ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — As western North Carolina approaches two years since Helene, experts are examining why Appalachian communities are vulnerable to flooding.
“I was always trying to kind of keep myself uplifted and I kept telling myself, well, this is a story you get to tell your grandkids one day at your birthday party and maybe somebody would film it,” said Bat Cave resident Alexus Mae Freeman about her Helene experience.
Helene exposed Appalachia’s flood risks; experts explain why. (WMYA)
Freeman is a writer attending the University of North Carolina Asheville. She says she attended the school’s lecture: Appalachian Flooding in Fact and Fiction, to better understand the destruction she witnessed during Helene.
At the event, a literary scholar examined representations of flooding in Appalachian literature, and a forest hydrologist spoke about flood vulnerability here in Appalachian communities.
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“We are vulnerable here because we are at the convergence of different weather systems that collide with the Appalachian Mountains,” said forest hydrologist Nicolas Zegre.
He says almost all infrastructure in the Appalachian Mountains is located at the base of valleys where rivers are present.
“We have a high flood risk throughout the Appalachian region because there’s only so many places we can build,” said Zegre.
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He said floods and storms have changed over the years.
“Heavy rainfall is increasing everywhere,” said Zegre. “There’s more water being evaporated from our forests and from our rivers and from our lakes and from our soils and from our fields, and the atmosphere can hold more water.”
He said while the flooding situation isn’t improving, he hopes that having a greater understanding of why floods happen will help people better prepare.
Freeman says she left the lecture with more hope for the future.
“Actually, getting to hear tonight how this happened was really, really, really healing in a lot of ways,” said Freeman.