Hey Phillip, I just wanted to comment because Me and 3 other were inside my house on Geneva drive just in front of the trout farm when this debris flow occurred. Julie le Roux was in the house with us. It was Myself, my fiancé, John and Julie. We were directly in the middle of the path and it took us about a quarter mile down and deposited us and the remains of our home into a bank. The 3 of us that survived spent about 14 hours seeking warmth and self medical care until swift water rescue was able to get us down. We were in the hospital over a week. But today the 3 of us are mostly healed, my fiancé is awaiting a surgery for her knee next week. We have absolutely no idea how we are alive. But this video helps us make so much more sense of how and why this happened to us. I will never be able to describe the horror of that day and the moments before the flow hit us.
Oh wow Andrew. I can not imagine how frightening that must have been for all of you. Sorry your friend Julie didn't make it. Keeping you all in my prayers 🙏 ❤️🩹
@@outsidebluesky3 thank you. It's a very very long road to recovery. We deeply miss Julie. She was an incredible person to know. We are thankful to be alive but question everyday how we are. I've never seen destruction in my life like what happened on that mountain.
@@SapphiresNC thank you. She was an incredible person in every way. We don't understand how we are alive. I've never seen anything anywhere that matches the destruction of what happened on that mountain.
Sending well wishes and many condolences your way. I grew up in the area and feel like events like this could have very easily happened to my parents who still live there. Glad you're safe.
I lived on Buck Creek and survived the storm. Ours was the first house hit by the slide along with the trout farm. We were so lucky to get out alive with our dogs. I so appreciate this video and it helps to understand better.
I walked through there the day after from Busick. You might be the person that sent a message to my wife saying I was ok. My thoughts have been with you guys every day. I was heartbroken to see our area. Love you guys
I didn't expect a geologist and a paramotorist to be two of my most watched channels in 2024, but here we are. Excellent video again, Philip. I hope you and Mark may find the opportunity to meet in person one day. Y'all continue to do great work!
I've been watching them both since before the storm, and I'm not at all surprised how much their coverage has since taken off. Two great, interesting and genuinely caring personalities!
This report rings the clear bell of the reasons why such destruction was ripe. For me it gave me the best perspective to grasp what, how and why it all happened.
@ 6:30 mark. My brother helped manage that trout farm for 10 years. He was in his trailer on the farm as the debris flow occurred. He was miraculously not physically harmed but his trailer, vehicle and all of his personal belongings were taken by Helene. The entire farm was claimed by Helene
@@TheGeoModels he was actually about to vacate and move to higher ground. He had already hiked his dog uphill to safety and had come back to collect his phone and his wallet and a few other personal items, and he realized he needed to go to the bathroom. Looking at pictures of the trailer later that hallway and bathroom were the only portions of the structure that weren’t torn to shreds. I am so thankful the old boy heeded natures call, but question is can you qualify that as divine intervention, or not. I suppose the lord truly does work in mysterious ways
When I was a kid in St. Louis County Missouri I worked the fields of a farmer who had prime crop land along the Missouri River. What made it prime land was that every few year it would flood leaving a foot or two of silt on it. Never had to fertilize the fields because nature constantly renewed the soil for that curve in the river. It was ever changing ground but about the time I quit working for him, they put a levy between him and the river changing the conditions that his family had taken advantage of for many generations. Wasn't long and that ground was sold for factories and warehouses and it was never farmed again. Nature left alone always makes the land change. Some for good and some for bad but it never stays stagnant. We try to control it but that often does not succeed. That levy has been topped more than once since then. Sorry this seems off topic but for me it seem relevant. That farmer's family built the home and barns on top of a hundred foot high ridge out of the flood plain. Not the most convenient but the most sensible place to put it. The fields never got deeper than ten feet in human memory but build on high ground. Higher than need be if possible.
@@markpashia7067 This point you make is vital for many people to understand. So many believe the world is "conquered" by man. This is just simply not the case. How are mountains shaped? By ice, tectonics and floods. As long as we exist in a dynamic system, change is the only constant. This was a travesty to human life, but this is the expected result when a very strong storm system sits in one place for days, only for a tropical storm to follow it up. A magnificent act of nature, but I have been all around those mountains; people have trailers set up beside literal waterfalls in extremely tight hollers. That is playing with fire in a subtropical environment.
Great video. My heart breaks for the family that runs buck creek trout pond. Great people. I’ve been dealing with my own problems on the other side of the mountain and haven’t even thought of buck creek until I watched this video. May God bless them and help them.
This report rings the clear bell of the reasons why such destruction was ripe. For me it gave me the best perspective to grasp what, how and why it all happened.
Thank you for posting this information. It’s stunning. I was in S Asheville when this hit and use the word ‘ferocious’ when I describe the wind and rain we saw. I cannot imagine what was happening at the top of these ridge lines where most of the wind and precipitation occurred.
@@TheGeoModels Yep. I’ve lived here 30 years. Hiked a couple of hundred miles in the GSMNP and the area. Occasionally I have come across signs of violent water flow. Usually grass hanging in trees many feet off the creek centerline. Hurricane Fred was the first true demonstration of a debris flow I have examined. The area upstream of Skinny Dip Falls on the Yellowstone Prong was damaged heavily.
@@Gr8ca9Skinny Dip falls itself, and much of the downstream area was also deeply impacted. I hiked a bit of the trail down to the trailhead on 276. It was such a powerful storm. It made Skinny Dip Falls unrecognizable. So many of the beautiful smaller waterfalls were forever changed as well. One area took at least 10ft of soil out from behind a sloped rock that used to be part of the trail up the creek/stream. Powerful examples of what extreme water flow can do.
Interesting video, I live in Watauga across the street from one of the large landslides in our area. It took out our power lines, crews are still working so people have access to their homes. The road was under 12 feet of mud, rock, and trees. Spoke to the farmer that saw it come down. His rain gauge was at 24” for the day before it rolled down around 11am, sounded like a freight train.
I believe it. Can you tell me roughly where you're located (not after an address; just a road or intersection or something or nearby church so I can find where it is)? It's amazing and scary how much stuff comes out of the mountain with one of these.
@@TheGeoModels hello, Vanderpool intersection with Linda lane in Vilas NC 28692. The slide started near the top if the mountain above Linda lane and stopped maybe 300 meters before reading Vanderpool.
@@russellharp8761 I thought from stories heard that the train sound could have been a tornado on the ridge. On the other side of Hwy 421 in cove creek/sugar grove it looks like they had a tornado or straight line winds as there is a path of trees gone. Hwy 321 at that location turned into a river and even cut off the FD.
We are literally seeing geological change happen in real time. Thank you for another amazing geology lesson. Will you be doing another video about the Burnsville area? It was pretty much destroyed, I heard.
This really reminds me of some things I saw on a recent trip to Washington. I climbed Mt. St. Helens there, and from the Crater Rim, you could see the North Fork Toutle, still carved, scarred and littered with debris and dead trees. The size of this debris flow is not quite as big as some lahars get, but some of the videos from the St. Helens lahars really give a good picture of what debris flows like this look like.
When you say it scours the creek, that's one thing I've noticed in the larger riverbeds etc or anywhere like Buck Creek that was hit so hard. It's down to the bed rock now. Honeycutt video's show it very well. It's like everything was pushed to the side or down the creeks or rivers leaving behind the flat bedrock. It's scary to know so much was pushed down all of these creeks and rivers! I appreciate you videos. It's knowledge we all need who have been affected by Helene.
@@TheGeoModels I think, because of what you show, that it is one of the biggest reasons for so much destruction. Water of course, but load it down with boulders and debris and goodness. The creekbed near us went from 20 ft wide to 100+ and the debris everywhere is unbelievable. It will take years to fix things and rivers and creeks are rerouted until the next flood.
To me the question may be (on a national scale), how much should government at all levels support reconstruction of capital improvements (roads, bridges power, communication, water) knowing full well within a fertsin time frame, destruction will reoccur. Then you add on top of the C.I.P. public investments, "if you build it, they will come..." (the fsmous freeway anology). So the question becomes should the public encourage redevelopment or should it reflect upon the natural liabilties and rethink investments...maybe limiting them or abandoning them all together in the affected areas (becoming no build areas). Yes, its heart-breaking to see private investments destroyed, lives lost. Nature is relentless. 😢
I hiked out from Busick NC to Marion the next day. This area is just gone. Heartbreaking. People were missing and people hurt in their houses. I will never forget the people I met coming down.
Mark was climbing over boulders the size of cars, mixed with huge tree rootballs, tangled tree trunks and there right in front of him is a rattler sunning itself on a huge boulder. Wow, it's challenging climbing that mess.
I saw that video! He saw a bear at close range too, staring at him through the brush - while he was sitting down having lunch. I'm amazed at how calm he remains in those dicey situations. His videos of various areas post-Helene are just amazing and so well done. A real-world perspective of GeoModels' informative videos. He clambers through all that wreckage like it's nothing at all!
Yes for all the dislocation of humans, wildlife is equally impacted and displaced. I remember hurricane events south of Houston, Tx that had all sorts of snakes and gators out of place and in populated areas they would normally avoid. That was a big fear of mine after flooding events and such. Just what was I going to stumble across during clean up afterward. Be safe out there folks. Head on a swivel and eyes everywhere. And do not forget to look up!!! So many widow maker trees after these events. Easy to get focused on your feet and make a fatal mistake with overhead dangers. If the area is home to big cats of any type looking up is doubly needed. They are finding new safe spaces too.
@@luckyotter623 i really worry for honeycutt. he's out there crawling around in amongst all kinds of perilous terrain, all by himself, with nobody to go for help if he were to get injured.
@@markpashia7067 As far as I know, the only wildcats in the southern Appalachians are bobcats. There've been rumors of mountain lion sightings (and they used to be here until they were all killed off about 100 yrs ago) but nothing official.
@@luckyotter623 Even bobcat is reason to look up when hiking AFTER such a dislocating event like this. If their home got flooded out, if they lost a partner or a litter, if they are hungry, they can act in weird ways. Just be safe out there folks.
Geology has been a hobby of mine for most of my life, and I have been fascinated watching your videos on the impact of the massive rains through the Appalachians reminds me a lot of what happened in the Rockies and coastal mountings in British Columbian, Canada in 2021. First a heat dome caused some of the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Canada, which led to massive wildfires though the mountains, and when fall and winter came along with their rains, the lack of trees caused massive mudslides which caused very similar damage to the damage caused by Hurricane Helene recently. In BC, the all of the east/west land links between the BC coast and the rest of Canada were servered by the mudslides. Seeing the floods and landslides caused by Helene looked eerily similar.
I'm also from BC and have been reminded of the same thing, remembering footage of someone's house being washed away up in the mountains. And just recently, the atmospheric river dropped something like 240 mm on the mountains in Coquitlam, killing that teacher when the landslide hit. Not like the destruction after Helene, but with the 2021 flood it could have been. I think only accidents of geography and a smaller population helped keep the casualty numbers down in the mountains.
Great video as always. I hiked up the Flume slide in the WMNF a month ago and this helps put into perspective how it and a lot of the slides in the WMNF and Adirondacks were formed.
Wolfjaw Brook and Benny's Brook in the Adirondacks are what came to mind for me. They're on Lower Wolfjaw about 500 m and 1 km east of the John's Brook ranger station. Both were denuded by hurricanes in recent years.
Thanks for another great explanation. The illustration of the scouring of the channels was very helpful. It looked a lot like the channels that Mark Huneycutt hiked and flew his drone over. It was also very interesting to see the old debris flows channel nearby. Seems like someone could determine the age of trees in the paleo channel and get at least a minimum age for the scouring.
Thank you so much for doing this video. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of your videos, as a layperson appreciator, whitewater paddler and resident of the area. As someone who lives on Buck creek (below the lake), this was especially meaningful for me to watch. Somehow, understanding it better gives me a sense of “closure” to all the damage and loss.
amazing area. enjoyed working up there. it has a dramatic landslide history, and this is just another installment with terrible human consequence. these flows were big.
Thank you so much for these videos! So much to learn about the terrain and what we can do going forward. My dad near Fairview finally got internet back today, and I have sent him links to all your previous stuff.
Thank you so much for this explanation. Drawings were excellent and very easy to understand with your presentation. So sorry for the people affected by this storm.
I saw this debris flow with my own eyes. Anything North of Lake Tahoma is pretty much gone. That little creek became a 100+ yard wide monster in some places. Multiple RV parks were destroyed plus the hatchery.
Thank you for these videos about the Helene flooding in Appalachia, it helps to give understanding especially (and hopefully) to those who have criticized how and where roads and homes, businesses are built in this region. It is indeed very rugged terrain involving thousands of square miles. Myself and my family and friends mostly from this region, specifically McDowell, Mitchell, Buncombe, Yancey and Burke counties in NC as well as eastern TN and northeast GA. We love our region, it's home to us and has been for generations.
Thank you for illustrating this and explaining this the way you did. You’ve helped so many people that I’m able to connect with understand why this situation is so serious.
I’m sure you’ve read John McPhee’s 1989 book “The Control of Nature: Los Angeles Against the Mountains.” I never imagined we would be seeing debris flows in North Carolina, but those who are interested in the topic would find this short but excellent work fascinating.
Yes, the San Gabriel Mountains and other ranges near Los Angeles get heavy rain every 3-5 years, in addition to losing the trees due to wildfires. This makes debris flows very common. I didn’t know that NC could have similar debris flows.
I grew up in a sheltered valley or "holler" in WV. Saw some bad storms there during my time but most of the worst damage was before I came along. I remember old timers talking about a flood once that was so bad that it carried the local church away. People talked about clinging to the mountainside in the heavy rain and listening to the eerie sound of the church bell ringing as it went by, washed out of the holler all the way to the river.
When I was started high school, we moved from Northern Va to Madison Co, Va, and had 200 acres in a hollow. There were a couple neighbors above us, we lived in the lower portion of our hollow. One of the neighbors sold logging rights to a logging company and they spent years logging up by the top of the ridge. There was an old county fire road along the top of our ridge. After I was out of college, in 1995, central Va got a TON of rain. There was a Weather Channel Storm Stories on this storm. I had moved from home by this time, thank God. I think my parents had moved the previous summer. But, their former partner and others who had worked on our farm with us were still there. We had rented the neighbor's house just above us almost since we had moved there in 1983. We always had different folks who were helping us on the farm live there. This absent neighbor was the one who had sold the logging rights above his house. So, when this huge storm came thru and dumped all this rain... and as storms/clouds do, it got stuck over the mountain ridge and just emptied itself out. It caused HUGE flooding for the county along that ridge. The man living in the rented house at this time had formerly been a fireman in Silver Spring, Md. This had been an old 1850's farmhouse. He heard this rumbling above the house while watching TV. He got up to go upstairs to look out an upstairs window... and as he was going up the stairs, the house started collapsing under him. He ended up getting to the top of the stair landing, and crawled out the window there and onto the tin roof of the back porch. By the time he was on the porch roof, it was on the ground. So, that mud flow washed down the north side of our property. Our house wasn't touched. The barn was down hill a tad, and further south... it had always sat near a crest of a sharp hill. I think we had called that the gully. The earth literally split open from further up the ridge and came down close to the barn. It was like 60ft deep. The barn was spared. Our upper land, the highest elevation property we had (originally was a very old apple orchard)... that splitting of the earth started up there, and we couldn't access the back end of that part of the property for a while. It was maybe 20ft wide up there. The extensive logging the one neighbor had approved of had removed all the vegetation that held the earth together so, when the storm came, there was nothing to hold the land together. And it just created the huge mud flow that went for miles. Massive flooding definitely creates new topography.
I live just across Buck creek on the Yancey county side. Buck creek is absolutely destroyed. It looks like something out of a movie where a nuke has been dropped
I'm so sorry It has to be horrible . I'm so concerned, winter is coming and that scares me. How are people going to cope? The land people's homes used to be on is gone.
Something similar happened in the 1976 Big Thomson Canyon flood and the Lyons floods in Colorado. The Big Thomson flood swept away rocks, bridges, and whole homes. Likewise with the Lyons flood event in the late 20 teens. The canyons of Colorado have similar issues when heavy rains come along, especially if upslope rains develop along the front (eastern side) range of the Colorado Rockies. It is notable that the Big Thomson flood happened on the top of the canyon area, near Estes Park, and traveled 18 miles downriver to Loveland, CO, taking the lives of 139 people along the way. So, I'm aware of the risk of debris of flash flooding, or heavy rain events. I continue to pray for the people in North Carolina as they recover from this event.
One thing that seems to be lost in the debris flow discussion is every ridge and drainage area continued to feed additional water even if it didn't cause additional debris flows it's still adding flood water and minor debris. Is this a significant factor in the length of the major flows?
Very helpful and informative video. Will check out Honeycutt too. This is all new to me but I always feel better when I learn sbout something that worries or scares me. So, thank you for your time and efforts. Very much appreciated. I'm sure I'll be taking about your videos with other interested parties who live in Asheville.
The entire Tennessee River basin is huge . Floods have been happening here since forever . That's why the Tennessee Valley Authority was created . The whole concept of 100 year floods is somewhat misleading . The weather is going to do what the weather is going to do and when it is going to do it .
The land will heal, Nelson County, Virginia, received an unofficial 28 inches of rain in August 1969, adding several feet of mud to the river banks, still the tomb of dozens of Virginians, carrying away the sparsely settled valleys, closing the mountain passes from Foothills Parkway, TN, to Swift Run Gap, Virginia. Look at the Tye River Valley today and the slopes of the Priest Mountain and Three Ridges.
I drove over Buck Creek on US Hwy 70 two hours ago, and it's still the color of chocolate milk. We've barely had a single drop of rain since Helene, and it's still running that color. Just unreal. Edit: I would like to see a Curtis Creek video. I've fished that river from bottom to top and it's my home river for fishing. Newberry Creek as well. I'm sure everything up there is beyond devastated. It was always my place of peace.
Catawba river a little further down is still the same color as well. Down in our campground the dried silt is a foot deep in certain areas of the driveway where the river flooded us. Take a look under the bridges if your ever near the animal hospital and high school.
We literally camped there 3 weekends a month. Drove it almost to the entrance of the campground and the river has become a stream at best and the concrete is ... Gone. We also would love to know of the river and campground will be back to anything like normal..
I have traveled to Curtis creek. The water was clear. But the area is scoured just like buck creek from 70 to the forest service entrance past the homes. From there we could no longer drive or walk because of so many trees down. This was two weeks ago. May be cleared more now. Much of the road is gone in places and the bridges to homes are gone. However many homes are still standing. It was a shock to see. One of my favorite camping spots. 😢
Just moved to upstate Greenville SC about 1 1/2 hrs from Asheville and we have had 0.00 rainfall since the tornados and Helenes rain. Strange. Nothing in the near future it appears as well.
Please share this channel with everyone. This is knowledge that has been lost over time. I think our ancestors understood geography. Modern man has lost touch with nature.
Will be done. some of it may first get presented at the fundraiser/race substitute down in the cove next weekend. it and big hungry will get done on here though
Love the videos. You should definitely bring up Pineville, KY sometime. They have a sea wall surrounding their town because of past flooding. It’s just north of the Tennessee/Kentucky state line, east of I-75 off Highway 25
Well, my yard, house, and drive are certainly radically changed, along with my creek. As for permanent, Helene taught me that nothing is really permanent. The days of that blissful delusion are over for sure. I am on the Eastern Continental Divide, just across the line in Buncombe county.
I’d always take 80 up buck creek from here in AVL to Mt Mitchell via Marion. Always a lot quieter than the BRP via Craggy gardens and less pushbikes that way too. Such a shame. Cheers for another great video
This is what I’ve seen in every runoff area even on the Tn side. Rock Creek, Rocky Fork, even the main channel of the Nolichucky River. The amount of water moving caused debris to scour the channels down to bedrock, it’s eerie to see nothing but what appears to be a monochrome landscape in what was once a vibrant stream bed. What also amazed me was observing trees that survived the flow near streams that have had their trunks scoured bare several feet above the ground level by all the debris and grit in the water. It looks as if they have been sandblasted, which I suppose they have. This area will take decades to recover, even the natural environment may never be the same.
I traveled from TN to Lenoir, NC on Thursday. The storm damage was everywhere! The flood left mud levels so deep it looked like a wasteland. The trees had racing stripes with mud up 20 to 30 feet and Fall colors up from there. There was minimal damage on Grandfather Mountain. I am hearing large homeless cities were washed away. This means the body count is far worse than they are reporting. The size of the rocks that were moved are the size of cars!
Nature will do that on it's own give some time. It always amazes me how quick the growth takes over and covers scars like this and mask the tragedy. Trees, shrubs, bushes and grass will cover anything man does not manicure.
One building was marked 0/9 which means 9 perished, next to the Buck Creek campground. And if you're there, you see WHY! it's unreal and I can tell that this video is remarkably accurate..thank you!
@@robertkirkpatrick7903 yeah ... No one here believes these numbers - especially those who were TRULY on the ground, from day one. Supposedly, they claim that if they aren't identified, they don't report them. Also, many are parts of people. I know for 100% FACT that the current numbers are incorrect. The question is WHY?!?
26:20 you are mentioning past slides and when they may have happened I am near Barnardsville - north of the Blue Ridge Parkway Helene scoured this area exactly as you described with the debris field visible as you exit the valley An Ivy Creek tributary Stoney Fork comes off the Parkway and had a mudslide a few years ago (and has closed the road since) There are (where) three different debris fields blocking the road No one is allowed into the Big Ivy area Did this previous slide debris make things worse for the folks who live on Stoney Fork?
hard to say. those valleys have flat areas in the bottom from collecting there debris flows over time. the helene ones may get be steered somewhat by deposits of older ones, but ultimately with that much rain a lot of stuff is going to go
Thank you for doing this. Its amazing how huge these little creeks turned into huge roaring rivers. We live in Woodlawn, right below North Cove. No damage to us but it happened all around us.
The Debris flows start where the rock piles covered and perculated into the earth and super saturated the substrate then burst/sloughed off and proceeded to errode and discentigrate. At 1 debris field there is a drone vid in chimney rock u can see where the Debris flow started and 20 days later there is a trickle of ground water coming out starting as a new spring surprisingly not a stream
Hypothetical Question: suppose a Helene event occurred 2-5 years from now in the same area. What would it look like say, in this drainage? Hats off to you and Mark Honeycutt!
Do you look for these hills to eventually slip? I live in farm country iowa. We don't have rock. I once witnessed the black dirt hill slip on top of the clay, closing up a deep eroded creek. This damed up a non perennial creek until it overfilled washing a new creek. It amazed me how whole hills many acres in size covered trees vegetation could slide.
I've been a mineral and gem collector for over 40 years specializing in North Carolina minerals. After such a flooding event as this, it is likely that the creeks and rivers caught allot of newly deposited minerals and gold that would have been eroded from rocks and strata higher up. Anyone living in the area should walk the creeks and screen them for minerals and look at any exposures that may have been exposed along the banks. However......not saying this to take away from the human tragedy that occured as my heart deeply goes out to those affected by this terrible tragedy. I have friends all out through the area and thankfully I have been able to reach them and they are ok.
As we lived and collected rocks all around this area we too have discussed this. We had kyanite around us and found lots of garnets and crystals. Mica everywhere.
These trout streams will never be the same. They lost their canopy, raising the water temp. They lost the insect life habitat in the stream bottoms, changing the life cycle of the food chain.
I wonder if those recent scars could be dated by looking at tree rings (dendrochronology) from the vegetation that has re-established in those old scars. That would make a great project for local schools / colleges to do, to encourage people to get a better understand of the lanscape history and poetntail future risks.
In most areas, the damage was worse during the 1940 flood because the entire Appalachian range was devoid of tumber, causing massive landslides. I have a 2" thick USGS publication covering the aftermath of the 40 flood.
I have to wonder if, during the early hours of Helene’s extreme rainfall, smaller, up-slope debris-flows might have dammed the creeks and impounded water. Then, that debris dam would burst, releasing the original debris, but with a torrent of impounded water pushing it down the valleys. (Here in mountainous Albemarle County, Virginia, in its southern half, and more-so in neighboring Nelson County, the high-up mountain-scars from the 1969 Camille Disaster are still visible….mostly rock, the finer debris long eroded.)
The rivers were up and the ground was saturated from a different system before Helene had made landfall. It was a 1, 2 punch like the 1916 flood and most other devastating floods.
I live in Blount County,Tennessee,these communities in North Carolina are just over the mountains from me. EVERYONE who lives in Appalachia from the foothills to the mountaintops EVERYONE was paying attention to this storm. If that storm had moved,just a little,it would've destroyed my hometown and spared North Carolina. But,for God's grace,it could've been us that got destroyed. This was a wake-up call to everyone in Appalachia,We could be next. Climate change is causing changing weather patterns in the United States,one look at Yancey County should end all debate. My family is developing protocols to deploy when the next hurricane floods Appalachia. It seems crazy to even say that,but here we are
There is no man-made climate change, but the climate does change. The manse and church we are helping with was flooded pretty badly. It is located in one of the hard hit areas. But, it was also flooded in the early 2000's from a hurricane. There were big floods in 1916 in this area that were devastating. I think there is always a danger that a hurricane will create these conditions. Thank goodness it is not often, but we should always be prepared. This church now knows that if there is a danger of flooding, the pastor should leave. Thank goodness the pastor and his family left before the storm hit. We praise the Lord that He protected the family, and that God has provided people who are lovingly cleaning the buildings and buying new carpet and supplies. It has been humbling and amazing to see all the people who are so generous with time and resources to this small mountain church. We serve a mighty God.
@hisservants8003 You're not even from here and you're trying to tell me what the weather is. Kick Rocks,People that mix religion with the government are part of the problem. You're being led around by the Koch family and you don't even know who they are.
Im in Greene County, Tennessee. I realize this is possibly a stupid question but I’ll take my chances. There are stretches of the Nolichucky here along farmland that don’t have the giant boulders and whitewater. Its more like deeper water lined with trees on either side. Well, those trees are gone. All of them. Miles and miles and miles of trees just gone. When the grasses grow back on the banks, it’ll look like a giant version of a grass creek. With all the trees gone, is it going to make these kinds of areas along the river more prone to flooding?
No it won't be more prone to flooding but it will increase erosion on the banks because of the roots lost. The flood plain beside the river could change due to the main channel moving over time from bank collapses. The reason for leaving trees along waterways is to stabilize the soil and hold the channel as best we can.
@@markpashia7067 actually here they’re piling them up and burning them to make things look prettier. I feel like they should just leave them and let nature do it’s thing. Thanks for explaining.
@@josephbarnett2566 that happens everywhere now. I’m sure most of what we’ll see lining the river banks soon will be things like ironweed, goldenrod, frost flower etc. Or at least that’s the hope. Your comment just reminded me that a lot of Bradford Pears got destroyed by the river so I reckon that’s a tiny win for the environment.
With so much of the soil layer being "ripped out" and all of the area being made up of such steep slopes, is there any worry/risk of further landslides as the terrain continues to "settle in" from here? Thank you so much for doing these videos. The sheer scope of damage as a result of this disaster is unimaginable, but your videos help give a valuable understanding of what has happened.
I’m not sure if you being a geologist if you would happen to know how or what the rotor rooting of all the creeks did to Gold? When events like this happens how much Gold or other valuable minerals does the rushing water uncover? Thought about maybe taking up creek panning with my boys possibly. lol awesome videos! Greetings from Candler up hwy 151 on Mt Pisgah. Please everyone keep praying for WNC
Lookimg forward to you getting updated lidar images to understand the volume of landscape that was removed. Looking at the old ellevation models it is clear that those hollows didn't get that way in the past 6 thousand years.
it will take a while. the scour will remain, and any material deposited on the edges above the scour will indeed be unstable. stuff will likely shift around some with first big rain as well.
I follow Mark. Love his videos too though I have to say I worry about him when he is in the flow areas. I realize the debris seems to be "concreted" in but seems like it would still be unstable😮
I've seen some of Huneycutt's hikes. I was thinking how much your 2 points of view enhance each other. I was thinking it might be beneficial if you gave each other permission to use clips to enhance our understanding of what happened. Maybe even do a collab livestream some Saturday afternoon. Thanks for your presentations, very well done!
I have a place off buck creek and finally got up to my place and I was spared. Driving 80 from top to bottom is crazy to see the true power of mother nature.
I've been to the area hit by HELENE many times before HELENE. Also to Norway and South Korea all 3 areas have steep mountains. So if you get a front stalling over them that rain rushes down hill picking up EVERYTHING NOT SECURE. EXCELLENT VIDEO! MY QUESTION IS WHERE DID THE FLOOD WATER AND DEBRIS END UP??
Most of it got stoped/trapped in Lake Tahoma . Which is on Buck creek about 4 miles from where Buck Creek goes into the Catawba River just North West of Marion NC.
Could you please compare this damage to that that happened in Nelson County Virginia in August 1969 that was caused by the remnants of hurricane Camille?
The old 1977 debris scar where shuford creek originates was visible from an overlook on the parkway for sure a few years. Over time it greened up but I don't think many trees have come in at that steep elevation. The people down shuford creek had quite the devastation from that flood. I remember hiking up there with all the logs and boulders but never saw it before. Maybe ten years later you wouldn't know anything happened. The creek settled into its new space. I wonder if that same spot would let go again or if once the flow scours down that there isn't anything to tear loose again.
Could you explain how land and terrain adapts to this destruction? I remember how Mt St Helen’s terrain became beautiful again after many years. Please explain how the erosion has occurred over millions of years. Those mountains used to be higher that the Himalayas during which period?
there was extensive and very permanent looking damage to the new river state park in Virginia. millions of tons of sand washed up where there was none before... could you maybe do a video about that?
it should pair up with this. basically the idea is that the big dirt area he sees used to be a nice little stream full of rocks with trees and rhododendron on the banks. All was scoured and, to disastrous effect, went into the Craigtown community. Same general idea when he hikes Chimney Rock
@@TheGeoModels yes I can see that watching chimney rock rn - it gives such a different perspective combined w/ your intel makes it make lots more sense appreciate it. Such beautiful Country, breaks my heart there’s so many effected by this disaster... Praying for All - Def appreciate the ref to his channel it so made the complete pic imho - I would have never imagined all I “understand” now - love the mountains but like everything w/ Mother Nature ~ She’s to b respected 🙌
@@ericfielding2540 it’s all just so wild -learned so much in this channel - I huge watched it last night & am better for it. Ty for the info some places say 10 ft water in their house some people say water went up to the roofs & carried houses off foundations it’s all so much to process I can only imagine 🥹🙏
So much devastation in areas. Three generations were swept away in one slide. 11 people gone. Just one story of many 😢. Helping financially is almost impossible for anyone. Thought and prayer, at times seems bleak, can help with hope. Thanks to all. Prayers to survivors and lost ones.
@TheGeoModels, I was watching a drone video over the areas of forest that look defoliated from satellite views. They are indeed defoliated but more than that, the forests are almost completely flattened on the windward slopes. I counted and there were about 20 felled trees for every standing one. This could lead to a change of species in the forest. Geologically, it could change erosion patterns.
Hey Phillip, I just wanted to comment because Me and 3 other were inside my house on Geneva drive just in front of the trout farm when this debris flow occurred. Julie le Roux was in the house with us. It was Myself, my fiancé, John and Julie. We were directly in the middle of the path and it took us about a quarter mile down and deposited us and the remains of our home into a bank. The 3 of us that survived spent about 14 hours seeking warmth and self medical care until swift water rescue was able to get us down. We were in the hospital over a week. But today the 3 of us are mostly healed, my fiancé is awaiting a surgery for her knee next week. We have absolutely no idea how we are alive. But this video helps us make so much more sense of how and why this happened to us. I will never be able to describe the horror of that day and the moments before the flow hit us.
Sending you healing prayers Andrew. I am so sorry for the loss of your friend Julie. And for the trauma you have all endured.
Oh wow Andrew. I can not imagine how frightening that must have been for all of you. Sorry your friend Julie didn't make it. Keeping you all in my prayers 🙏 ❤️🩹
@@outsidebluesky3 thank you. It's a very very long road to recovery. We deeply miss Julie. She was an incredible person to know. We are thankful to be alive but question everyday how we are. I've never seen destruction in my life like what happened on that mountain.
@@SapphiresNC thank you. She was an incredible person in every way. We don't understand how we are alive. I've never seen anything anywhere that matches the destruction of what happened on that mountain.
Sending well wishes and many condolences your way. I grew up in the area and feel like events like this could have very easily happened to my parents who still live there. Glad you're safe.
Thank you so much for doing this video. RIP Julie le Roux, a local artist, and the victim in this debris flow.
friend I am glad the vid reached you. hope it offered some of the explanation you were seeking. best wishes your way in a tough time.
🙏
🙏🙏🙏 So sorry...
@@AppalachianPatrick 🙏♥️🙏
Rest in peace dear Julie le Roux. So sorry for all the loss of life in this horrible event. 💔
I lived on Buck Creek and survived the storm. Ours was the first house hit by the slide along with the trout farm. We were so lucky to get out alive with our dogs. I so appreciate this video and it helps to understand better.
I love you collleen
I walked through there the day after from Busick. You might be the person that sent a message to my wife saying I was ok. My thoughts have been with you guys every day. I was heartbroken to see our area. Love you guys
I didn't expect a geologist and a paramotorist to be two of my most watched channels in 2024, but here we are. Excellent video again, Philip. I hope you and Mark may find the opportunity to meet in person one day. Y'all continue to do great work!
thank you. I’ve emailed with him some. maybe we will cross paths indeed.
I've been watching them both since before the storm, and I'm not at all surprised how much their coverage has since taken off. Two great, interesting and genuinely caring personalities!
This report rings the clear bell of the reasons why such destruction was ripe. For me it gave me the best perspective to grasp what, how and why it all happened.
Hi there, what is the name of the paramotorist's channel. Have not seen their videos yet.
@@chetmyers7041I’m interested in knowing also
@ 6:30 mark. My brother helped manage that trout farm for 10 years. He was in his trailer on the farm as the debris flow occurred. He was miraculously not physically harmed but his trailer, vehicle and all of his personal belongings were taken by Helene. The entire farm was claimed by Helene
I am glad he made it. anyone on that creek in that area when it happened was lucky to get out
@@TheGeoModels he was actually about to vacate and move to higher ground. He had already hiked his dog uphill to safety and had come back to collect his phone and his wallet and a few other personal items, and he realized he needed to go to the bathroom. Looking at pictures of the trailer later that hallway and bathroom were the only portions of the structure that weren’t torn to shreds. I am so thankful the old boy heeded natures call, but question is can you qualify that as divine intervention, or not. I suppose the lord truly does work in mysterious ways
@@darenturnbull3937🙏♥️🙏
So very sorry for the folks in the trout farm.
🙏🏽
When I was a kid in St. Louis County Missouri I worked the fields of a farmer who had prime crop land along the Missouri River. What made it prime land was that every few year it would flood leaving a foot or two of silt on it. Never had to fertilize the fields because nature constantly renewed the soil for that curve in the river. It was ever changing ground but about the time I quit working for him, they put a levy between him and the river changing the conditions that his family had taken advantage of for many generations. Wasn't long and that ground was sold for factories and warehouses and it was never farmed again. Nature left alone always makes the land change. Some for good and some for bad but it never stays stagnant. We try to control it but that often does not succeed. That levy has been topped more than once since then. Sorry this seems off topic but for me it seem relevant. That farmer's family built the home and barns on top of a hundred foot high ridge out of the flood plain. Not the most convenient but the most sensible place to put it. The fields never got deeper than ten feet in human memory but build on high ground. Higher than need be if possible.
@@markpashia7067 This point you make is vital for many people to understand. So many believe the world is "conquered" by man. This is just simply not the case. How are mountains shaped? By ice, tectonics and floods. As long as we exist in a dynamic system, change is the only constant. This was a travesty to human life, but this is the expected result when a very strong storm system sits in one place for days, only for a tropical storm to follow it up. A magnificent act of nature, but I have been all around those mountains; people have trailers set up beside literal waterfalls in extremely tight hollers. That is playing with fire in a subtropical environment.
This flooding occurred on the highest ground east of the Mississippi.
Great video. My heart breaks for the family that runs buck creek trout pond. Great people. I’ve been dealing with my own problems on the other side of the mountain and haven’t even thought of buck creek until I watched this video. May God bless them and help them.
🙏♥️🙏
Went to church with the Ross's. They are extremely good people
The farm is gone unfortunately
This report rings the clear bell of the reasons why such destruction was ripe. For me it gave me the best perspective to grasp what, how and why it all happened.
Thank you for posting this information. It’s stunning. I was in S Asheville when this hit and use the word ‘ferocious’ when I describe the wind and rain we saw. I cannot imagine what was happening at the top of these ridge lines where most of the wind and precipitation occurred.
epic event, to say the least
@@TheGeoModels Yep. I’ve lived here 30 years. Hiked a couple of hundred miles in the GSMNP and the area. Occasionally I have come across signs of violent water flow. Usually grass hanging in trees many feet off the creek centerline. Hurricane Fred was the first true demonstration of a debris flow I have examined. The area upstream of Skinny Dip Falls on the Yellowstone Prong was damaged heavily.
@@Gr8ca9Skinny Dip falls itself, and much of the downstream area was also deeply impacted. I hiked a bit of the trail down to the trailhead on 276. It was such a powerful storm. It made Skinny Dip Falls unrecognizable. So many of the beautiful smaller waterfalls were forever changed as well.
One area took at least 10ft of soil out from behind a sloped rock that used to be part of the trail up the creek/stream.
Powerful examples of what extreme water flow can do.
Interesting video, I live in Watauga across the street from one of the large landslides in our area. It took out our power lines, crews are still working so people have access to their homes. The road was under 12 feet of mud, rock, and trees. Spoke to the farmer that saw it come down. His rain gauge was at 24” for the day before it rolled down around 11am, sounded like a freight train.
I believe it. Can you tell me roughly where you're located (not after an address; just a road or intersection or something or nearby church so I can find where it is)? It's amazing and scary how much stuff comes out of the mountain with one of these.
@@TheGeoModels hello, Vanderpool intersection with Linda lane in Vilas NC 28692. The slide started near the top if the mountain above Linda lane and stopped maybe 300 meters before reading Vanderpool.
That it made a noise like that is insane.
@@russellharp8761 I thought from stories heard that the train sound could have been a tornado on the ridge. On the other side of Hwy 421 in cove creek/sugar grove it looks like they had a tornado or straight line winds as there is a path of trees gone. Hwy 321 at that location turned into a river and even cut off the FD.
Omg
We are literally seeing geological change happen in real time. Thank you for another amazing geology lesson. Will you be doing another video about the Burnsville area? It was pretty much destroyed, I heard.
Yes, as horrible as this event was, it lets me understand how some of the geologic sights one sees along the Appalachian Trail happened.
so the policy vid on my page talks about that area. not sure if I will have a chance to hit it again, but that vid shows the unique landscape there
There's always geological change happening
This really reminds me of some things I saw on a recent trip to Washington. I climbed Mt. St. Helens there, and from the Crater Rim, you could see the North Fork Toutle, still carved, scarred and littered with debris and dead trees. The size of this debris flow is not quite as big as some lahars get, but some of the videos from the St. Helens lahars really give a good picture of what debris flows like this look like.
I'll never forget the first time driving there and seeing all the dead trees. I was thinking 25yrs later it would have recovered. 😢
@@zenseed75, yes, mature trees laid down like match sticks!
@@patrickrussell1888 exactly. So many of them. 😿
When you say it scours the creek, that's one thing I've noticed in the larger riverbeds etc or anywhere like Buck Creek that was hit so hard. It's down to the bed rock now. Honeycutt video's show it very well. It's like everything was pushed to the side or down the creeks or rivers leaving behind the flat bedrock. It's scary to know so much was pushed down all of these creeks and rivers! I appreciate you videos. It's knowledge we all need who have been affected by Helene.
scary to think of that much rock and wood on the move
@@TheGeoModels I think, because of what you show, that it is one of the biggest reasons for so much destruction. Water of course, but load it down with boulders and debris and goodness. The creekbed near us went from 20 ft wide to 100+ and the debris everywhere is unbelievable. It will take years to fix things and rivers and creeks are rerouted until the next flood.
To me the question may be (on a national scale), how much should government at all levels support reconstruction of capital improvements (roads, bridges power, communication, water) knowing full well within a fertsin time frame, destruction will reoccur. Then you add on top of the C.I.P. public investments, "if you build it, they will come..." (the fsmous freeway anology). So the question becomes should the public encourage redevelopment or should it reflect upon the natural liabilties and rethink investments...maybe limiting them or abandoning them all together in the affected areas (becoming no build areas). Yes, its heart-breaking to see private investments destroyed, lives lost. Nature is relentless. 😢
I hiked out from Busick NC to Marion the next day. This area is just gone. Heartbreaking. People were missing and people hurt in their houses. I will never forget the people I met coming down.
Mark was climbing over boulders the size of cars, mixed with huge tree rootballs, tangled tree trunks and there right in front of him is a rattler sunning itself on a huge boulder. Wow, it's challenging climbing that mess.
I saw that video! He saw a bear at close range too, staring at him through the brush - while he was sitting down having lunch. I'm amazed at how calm he remains in those dicey situations. His videos of various areas post-Helene are just amazing and so well done. A real-world perspective of GeoModels' informative videos. He clambers through all that wreckage like it's nothing at all!
Yes for all the dislocation of humans, wildlife is equally impacted and displaced. I remember hurricane events south of Houston, Tx that had all sorts of snakes and gators out of place and in populated areas they would normally avoid. That was a big fear of mine after flooding events and such. Just what was I going to stumble across during clean up afterward. Be safe out there folks. Head on a swivel and eyes everywhere. And do not forget to look up!!! So many widow maker trees after these events. Easy to get focused on your feet and make a fatal mistake with overhead dangers. If the area is home to big cats of any type looking up is doubly needed. They are finding new safe spaces too.
@@luckyotter623 i really worry for honeycutt. he's out there crawling around in amongst all kinds of perilous terrain, all by himself, with nobody to go for help if he were to get injured.
@@markpashia7067 As far as I know, the only wildcats in the southern Appalachians are bobcats. There've been rumors of mountain lion sightings (and they used to be here until they were all killed off about 100 yrs ago) but nothing official.
@@luckyotter623 Even bobcat is reason to look up when hiking AFTER such a dislocating event like this. If their home got flooded out, if they lost a partner or a litter, if they are hungry, they can act in weird ways. Just be safe out there folks.
Makes you realize how insignificant we are and how fleeting our existence is on this mortal plane.
We are the waking universe, uniquely able to look upon creation in all of it’s glory
Geology has been a hobby of mine for most of my life, and I have been fascinated watching your videos on the impact of the massive rains through the Appalachians reminds me a lot of what happened in the Rockies and coastal mountings in British Columbian, Canada in 2021. First a heat dome caused some of the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Canada, which led to massive wildfires though the mountains, and when fall and winter came along with their rains, the lack of trees caused massive mudslides which caused very similar damage to the damage caused by Hurricane Helene recently. In BC, the all of the east/west land links between the BC coast and the rest of Canada were servered by the mudslides. Seeing the floods and landslides caused by Helene looked eerily similar.
I'm also from BC and have been reminded of the same thing, remembering footage of someone's house being washed away up in the mountains. And just recently, the atmospheric river dropped something like 240 mm on the mountains in Coquitlam, killing that teacher when the landslide hit. Not like the destruction after Helene, but with the 2021 flood it could have been. I think only accidents of geography and a smaller population helped keep the casualty numbers down in the mountains.
Great video as always. I hiked up the Flume slide in the WMNF a month ago and this helps put into perspective how it and a lot of the slides in the WMNF and Adirondacks were formed.
Wolfjaw Brook and Benny's Brook in the Adirondacks are what came to mind for me. They're on Lower Wolfjaw about 500 m and 1 km east of the John's Brook ranger station. Both were denuded by hurricanes in recent years.
Thank you Phillip - Your video really puts the entire disaster in very clear understanding. You make it so easy to understand what took place. - Bill
Thanks for another great explanation. The illustration of the scouring of the channels was very helpful. It looked a lot like the channels that Mark Huneycutt hiked and flew his drone over. It was also very interesting to see the old debris flows channel nearby. Seems like someone could determine the age of trees in the paleo channel and get at least a minimum age for the scouring.
Thank you so much for doing this video. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of your videos, as a layperson appreciator, whitewater paddler and resident of the area. As someone who lives on Buck creek (below the lake), this was especially meaningful for me to watch. Somehow, understanding it better gives me a sense of “closure” to all the damage and loss.
amazing area. enjoyed working up there. it has a dramatic landslide history, and this is just another installment with terrible human consequence. these flows were big.
Certainly over the past 300 years, erosion was an active component of the landscape.
Thank you sir for a very informative video on a very difficult to understand subject. My heart goes out to all those affected by the storm.
Thank you so much for these videos! So much to learn about the terrain and what we can do going forward. My dad near Fairview finally got internet back today, and I have sent him links to all your previous stuff.
I hope he finds them useful. thanks for passing them along. Fairview got hit hard as anywhere--glad they're getting utilities set back up out there
Thank you so much for this explanation. Drawings were excellent and very easy to understand with your presentation. So sorry for the people affected by this storm.
I saw this debris flow with my own eyes. Anything North of Lake Tahoma is pretty much gone. That little creek became a 100+ yard wide monster in some places. Multiple RV parks were destroyed plus the hatchery.
This is some incredible information. I'm so happy I stumbled upon your channel. You've definitely earned a follower. Keep up the great work.
Thank you for these videos about the Helene flooding in Appalachia, it helps to give understanding especially (and hopefully) to those who have criticized how and where roads and homes, businesses are built in this region. It is indeed very rugged terrain involving thousands of square miles. Myself and my family and friends mostly from this region, specifically McDowell, Mitchell, Buncombe, Yancey and Burke counties in NC as well as eastern TN and northeast GA. We love our region, it's home to us and has been for generations.
Thank you for illustrating this and explaining this the way you did. You’ve helped so many people that I’m able to connect with understand why this situation is so serious.
Thank you. Hoped I could offer some context for something that seems so impossible in a place like this.
I’m sure you’ve read John McPhee’s 1989 book “The Control of Nature: Los Angeles Against the Mountains.” I never imagined we would be seeing debris flows in North Carolina, but those who are interested in the topic would find this short but excellent work fascinating.
Yes, the San Gabriel Mountains and other ranges near Los Angeles get heavy rain every 3-5 years, in addition to losing the trees due to wildfires. This makes debris flows very common. I didn’t know that NC could have similar debris flows.
I grew up in a sheltered valley or "holler" in WV. Saw some bad storms there during my time but most of the worst damage was before I came along. I remember old timers talking about a flood once that was so bad that it carried the local church away. People talked about clinging to the mountainside in the heavy rain and listening to the eerie sound of the church bell ringing as it went by, washed out of the holler all the way to the river.
When I was started high school, we moved from Northern Va to Madison Co, Va, and had 200 acres in a hollow. There were a couple neighbors above us, we lived in the lower portion of our hollow. One of the neighbors sold logging rights to a logging company and they spent years logging up by the top of the ridge. There was an old county fire road along the top of our ridge.
After I was out of college, in 1995, central Va got a TON of rain. There was a Weather Channel Storm Stories on this storm. I had moved from home by this time, thank God. I think my parents had moved the previous summer. But, their former partner and others who had worked on our farm with us were still there.
We had rented the neighbor's house just above us almost since we had moved there in 1983. We always had different folks who were helping us on the farm live there. This absent neighbor was the one who had sold the logging rights above his house.
So, when this huge storm came thru and dumped all this rain... and as storms/clouds do, it got stuck over the mountain ridge and just emptied itself out. It caused HUGE flooding for the county along that ridge.
The man living in the rented house at this time had formerly been a fireman in Silver Spring, Md. This had been an old 1850's farmhouse. He heard this rumbling above the house while watching TV. He got up to go upstairs to look out an upstairs window... and as he was going up the stairs, the house started collapsing under him. He ended up getting to the top of the stair landing, and crawled out the window there and onto the tin roof of the back porch. By the time he was on the porch roof, it was on the ground.
So, that mud flow washed down the north side of our property. Our house wasn't touched. The barn was down hill a tad, and further south... it had always sat near a crest of a sharp hill. I think we had called that the gully. The earth literally split open from further up the ridge and came down close to the barn. It was like 60ft deep. The barn was spared. Our upper land, the highest elevation property we had (originally was a very old apple orchard)... that splitting of the earth started up there, and we couldn't access the back end of that part of the property for a while. It was maybe 20ft wide up there.
The extensive logging the one neighbor had approved of had removed all the vegetation that held the earth together so, when the storm came, there was nothing to hold the land together. And it just created the huge mud flow that went for miles.
Massive flooding definitely creates new topography.
I live just across Buck creek on the Yancey county side. Buck creek is absolutely destroyed. It looks like something out of a movie where a nuke has been dropped
🙏🏽
Yes this perfectly and sadly describes Buck Creek now
@@lanalayton7576 yes it sure does. It's so sad to see it now knowing how it's always looked before.
Im in yancey.. man i know that road, seeing this topo map- holy mother of chr…. Oh my gooodness. ❤ to all
I'm so sorry
It has to be horrible .
I'm so concerned, winter is coming and that scares me. How are people going to cope? The land people's homes used to be on is gone.
Something similar happened in the 1976 Big Thomson Canyon flood and the Lyons floods in Colorado. The Big Thomson flood swept away rocks, bridges, and whole homes. Likewise with the Lyons flood event in the late 20 teens. The canyons of Colorado have similar issues when heavy rains come along, especially if upslope rains develop along the front (eastern side) range of the Colorado Rockies. It is notable that the Big Thomson flood happened on the top of the canyon area, near Estes Park, and traveled 18 miles downriver to Loveland, CO, taking the lives of 139 people along the way. So, I'm aware of the risk of debris of flash flooding, or heavy rain events. I continue to pray for the people in North Carolina as they recover from this event.
so grateful for your continued coverage that helps us learn more about this in a way that we can use constructively. thank you.
One thing that seems to be lost in the debris flow discussion is every ridge and drainage area continued to feed additional water even if it didn't cause additional debris flows it's still adding flood water and minor debris. Is this a significant factor in the length of the major flows?
Very helpful and informative video. Will check out Honeycutt too.
This is all new to me but I always feel better when I learn sbout something that worries or scares me. So, thank you for your time and efforts. Very much appreciated. I'm sure I'll be taking about your videos with other interested parties who live in Asheville.
I think this one compliments huneycutts last couple quite well.
The entire Tennessee River basin is huge . Floods have been happening here since forever . That's why the Tennessee Valley Authority was created . The whole concept of 100 year floods is somewhat misleading . The weather is going to do what the weather is going to do and when it is going to do it .
The land will heal, Nelson County, Virginia, received an unofficial 28 inches of rain in August 1969, adding several feet of mud to the river banks, still the tomb of dozens of Virginians, carrying away the sparsely settled valleys, closing the mountain passes from Foothills Parkway, TN, to Swift Run Gap, Virginia. Look at the Tye River Valley today and the slopes of the Priest Mountain and Three Ridges.
good perspective. Nelson was equally an end of days event, for sure, just in a smaller area.
I drove over Buck Creek on US Hwy 70 two hours ago, and it's still the color of chocolate milk. We've barely had a single drop of rain since Helene, and it's still running that color. Just unreal.
Edit: I would like to see a Curtis Creek video. I've fished that river from bottom to top and it's my home river for fishing. Newberry Creek as well. I'm sure everything up there is beyond devastated. It was always my place of peace.
Tennessee River at Knoxville is still brown.
Catawba river a little further down is still the same color as well. Down in our campground the dried silt is a foot deep in certain areas of the driveway where the river flooded us. Take a look under the bridges if your ever near the animal hospital and high school.
We literally camped there 3 weekends a month. Drove it almost to the entrance of the campground and the river has become a stream at best and the concrete is ... Gone. We also would love to know of the river and campground will be back to anything like normal..
I have traveled to Curtis creek. The water was clear. But the area is scoured just like buck creek from 70 to the forest service entrance past the homes. From there we could no longer drive or walk because of so many trees down. This was two weeks ago. May be cleared more now. Much of the road is gone in places and the bridges to homes are gone. However many homes are still standing. It was a shock to see. One of my favorite camping spots. 😢
Just moved to upstate Greenville SC about 1 1/2 hrs from Asheville and we have had 0.00 rainfall since the tornados and Helenes rain. Strange. Nothing in the near future it appears as well.
Please share this channel with everyone. This is knowledge that has been lost over time. I think our ancestors understood geography. Modern man has lost touch with nature.
Thank you! Any chance you could do one on the green river?
Could you do a video on the Green River/Green River cove area?
Will be done. some of it may first get presented at the fundraiser/race substitute down in the cove next weekend. it and big hungry will get done on here though
Love the videos. You should definitely bring up Pineville, KY sometime. They have a sea wall surrounding their town because of past flooding. It’s just north of the Tennessee/Kentucky state line, east of I-75 off Highway 25
Mark Hunnycutt has done a great job all way around. One of my first channels i subbed to thru this mess.
Well, my yard, house, and drive are certainly radically changed, along with my creek. As for permanent, Helene taught me that nothing is really permanent. The days of that blissful delusion are over for sure. I am on the Eastern Continental Divide, just across the line in Buncombe county.
Thank you for the best explanation of what happened.
I’d always take 80 up buck creek from here in AVL to Mt Mitchell via Marion. Always a lot quieter than the BRP via Craggy gardens and less pushbikes that way too. Such a shame. Cheers for another great video
The earth is in a state of constant change. It's why the Appalachians look as they do now.
The answer is YES, there’s permanent rearrangement of the topography.
When you drop a JDAM in an old mine at the top of a mountain.
Those valleys have to get there somehow.
Just a fyi...."the trout farm" was purchased and was Mountain Stream RV campground. Completely leveled now !!!
This is what I’ve seen in every runoff area even on the Tn side. Rock Creek, Rocky Fork, even the main channel of the Nolichucky River. The amount of water moving caused debris to scour the channels down to bedrock, it’s eerie to see nothing but what appears to be a monochrome landscape in what was once a vibrant stream bed. What also amazed me was observing trees that survived the flow near streams that have had their trunks scoured bare several feet above the ground level by all the debris and grit in the water. It looks as if they have been sandblasted, which I suppose they have. This area will take decades to recover, even the natural environment may never be the same.
There needs to be so many more videos and lectures on this. Truly so much to learn and to really understand or imagine
thank you
Severe geological erosion after torrential flooding rain in mountainous terrain is how those steep-sided narrow valleys formed in the first place. 😮
I traveled from TN to Lenoir, NC on Thursday. The storm damage was everywhere! The flood left mud levels so deep it looked like a wasteland. The trees had racing stripes with mud up 20 to 30 feet and Fall colors up from there. There was minimal damage on Grandfather Mountain. I am hearing large homeless cities were washed away. This means the body count is far worse than they are reporting. The size of the rocks that were moved are the size of cars!
a storm like this Carrie’s unimaginable power
lagre homeless cities?
@@hawkberry th-cam.com/video/SntaA1s3eg4/w-d-xo.html
@@hawkberry Lots of homeless camps in and around Asheville NC.
No need for Netflix when you get these vids.
You need to add some happy little trees 😊 I couldn’t resist
Nature will do that on it's own give some time. It always amazes me how quick the growth takes over and covers scars like this and mask the tragedy. Trees, shrubs, bushes and grass will cover anything man does not manicure.
Funny!
One building was marked 0/9 which means 9 perished, next to the Buck Creek campground. And if you're there, you see WHY! it's unreal and I can tell that this video is remarkably accurate..thank you!
So far McDowell County NC has had 2 or 3 reported to have been killed from the flooding.
Buck Creek is in McDowell County
@@robertkirkpatrick7903 yeah ... No one here believes these numbers - especially those who were TRULY on the ground, from day one. Supposedly, they claim that if they aren't identified, they don't report them. Also, many are parts of people. I know for 100% FACT that the current numbers are incorrect. The question is WHY?!?
26:20 you are mentioning past slides and when they may have happened
I am near Barnardsville - north of the Blue Ridge Parkway
Helene scoured this area exactly as you described with the debris field visible as you exit the valley
An Ivy Creek tributary Stoney Fork comes off the Parkway and had a mudslide a few years ago
(and has closed the road since)
There are (where) three different debris fields blocking the road
No one is allowed into the Big Ivy area
Did this previous slide debris make things worse for the folks who live on Stoney Fork?
hard to say. those valleys have flat areas in the bottom from collecting there debris flows over time. the helene ones may get be steered somewhat by deposits of older ones, but ultimately with that much rain a lot of stuff is going to go
Thank you for doing this. Its amazing how huge these little creeks turned into huge roaring rivers. We live in Woodlawn, right below North Cove. No damage to us but it happened all around us.
It did indeed. All that west side of North Cove got hit so hard.
The Debris flows start where the rock piles covered and perculated into the earth and super saturated the substrate then burst/sloughed off and proceeded to errode and discentigrate. At 1 debris field there is a drone vid in chimney rock u can see where the Debris flow started and 20 days later there is a trickle of ground water coming out starting as a new spring surprisingly not a stream
Hypothetical Question: suppose a Helene event occurred 2-5 years from now in the same area. What would it look like say, in this drainage? Hats off to you and Mark Honeycutt!
Do you look for these hills to eventually slip? I live in farm country iowa. We don't have rock. I once witnessed the black dirt hill slip on top of the clay, closing up a deep eroded creek. This damed up a non perennial creek until it overfilled washing a new creek. It amazed me how whole hills many acres in size covered trees vegetation could slide.
I think that those slides got a little ‘help’.
I've been a mineral and gem collector for over 40 years specializing in North Carolina minerals. After such a flooding event as this, it is likely that the creeks and rivers caught allot of newly deposited minerals and gold that would have been eroded from rocks and strata higher up. Anyone living in the area should walk the creeks and screen them for minerals and look at any exposures that may have been exposed along the banks. However......not saying this to take away from the human tragedy that occured as my heart deeply goes out to those affected by this terrible tragedy. I have friends all out through the area and thankfully I have been able to reach them and they are ok.
I thought about that. I have a small cabin on the South Toe river. I was wondering what all would be uncovered. Any Indian relics?
As we lived and collected rocks all around this area we too have discussed this. We had kyanite around us and found lots of garnets and crystals. Mica everywhere.
These trout streams will never be the same. They lost their canopy, raising the water temp. They lost the insect life habitat in the stream bottoms, changing the life cycle of the food chain.
I wonder if those recent scars could be dated by looking at tree rings (dendrochronology) from the vegetation that has re-established in those old scars. That would make a great project for local schools / colleges to do, to encourage people to get a better understand of the lanscape history and poetntail future risks.
In most areas, the damage was worse during the 1940 flood because the entire Appalachian range was devoid of tumber, causing massive landslides. I have a 2" thick USGS publication covering the aftermath of the 40 flood.
I have to wonder if, during the early hours of Helene’s extreme rainfall, smaller, up-slope debris-flows might have dammed the creeks and impounded water. Then, that debris dam would burst, releasing the original debris, but with a torrent of impounded water pushing it down the valleys. (Here in mountainous Albemarle County, Virginia, in its southern half, and more-so in neighboring Nelson County, the high-up mountain-scars from the 1969 Camille Disaster are still visible….mostly rock, the finer debris long eroded.)
The rivers were up and the ground was saturated from a different system before Helene had made landfall. It was a 1, 2 punch like the 1916 flood and most other devastating floods.
I live in Blount County,Tennessee,these communities in North Carolina are just over the mountains from me.
EVERYONE who lives in Appalachia from the foothills to the mountaintops EVERYONE was paying attention to this storm. If that storm had moved,just a little,it would've destroyed my hometown and spared North Carolina.
But,for God's grace,it could've been us that got destroyed. This was a wake-up call to everyone in Appalachia,We could be next. Climate change is causing changing weather patterns in the United States,one look at Yancey County should end all debate. My family is developing protocols to deploy when the next hurricane floods Appalachia. It seems crazy to even say that,but here we are
There is no man-made climate change, but the climate does change. The manse and church we are helping with was flooded pretty badly. It is located in one of the hard hit areas. But, it was also flooded in the early 2000's from a hurricane. There were big floods in 1916 in this area that were devastating. I think there is always a danger that a hurricane will create these conditions. Thank goodness it is not often, but we should always be prepared. This church now knows that if there is a danger of flooding, the pastor should leave. Thank goodness the pastor and his family left before the storm hit. We praise the Lord that He protected the family, and that God has provided people who are lovingly cleaning the buildings and buying new carpet and supplies. It has been humbling and amazing to see all the people who are so generous with time and resources to this small mountain church. We serve a mighty God.
@hisservants8003 You're not even from here and you're trying to tell me what the weather is. Kick Rocks,People that mix religion with the government are part of the problem. You're being led around by the Koch family and you don't even know who they are.
I appreciate your videos. Which Sentinel collection are you using for the post-storm images? Have you studied Linville Gorge at all?
I find your videos so interesting I love topography and to see it in action the way you do it is really cool I learn a lot from it! Thank you!
Im in Greene County, Tennessee. I realize this is possibly a stupid question but I’ll take my chances. There are stretches of the Nolichucky here along farmland that don’t have the giant boulders and whitewater. Its more like deeper water lined with trees on either side. Well, those trees are gone. All of them. Miles and miles and miles of trees just gone. When the grasses grow back on the banks, it’ll look like a giant version of a grass creek. With all the trees gone, is it going to make these kinds of areas along the river more prone to flooding?
No
No it won't be more prone to flooding but it will increase erosion on the banks because of the roots lost. The flood plain beside the river could change due to the main channel moving over time from bank collapses. The reason for leaving trees along waterways is to stabilize the soil and hold the channel as best we can.
Invasive plants may take over too
@@markpashia7067 actually here they’re piling them up and burning them to make things look prettier. I feel like they should just leave them and let nature do it’s thing. Thanks for explaining.
@@josephbarnett2566 that happens everywhere now. I’m sure most of what we’ll see lining the river banks soon will be things like ironweed, goldenrod, frost flower etc. Or at least that’s the hope. Your comment just reminded me that a lot of Bradford Pears got destroyed by the river so I reckon that’s a tiny win for the environment.
Microsoft Paint skills are pristine.
With so much of the soil layer being "ripped out" and all of the area being made up of such steep slopes, is there any worry/risk of further landslides as the terrain continues to "settle in" from here?
Thank you so much for doing these videos. The sheer scope of damage as a result of this disaster is unimaginable, but your videos help give a valuable understanding of what has happened.
I’m not sure if you being a geologist if you would happen to know how or what the rotor rooting of all the creeks did to Gold? When events like this happens how much Gold or other valuable minerals does the rushing water uncover? Thought about maybe taking up creek panning with my boys possibly. lol awesome videos! Greetings from Candler up hwy 151 on Mt Pisgah. Please everyone keep praying for WNC
Lookimg forward to you getting updated lidar images to understand the volume of landscape that was removed. Looking at the old ellevation models it is clear that those hollows didn't get that way in the past 6 thousand years.
Another great video. Thank you. I’ll be really curious if people will rebuild near these scoured areas because it seems so unstable right now.
it will take a while. the scour will remain, and any material deposited on the edges above the scour will indeed be unstable. stuff will likely shift around some with first big rain as well.
These videos are very interesting. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Your videos are absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge!!!
I follow Mark. Love his videos too though I have to say I worry about him when he is in the flow areas. I realize the debris seems to be "concreted" in but seems like it would still be unstable😮
I've seen some of Huneycutt's hikes. I was thinking how much your 2 points of view enhance each other. I was thinking it might be beneficial if you gave each other permission to use clips to enhance our understanding of what happened. Maybe even do a collab livestream some Saturday afternoon.
Thanks for your presentations, very well done!
Will the scars still transport debris/mud/rocks until grasses/flora start re-growing and holding the soil? In other ;heavy rains'.
Almost certainly. The topography isn’t settled back down.
If u could overlay the doppler radar u would have a best seller
A 'before' layer, an 'after' layer, a 'radar' layer and the 'total rainfall/time' layer in one program
Im asking for it now from a professor gis friend
I have a place off buck creek and finally got up to my place and I was spared. Driving 80 from top to bottom is crazy to see the true power of mother nature.
Amazing and informative breakdowns with these videos.
I've been to the area hit by HELENE many times before HELENE. Also to Norway and South Korea all 3 areas have steep mountains. So if you get a front stalling over them that rain rushes down hill picking up EVERYTHING NOT SECURE.
EXCELLENT VIDEO! MY QUESTION IS WHERE DID THE FLOOD WATER AND DEBRIS END UP??
Most of it got stoped/trapped in Lake Tahoma . Which is on Buck creek about 4 miles from where Buck Creek goes into the Catawba River just North West of Marion NC.
@@robertkirkpatrick7903 Thank you!
What was the estimate? 40 Trillion gallons that got dumped on the region?
Could you please compare this damage to that that happened in Nelson County Virginia in August 1969 that was caused by the remnants of hurricane Camille?
Thank you brother.
The old 1977 debris scar where shuford creek originates was visible from an overlook on the parkway for sure a few years. Over time it greened up but I don't think many trees have come in at that steep elevation. The people down shuford creek had quite the devastation from that flood. I remember hiking up there with all the logs and boulders but never saw it before. Maybe ten years later you wouldn't know anything happened. The creek settled into its new space. I wonder if that same spot would let go again or if once the flow scours down that there isn't anything to tear loose again.
Excellent, informative video as per usual.
Will you teach us how to use more layers of the USGS maps? I used your LIDAR demo to find info on my land that I’d never known before.
Great video, appreciate your knowledge very much.
I have rented an aframe next to Buck Creek many times.
Could you explain how land and terrain adapts to this destruction? I remember how Mt St Helen’s terrain became beautiful again after many years. Please explain how the erosion has occurred over millions of years. Those mountains used to be higher that the Himalayas during which period?
So basically it was an avalanche with no snow?
there was extensive and very permanent looking damage to the new river state park in Virginia. millions of tons of sand washed up where there was none before... could you maybe do a video about that?
Will talk about rivers in the next one or two
@@TheGeoModels your videos are great! Thank you for all the hard work!
We got hit pretty hard in Southwestern VA to but not like WNC. They will never find all the missing. Thoughts and prayers. RIP
Another very informative video - TY Again - going to ck out Honeycutt 🙏
it should pair up with this. basically the idea is that the big dirt area he sees used to be a nice little stream full of rocks with trees and rhododendron on the banks. All was scoured and, to disastrous effect, went into the Craigtown community. Same general idea when he hikes Chimney Rock
@@TheGeoModels yes I can see that watching chimney rock rn - it gives such a different perspective combined w/ your intel makes it make lots more sense appreciate it. Such beautiful Country, breaks my heart there’s so many effected by this disaster... Praying for All - Def appreciate the ref to his channel it so made the complete pic imho - I would have never imagined all I “understand” now - love the mountains but like everything w/ Mother Nature ~ She’s to b respected 🙌
@@TheGeoModels watching his other video titled the dangerous debris field one matches up w/ what u said 🎯✔️🎯Wow / the water had to b 15 ft - OMG 🤌😬🥹😳😮
@@marialeibrandt5270The water was probably not 15 feet deep, but the debris flow eroded almost 15 feet of soil and boulders.
@@ericfielding2540 it’s all just so wild -learned so much in this channel - I huge watched it last night & am better for it. Ty for the info some places say 10 ft water in their house some people say water went up to the roofs & carried houses off foundations it’s all so much to process I can only imagine 🥹🙏
Very thorough.. thank you. Helped me comprehend this wayyy better!!
So much devastation in areas. Three generations were swept away in one slide. 11 people gone. Just one story of many 😢. Helping financially is almost impossible for anyone. Thought and prayer, at times seems bleak, can help with hope. Thanks to all. Prayers to survivors and lost ones.
@TheGeoModels, I was watching a drone video over the areas of forest that look defoliated from satellite views. They are indeed defoliated but more than that, the forests are almost completely flattened on the windward slopes. I counted and there were about 20 felled trees for every standing one. This could lead to a change of species in the forest. Geologically, it could change erosion patterns.