5 Key Takeaways In The Aftermath Of Hurricane Helene

At the time of writing, the storm has killed 42 people, and that number is likely to rise. Hurricane Helene immediately becomes an infamous name in the history of storms. I wrote a series of articles about Hurricane Helene in the days leading up to the storm. The first one was six days before the storm made landfall in the panhandle of Florida. In a subsequent piece written a few days before the storm strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane, I lamented about having the same feeling evoked by previous catastrophic storms like Harvey (2017), Michael (2018) or Ian (2022). In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, here are my five key takeaways.

Multiple Impacts Were On Display

Hurricane Helene did what a Category 4 storm does. It caused destruction through extreme winds, storm surge, rainfall, and tornadoes. The sheer size of the storm also extended those impacts across many states. All week, we sounded the alarm that the footprint of the storm would cause catastrophic storm surge along the western coast of Florida, extreme winds and power outages along the path of the storm, and excessive rainfall from the coast of Florida to Appalachia. In thirty years, I don’t recall seeing Hurricane or Tropical Storm watches or warnings spanning the entire states of Florida and Georgia, respectively.

Forecasts Were Good But There Were Hiccups

From a forecast perspective, the storm behaved as expected given the extremely warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and a favorable wind shear environment. It exhibited rapid intensification as it went from a cluster of clouds in the Caribbean Sea to a powerful major hurricane. Our best weather models consistently indicated a large, strong storm making landfall in the Panhandle of Florida. Forecasters also correctly noted that the storm would move quickly inland bring hurricane and tropical storm conditions into Georgia and other states.

Places like Valdosta, Georgia and Augusta, Georgia, among many others, experienced significant damage. Tom Mote is a renowned climatologist and the founding director of the atmospheric sciences program at the University of Georgia. The Augusta resident told me, “It’s probably inappropriate to say it is apocalyptic here but it’s pretty darn close.” Mote is one of the more measured colleagues I know so for him to make that statement is revealing.

Throughout the Augusta region, trees have fallen on homes or cars, power is out, and gas leaks are numerous. Many of the hardest hit communities are well-inland and are not equipped for hurricane recovery. Such communities will need immediate and sustained attention and resources. I am still quite stunned to be writing “hurricane recovery” in the same sentence with cities like Augusta, Macon, Valdosta, Douglas or Statesboro. These communities will be recovering for months not days.

The National Hurricane Center was spot on with the general location of landfall. However, it consistently stayed with a forecast for inland track up the western part of Georgia. On that track, Atlanta and its eastern suburbs were projected to experience extreme winds and power outages. As Helene approached Florida, some models indicated a more eastward shift in track. That shift ultimately spared Tallahassee, Florida from a direct hit, but places like Perry, Florida were devastated. That same region has experienced a sequence of hurricanes in recent years including Idalia (2023) and Debby (2024).

Helene tracked in a more northeasterly direction as it moved into Georgia, which put locations like Savannah, Augusta, and the Carolinas in the “dirty” side of the “eye.” Many colleagues and television stations were mentioning model outcomes that identified the eastward tendency, but the official NHC track, even after landfall, was still westward. To be clear, NHC forecasters are the best in the world. I have praised them consistently in these pages. However, there will certainly be questions raised about this aspect of the storm. Just recently, the Washington Post published an article on a mystery government model not available to the public. Some critics have questioned whether there was something in that model that was different than public-facing models. Time and objective assessment will ultimately reveal information and move us forward.

Janet Frick is a psychology professor at the University of Georgia. She is also a quite weather attentive. Frick told me, “The written key messages don’t communicate as much as maps do, and people looked at the traditional hurricane cone map and concluded that it was going over Atlanta and won’t really affect other areas.” The National Hurricane Center started issuing an experimental version of the cone in 2024 (map above) that includes watches and warnings. She prefers the new experimental cone but went on to say, “To whatever extent the weather community could move away from cone maps to impact maps, I think it would be better for communicating risks.”

University of Miami tropical weather expert Brian McNoldy agrees. When significant hurricane threats are present, he always shares the impact maps below. NOAA provides these maps, but they are not as popular as the cone map and you rarely see this in media outlets. These maps convey impacts in a way that expands the “risk footprint.”

Rainfall Still Gets Lost In The Discussion

Water is always the deadliest aspect of hurricane. Studies continually make that point. Yet, inland freshwater flooding and storm surge are often trumped by the wind potential in public facing communication. Though the Atlanta area was spared the most extreme winds, numerous flood emergencies were ongoing Friday morning. Throughout the week, forecasters sounded the alarm about excessive rainfall, yet there are emerging narratives that the flooding in Atlanta “came out of nowhere.” That is absolutely not true. The National Weather Service issued several warmings in the days leading up to the storm.

I measured about nine inches of rain at my house in the eastern Atlanta suburbs. The State Climate Office of Georgia confirmed that 11.12 inches of rainfall fell in Atlanta over two days due to the combination of an existing frontal system and Hurricane Helene. That amount shattered the previous record of 9.59 inches set in 1886. Additionally, it was always abundantly clear that the mountainous regions would see catastrophic flooding since elevated terrain enhances rainfall. Some parts of North Carolina received nearly 30 inches of rainfall.

Infrastructure Is Vulnerable To Extreme Weather

The extreme rainfall also produced challenges for infrastructure. I have consistently opined that societal infrastructure will need a major overall to be resilient for this generation of extreme weather within a changing climate system. The extreme rainfall associated with Helene compromised critical transportation, energy, and water supply infrastructure across multiple states. Millions of people awoke this weekend with no power.

On Friday, warnings were issued for North Carolina residents living below Lake Lure Dam to evacuate to higher ground as dam failure was imminent. At the time of writing Saturday morning, NBC News reported that officials are dealing with a breach in the Nolichucky Dam. Residents in Greene County, Tennessee are being warned by the Tennessee Valley Authority’s River Forecast Center of an “imminent breach.”

A major transportation artery was also compromised as Helene moved further inland. Multiple outlets reported that a section of Interstate 40 connecting Tennessee and North Carolina failed. A portion of the interstate slid into the Pigeon River. This route is a major transportation route through the region. Prolonged closure will have lasting impacts on daily commutes and national commerce. Unfortunately, some agricultural industries in Georgia and the Carolinas also had losses.

Messaging Challenges Still Exist

Many of the challenges that surface in weather communication on a daily basis were apparent with Helene but amplified. Most people do not have previous benchmarks or experience with a Category 4 storm, particularly inland locations like Atlanta, Augusta, Clemson, or the mountainous towns of North Georgia. The public and officials make decisions based on previous experiences, which are often not representative of anomaly situations. A recent National Academies report, which I co-authored, on compound disasters in the Gulf Coast region amplified this point.

Hurricane Helene also came at a time of fall break vacations and high school homecoming season. I noticed some people here in Georgia minimizing the storm scenario because they had a desired outcome that fit personal circumstances. A few social media group sites, for example, showed parents lamenting because homecoming games were being postponed. There is also a tendency to downplay the scope of a multi-hazard event as “just rain” because it fits their mental models or aligns with their motivated reasoning.

Along similar lines, I am convinced that we have lost the battle with the “Turn Around, Don’t Drown” slogan. There were so many examples of cars abandoned or stuck in flooded roadways. Brad Panovich, a meteorologist in Charlotte, tweeted a webcam of cars driving through flooded roads in Boone, North Carolina. Studies show that people weigh their immediate circumstances or needs over any perceived risk from driving through a potential deadly flood. “I have to get to work or my kid at daycare” often wins the day over finding a safer route. It is a form of optimism bias.

Optimism bias or cynicism towards weather forecasts (based on isolated bad forecasts) always appears with storms like this. There are two major challenges here. A common false narrative exists that weather forecasts are always wrong. Actually, they are right most of the time within 3 to 5 days. People disproportionately hold on to the fewer misses. Which does a football fan you remember more? – All the field goals the kicker made this season or the miss in the Super Bowl that costs the team the game.

The other challenge is what I will call the “it’s about me” fallacy.” I made that up, but I suspect there is a more technical term. Once Helene passed, I saw comments like, “It wasn’t that bad” or “Nothing happened.” Candidly, such statements are pretty disrespectful to grieving families or someone sitting with a tree in their roof. Some people seem to equate forecast accuracy to what happened where they are located. I see it often with tornado risk situations. The NWS might issue a tornado watch that prompts early release from schools across a region. A tornado might very well happen in another part of the county, but there are often complaints from people in the unaffected parts.

Weather risk involves preparing for the worst but being ok with a better outcome. You probably needed that bread anyhow. Such challenges articulate why research at the intersection of weather, sociology, psychology, and risk communication is so important.

The week prior to Helene, I spent the weekend in Jacksonville, Florida, which is also still dealing with the aftermath of the storm. We gathered for the 36th reunion of my pledge line of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. The nine of us had not been in the same room together in over 35 years. At that time, I mentioned that Hurricane Helene was likely next week. I love these guys like blood brothers and several of them lived in the Tampa Bay area. One of them, Michael Leeks, lives on Clearwater Beach, Florida. He shared with our group chat this morning that his decision to evacuate was a wise one. He said, “Even though we were about 120 miles from the center, I knew we were on the treacherous east side of the storm.” Mike also remembered our 5 P’s from 1988. Prior planning prevents poor performance.