ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Had she realized how much destruction the floods would bring, Lindsey Miller might have prepared differently or even left her home entirely.

Fortunately, her residence near Boone, North Carolina, remained intact, but they faced issues with power, cell service, and water supply. Some neighbors resorted to using buckets from a nearby river for flushing toilets and relied on bottled water for washing their children.

Miller remembers hearing emergency alerts pinging on her phone in the early hours of September 27, just hours before the flooding chaos began. Unfortunately, by then it was too late to do anything.

“We knew a storm was on the way, but we had no idea it would turn into something this severe,” she stated. “We truly were not prepared at all.”

As rescue teams scoured rivers and communities for victims of the catastrophic floods caused by the remnants of Hurricane Helene, neighborhoods faced the overwhelming impact of a disaster that many never anticipated. The death toll across the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Georgia reached 200 by Thursday afternoon and is expected to rise. In Buncombe County, North Carolina—the center of the devastation including Asheville—officials have confirmed at least 72 fatalities.

Conversations with residents, specialists, meteorologists, and local authorities reveal a narrative of a storm that intensified rapidly, moving further inland than typical while hitting with remarkable force. Officials are just beginning to evaluate the alert systems that managed to warn some but not all of the residents about the imminent catastrophic floods and consider how these systems can be improved.

This unprecedented catastrophe presented distinct hurdles for emergency services working to evacuate and protect residents in a mountainous area that faced multiple flooding incidents and tropical-storm winds. Residents from Tennessee to North Carolina expressed frustration over the lack of sufficient or any warning about the rising floodwaters and the dams that were close to failing.

“We didn’t get any warning,” reported Sunday Greer, a counselor at Sullivan East High School in Bluff City, Tennessee. “Basically, there was no official communication at all.”

In the coming weeks and months, the processes surrounding emergency planning and response to the floods, from forecasting to evacuation protocols, will undergo review, as noted by Russ Strickland, Maryland’s emergency management director and president of the National Emergency Management Association.

“This storm hit with far more intensity than they had expected,” he remarked. “Before it’s all said and done, there will be significant discussions with NOAA, the National Hurricane Center’s forecasting office, and state officials. Did they overlook something? Was there an indication?”

Critical Early Alerts

As Helene amassed power in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, officials in Buncombe County started getting calls from meteorologists closely monitoring the storm’s trajectory and strength.

Helene was still several days from making landfall near Florida’s Big Bend. However, a cold front had recently moved through western North Carolina, resulting in storms that caused more than six inches of rain in the already saturated mountainous region, raising river levels. Helene, being a large, robust, and fast-moving storm was now targeting them, with the promise of more rainfall.

Seeing the gravity of the situation, Buncombe County officials declared a local state of emergency for low-lying areas like Asheville and Montreat on September 26, as stated by the county’s communication director, Lillian Govus.

On the very same day, they established an Emergency Operations Center at the county emergency services building, situated just north of Asheville. County Manager Avril Pinder, Assistant Emergency Services Director Ryan Cole, along with law enforcement and fire officials convened to evaluate the incoming data and forecasts to determine the necessary actions.

“CATASTROPHIC FLASH FLOODING POSSIBLE,” was the alarming message posted on the Buncombe County Facebook page that day, also translated into Spanish for the nearly 22,000 Latino residents.

No evacuation orders were given.

‘Things Are About to Get Worse’

Meanwhile, as this was unfolding, Clay Chaney, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Weather Forecast Office in Greer, South Carolina, settled into his workspace to track Helene’s developments in the Gulf. Responsible for the forecast of upstate South Carolina, western North Carolina, and parts of Georgia, Chaney recognized that mountain flooding would pose the greatest risk to his area.

He was well aware of thunderstorms that had swept across the region, termed “predecessor events,” which created hazardous conditions in Helene’s path. A hydrologist in his office analyzed river gauge readings and other information to assess flood risks.

By Tuesday, September 24, Chaney and his colleagues began conducting daily webinars—a series of hour-long online discussions with local and state emergency management officials.

In his area, particularly Buncombe County, Chaney held a webinar at 3:30 p.m., attracting over 230 participants. He discussed a sequence of slides that illustrated Helene’s trajectory, wind speeds, and the likelihood of significant flooding as it approached the Appalachian region.

He advised attendees in lower-lying regions to prepare for “worst-case scenarios.” During the nearly hour-long session, Chaney thoughtfully responded to questions from the audience.

The following morning, Wednesday, Sept. 25, Chaney arrived at his office feeling disheartened by the rainfall totals, which were as high as anticipated, reaching up to 9 inches in some areas. He and others feared that additional rain could lead to unprecedented flooding. That day, rain from Helene’s outer bands began to fall across the region.

“We were thinking, ‘Oh no, this is really about to get serious,” Chaney recalled.

Rivers rise to historic levels

During the webinar with emergency officials on Sept. 25, Chaney heightened the urgency, likening the impending floods to the catastrophic “Great Flood of 1916,” which inundated towns, resulted in at least 80 fatalities in Buncombe County, and devastated homes, businesses, and railways.

His office also shared alarming messages on social media with grave forecasts.

“*URGENT UPDATE*,” the message began. “This is projected to be one of the most significant weather moments in the western part of the area in recent history. Record flooding is expected and has been compared to the floods of 1916 in Asheville.”

The message continued: “We cannot overstate the importance of this event. Follow all evacuation instructions from your local Emergency Manager”

Across the region, river gauges were recording unprecedented levels and forecasting historic flooding. The gauge for the French Broad River in Asheville indicated the river was rising more than 2 feet each hour, increasing from 2.31 feet at 3 p.m. on Wednesday to 10.19 feet by 9 a.m. on Thursday.

“By Thursday, we’re essentially predicting the worst-case scenario,” Chaney said, “and keeping our partners informed.”

However, not everyone was aware of the looming storm. Denia Zuniga, 44, originally from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and living about 10 miles east of Asheville in Swannanoa, had just finished several shifts cleaning homes and was out of the loop regarding the news.

As she finished work late Thursday, a colleague mentioned a hurricane but didn’t specify its location. She paid little attention to it.

That evening, it rained, but everything else appeared normal. She prepared dinner for her children, Estefany, 10, and Anthony, 18, and went to bed alongside her husband, Pedro Rivera Hernandez, 43, also from Honduras.

Her phone never received any alerts.

‘Take action now’

In Buncombe County, officials were paying close attention to forecasts.

At 4 p.m. on Thursday, leaders from Buncombe and Henderson counties, together with the North Carolina Highway Patrol, hosted a virtual press conference on Zoom, live-streamed on various official social media platforms, to alert residents about the anticipated “catastrophic” and “historic” flooding. They recommended, for the first time, that people in flood-prone regions should evacuate.

Pinder, the county manager, highlighted that approximately 15,000 residences in flood-sensitive areas could be affected by the floods.

“We cannot emphasize enough how serious this situation is,” she stated. “If you reside in a flood zone, you need to act now—right now.”

As Helene’s outer bands began to affect western North Carolina late Thursday into early Friday, heavy rain fell across the area, causing rivers to swell and spill over in certain locations. Around 4 a.m., power outages began to sweep through the county as lights flickered out.

Emergency services reported that rivers in Buncombe County were breaching their banks and inundating roadways.

‘Like Niagara Falls for five hours non-stop’

At 5:30 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 27, Chaney sent out an urgent alert to Buncombe County: “FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY FOR SWANNANOA RIVER VALLEY BELOW NORTH FORK RESERVOIR”

This alert buzzed through residents’ cell phones as Wireless Emergency Alerts, similar to those used for tornado warnings.

Around 45 minutes later, at 6:15 a.m., Buncombe County issued its own emergency notification: a mandatory evacuation order that reached phones via the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, or IPAWS, which is managed by FEMA for local emergencies. The county was not required to seek state approval for this mandatory evacuation, as noted by Govus.

However, Chaney remarked that by that time, it was too late for people to evacuate.

“When you receive a flash flood emergency alert, it’s far too late to evacuate,” he stated. “Your only option at that moment is to find higher ground.”

Zuniga awoke early Friday as strong winds battered her home. She looked outside and saw water gathering on her yard and the street. She roused her husband and checked her phone: there was no signal.

When she finally managed to put on some clothes and stepped outside to alert a neighbor, the water had already reached almost knee height. All around her, water was surging. “It’s time to leave,” she thought.

She quickly grabbed her kids and their passports while Hernandez drove them away in his truck. Within just a few hours, their house was completely submerged. The floodwaters rose so fast that many neighbors were trapped and needed rescue, Zuniga shared.

“We lost everything,” she reflected later at the shelter in Fletcher. “All our belongings were in that house.”

She wished she had received a warning sooner.

“We would have evacuated,” Zuniga stated. “If we’d known what was coming, we would have left.”

That entire day, muddy walls of water surged down streets and highways, tossing homes off their foundations, damaging bridges, and sweeping away residents.

By the afternoon, the French Broad River in Asheville had peaked at 24.67 feet, surpassing its previous record from the 1916 flood by more than a foot, according to NOAA. Another gauge at Fletcher registered a crest of 30.31 feet, more than 10 feet higher than its highest level recorded in 2004.

Govus mentioned that they depended on river readings to decide when to evacuate. However, the magnitude and destructive power of the floods took everyone by surprise.

“It felt like being hit by Niagara Falls for five continuous hours,” she described.

‘No Way to Escape’

As various communities began clearing the debris left by the floods, some residents and officials expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of timely warnings.

In East Tennessee, dams operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which is the largest public power provider in the U.S., played a vital role in slowing down the historic floodwaters brought by Helene as they moved down the mountains across the state line.

Flooding above the dams was catastrophic in certain areas, leading to an emergency airlift of 62 individuals from a hospital rooftop in Unicoi County. The Nolichucky River surged with nearly double the volume of Niagara Falls over a small TVA dam downstream, leaving the hospital isolated.

As of October 2, eleven deaths due to flooding were reported in Tennessee, and officials anticipated that number to increase.

By the time the first emergency flood warnings came through Kriston Hicks’ phone at 9:20 a.m. on Friday, September 27, water had already entered her home in Hampton, Tennessee, where she lived with her 78-year-old grandfather and six dogs.

She decided to evacuate and waded through the water to get her grandfather and carry him to her van.

“No one came to warn me,” Hicks noted. “Hampton doesn’t have a siren.”

Despite her home being destroyed by the flood and later torn down, Hicks was able to reunite with four of her dogs.

Some residents received alerts but chose not to react. In Erwin, Tennessee, Zully Manzanares noticed the warnings starting on the night of September 26, yet didn’t fully comprehend the severity of the disaster that was approaching.

“We’ve had warnings before,” she remarked.

She never imagined the alerts would culminate in such devastation.

Manzanares, who coordinates a Head Start program and speaks Spanish, assists immigrants in the Hispanic communities of Erwin. Sadly, at least three individuals from the community who worked at Impact Plastics on the Nolichucky River have been confirmed dead or are reported missing.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is currently looking into the situation, including claims that employees were instructed to remain at work during the floods. The company has denied these accusations.

Flooding continued downstream as well. Some residents, such as Greer, a high school counselor in Bluff City, indicated they received no warnings about continued flooding when the utility began discharging unprecedented amounts of water through the spill gates.

“They’re saying they need to brace for the next storm,” Greer commented. “They didn’t prepare for the first storm.”

On Thursday, September 26, the day prior to the flooding, Watauga County, North Carolina, officially announced a state of emergency. Officials sent out wireless alert notifications, but due to cell service outages, many of those alerts failed to reach residents’ phones, as stated by William Holt, the county’s emergency services director.

As Hurricane Helene drew closer and conditions worsened, Holt explained that emergency teams struggled to identify safe evacuation routes for residents. An originally designated shelter was flooded and had to be relocated. Tragically, two local residents lost their lives in landslides.

“We never want to move someone from a secure area to a location that could endanger them,” he said, adding, “In this kind of event, there was nowhere to escape to.”