

“In photos: 6 states reel from Hurricane Helene's destruction”
➥ https://www.axios.com/2024/09/30/hur...-damage-photos

[GordMay]

So far, Hurricane Helene has killed at least 162 people, across the Southeast. Unfortunately, that might be just the beginning of the deaths and suffering, caused by the storm.

A new study [1], out Wednesday, says that hurricanes, and tropical storms, are far deadlier, than initial death tolls suggest.

According to the study [1], an average U.S. tropical cyclone indirectly causes 7,000 to 11,000 excess deaths, far more than the dozens or hundreds of deaths officially attributed to storms.

In all, scientists estimate tropical storms, since 1930, have contributed to between 3.6 million and 5.2 million deaths in the U.S.
Those additional deaths come from indirect causes, in the years following the event, according to the research.

Incredibly, the researchers estimate 25% of infant deaths, and 15% of deaths among people aged 1 to 44, in the U.S., are related to tropical cyclones.

[1] “Mortality caused by tropical cyclones in the United States” ~ by Rachel Young & Solomon Hsiang
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07945-5

[GordMay]

Missing after Helene: The impossible rescue mission in North Carolina” ~ by CBC’s ‘About That’
Video [9:36] ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6526359
Hundreds of people are still missing in North Carolina days after Hurricane Helene ripped across the U.S. Southeast. Andrew Chang explains why so many people are unaccounted for, and why it's so hard for rescue teams to find them.


Helene survivors in North Carolina face uncertain future without flood insurance
Video [2:01] ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6526841

[GordMay]

The death toll, from ‘Helene’, has soared to [at least] 215, across six states. At least 72 of those were in hard-hit Asheville, and surrounding Buncombe County, from flash floods, mudslides, falling trees, crumbled roads and other calamities.

Scientists, with the National Weather Service, and the National Hurricane Center, began sounding the alarm, as early as Sept. 23.
On September 26, the NWS warned [on Twitter - X]: “URGENT MESSAGE: This will be one of the most significant weather events to happen in the western portions of the area in the modern era. Record flooding is forecasted and has been compared to the floods of 1916 in the Asheville area.”

But, despite advancements in the science of forecasting*, and the introduction of smartphones, that can deliver accurate warnings, directly to users, the urgency of such warnings, can often get lost in rapid-fire social media feeds, or be undercut, by widespread skepticism, of the government and the media.

Part of the challenge, for authorities and forecasters, is communicating the links between extreme weather and climate change. That has made even apolitical groups, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA], and the National Weather Service [NWS], a target, of some conservatives. [5]
Remember: “If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...”
It’s a government surveillance drone.

Climate change is intensifying storms, because higher ocean temperatures act as fuel, and a warmer atmosphere allows for heavier rain, over land. For every 1 degree Fahrenheit of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 4% more moisture. [2]

Scientists are exploring what role climate change played in Hurricane Helene and have shared some early results.
One group found Helene was up to 20% wetter, in parts of the Southeast as a result of global warming. [3]
Another estimated that climate change caused some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas to get 50% more rain, and that the rainfall totals were made up to 20 times more likely, because of climate change. [4]
The estimates are preliminary, but both rely on respected scientists, using methods that have been peer-reviewed, previously.

A hurricane is normally thought of as a coastal problem, but now we’re finding that these climate-driven events can make weather more intense, farther away from the typical impact spots, that one might think.

* “A Brief History of the [NOAA] Storm Prediction Center” ~ by Stephen Corfidi
➥ https://www.spc.noaa.gov/history/early.html

[2] “Climate Change and Inland Flooding” ~ Climate Central
➥ https://www.climatecentral.org/clima...nland-flooding

[3] “2024/09/26-27 Hurricane Helene” ~ by Climameter
➥ https://www.climameter.org/20240926-27-hurricane-helene

[4] “Climate change may have caused as much as 50% more rainfall during Hurricane Helene in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas” ~ by Mark Risser et al
➥ https://drive.google.com/file/d/14oq...EcsxSHfUj/view


[5] Speaking at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, former president Trump pushed a conspiracy theory, that man-made climate change is a myth.
“No but think about this,” Trump said. “They never talk about the environment anymore. You know why?”
He concluded: “It’s one of the greatest scams of all time… people aren’t buying it any more."

Project 2025, a conservative policy roadmap for another Trump term, includes language that calls NOAA a part of the “climate change alarm industry” and that it “should be broken up and downsized.”

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by GordMay

...A new study out Wednesday, says that hurricanes, and tropical storms, are far deadlier, than initial death tolls suggest...

That's an interesting concept. Make sense that bad things continue to happen even after the storm has passed.

I imagine a lot of the increase over time can be attributed to higher population densities in the areas affected. I was actually in S. Florida during Camille. I can assure you it's a very different region today.

Originally Posted by GordMay

...the urgency of such warnings, can often get lost in rapid-fire social media feeds, or be undercut, by widespread skepticism, of the government and the media.

Darwin at work? Just sayin'

[GordMay]

“Helene” is the deadliest hurricane, to hit the mainland U.S., since “Katrina”, in 2005.
The confirmed death toll, from Hurricane ‘Helene’, reached 227, on Saturday, as the grim task, of recovering bodies, continues.
It’s still unclear, how many people are unaccounted for, or missing, and the toll could rise even higher.