Guardian - Asheville Had Been Touted As A Climate "Haven"; Helene Showed That Nowhere Is Safe

[hatrack]

Nestled in the bucolic Blue Ridge mountains of western North Carolina and far from any coast, Asheville was touted as a climate “haven” from extreme weather. Now the historic city has been devastated and cut off by Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic floodwaters, in a stunning display of the climate crisis’s unlimited reach in the United States. Helene, which crunched into the western Florida coast as a category 4 hurricane on Thursday, brought darkly familiar carnage to a stretch of that state that has experienced three such storms in the past 13 months, flattening coastal homes and tossing boats inland.

But as the storm, with winds peaking at 140mph (225 km/h), carved a path northwards, it mangled places in multiple states that have never seen such impacts, obliterating small towns, hurling trees on to homes, unmooring houses that then floated in the floodwater, plunging millions of people into power blackouts and turning major roads into rivers. In all, about 100 people have died across five states, with nearly a third of these deaths occurring in the county containing Asheville, a city of historic architecture where new residents have flocked amid boasts by real estate agents of a place that offers a reprieve from “crazy” extreme weather.

Now, major highways into Asheville have been severed by flooding from surging rainfall, its mud-caked and debris-strewn center turned into a place where access to cellphone reception, gasoline and food is scarce. The water supply, as well as the roads, is expected to be affected for weeks. It is, according to Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s governor, an “unprecedented tragedy”.

“Everyone thought this was a safe place, somewhere you could move with your kids for the long term, so this is just unimaginable, it’s catastrophic,” said Anna Jane Joyner, a climate campaigner who grew up in the area and whose family still lives in Black Mountain, near Asheville. Several of her friends narrowly avoided being swept away by the floodwater. “I never, ever considered the idea that Asheville would be wiped out,” she said. “It was our backup plan to move there, so the irony is stark and scary and it’s hard for me to emotionally process. I’ve been working in the climate movement for 20 years and feel like I’m now living in a movie I imagined in my head when I started. Nowhere is safe now.”

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/01/hurricane-helene-asheville-climate-change-nowhere-safe

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/01/hurricane-helene-asheville-climate-change-nowhere-safe

[lark]

1. I had consdered moving to Asheville from FL for that same reason.

My heart breaks for what they are going through now, so unexpected in the grand scheme of things. Guess no place is safe these days?

[markodochartaigh]

2. As usual,

we are learning the hard way that we don't know as much about the Earth as we think that we do. The Pacific Northwest was touted as a climate refuge but it has recently seen unforseen heat and drought. Under the old climate regime, as well as previous regimes, humanity went through a lot of trial and error in adapting ourselves and our crops to different climates. This time, with the climate changing much more quickly, it will be more difficult.