---
title: "America's Infrastructure is Being Neglected and Hurricanes Show Us How"
description: "## Introduction\n\nIt was never supposed to be the storm of the decade. When, in late September, an atmospheric disturbance became a tropical storm, and that tropical storm became Hurricane Helene, it was thought to be just another chapter in what had been a pedestrian storm season in the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricanes are common there, they're expected, and while they're never to be taken lightly, they're a natural force that the nations of this part of the world understand how to manage. It was a significant storm, and a few hours before it made landfall, it grew into a major storm…but they could take it.\n\nFast forward a week, and the sheer devastation that Hurricane Helene delivered to the United States has exceeded every forecast. Hundreds are confirmed dead, while hundreds more are missing. On the scale of American hurricanes, Helene is already the deadliest to impact US territory since Hurricane Maria, and the deadliest to impact America's forty-eight contiguous states since Hurricane Katrina. It traveled further than nearly anybody had expected, devastated communities that had thought they couldn't be hit, and brought a significant portion of America's southeast to its knees.\n\nBut alongside the death and devastation, Hurricane Helene brought a warning sign: Storms, and particularly, America's very biggest storms, are changing…and America isn't ready. In this special episode of Megaprojects, we'll be closely examining Hurricane Helene: the storm itself, the devastation it wrought, and what that devastation reveals about the places it impacted most. And we'll be exploring Helene in context to one of the most major, and most critical megaprojects of all: How people formulate and execute responses to tremendously powerful natural disasters, at a moment when those disasters come more frequently than ever.\n\n## The Hurricane\n\nThe storm that would become Hurricane Helene, started out in the same way that every eventual hurricane does: as a low-pressure zone in the moisture of the tropical Gulf of Mexico. Those low-pressure zones, slowly moving westward, will interact with the ocean air, churning and sending cool, humid air upward to form rainclouds…and then, thunderstorms. As the storms grow, they rotate around their center, and as the winds accelerate, the storm becomes a hurricane. In order to even be called a hurricane at all, even a weak storm will sustain winds of seventy-four miles per hour, 119 kilometers per hour, at a minimum. A medium-strength storm's winds will sustain at 111 miles or 178 kilometers per hour. The strongest, known in America as a Category Five, will sustain winds of 157 miles per hour, 252 kilometers per hour, at a bare minimum…and there is no upper limit. The sheer energy contained in this sort of storm is nearly incomprehensible…but we'll at least try to explain it. If all the energy of a single hurricane's winds were harnessed with perfect efficiency, then that storm could match half the power-generating capacity of all human infrastructure on planet Earth.\n\nBy the time then-Tropical Storm Helene caught the world's attention, in the last week of September 2024, it was well on its way to becoming a hurricane. But even in Helene's early days, there were subtle indicators that the storm had the potential to be especially bad. At the time that Helene was forming, the waters of the Gulf were at completely unprecedented temperatures; quoting atmospheric scientist Brian McNoldy, \"This is pretty amazing: the ocean heat content averaged over the Gulf of Mexico is obliterating previous all-time record highs. It's 126% of average for the date.\" In some parts of the Gulf, the surface of the sea was up to 89 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly 32 degrees Celsius. Not only that, but it would travel over an extremely warm area of the Caribbean known as the Loop Current, injecting the storm with a further boost of energy even as the surrounding winds in the area were nearly nonexistent. In ideal conditions, those surrounding winds would have dampened a growing hurricane…but Helene had a clear path to get stronger, practically unopposed.\n\nPredicting a hurricane is notoriously risky business. That's largely because of environmental and weather factors that make modeling a hurricane's path and its power very difficult. In fact, the initial expectations around Helene were far from what would ultimately happen, with the worst of the damage predicted, before the storm made landfall, across the states of Florida and Georgia. It had already lashed Cuba, Mexico near the city of Cancun, and the Cayman Islands, indicating that worse was almost certainly on the way. In the stretch of open sea between Cuba and Florida, Helene was expected to rapidly intensify into a Category Three hurricane, with winds at around 120 miles per hour, 193 kilometers per hour. Even despite communities in Florida, especially the coastline, building their homes and businesses in a way that hardens them to hurricanes, such winds would still be enough to cause major damage, uproot trees, and knock out electricity and water for several days in the hardest-hit areas. The storm was expected to do its worst in Florida's Big Bend area, and impact the cities of Tallahassee, population 200,000, and Tampa, population 400,000. All in all, millions of people were thought to be in its path. But once the storm made landfall, it was expected to do what all hurricanes do on land: Rapidly drop in their intensity, returning to tropical-storm levels within a couple of hundred miles at most, and eventually peter out into scattered rain showers.\n\nBut in the hours before Helene arrived, it continued to intensify, eventually turning into a Category Four hurricane with sustained winds of 140 miles per hour, 225 kilometers per hour. It crashed into the town of Perry, Florida, at just past eleven at night on Thursday, September the twenty-sixth, and then roared inland for a bit, before turning northward. The storm's projected path had already been expected to take it up through the state of Georgia and to the Appalachian mountain range that runs up and down America's east, into communities in the states of North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky. But now, the added energy roiling within the storm promised two tightly interrelated, and very dangerous developments. Now, the storm was going to reach further inland, and when it did, it would lash the land with high winds and dump rain characteristic of a hurricane or major tropical storm. Not only that, but the storm had changed in other ways; its rainclouds were far larger and more expansive than expected, meaning that as the slow-moving storm passed over any given place in its path, that place would have to weather extreme rainfall for far longer than previously believed. If any square foot of land might otherwise have expected, say, six inches of rain…now, it would get twelve, or even eighteen.\n\nIn Florida, Helene would bring a devastating storm surge all across coastal areas, meaning not just high waves, but a swell of the entire sea, some eight feet higher than its usual levels. It was the worst hurricane hit to the Tampa Bay area of Florida in over a hundred years. Elsewhere in the state, the popular restaurant chain, Waffle House, would close down numerous locations, in a silly-sounding but actually very useful metric to indicate just how bad the damage in those areas would be. In Georgia, over eleven inches or 28 centimeters of rain crashed down on the state capital of Atlanta, the highest two-day rain total ever observed there, since record-keeping began in 1878. That water, not just in Atlanta, would flow into rivers and streams, swelling them to unprecedented crests in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee. Many of the rivers would flood to levels that eclipsed even the biggest historical floods on record. In one community in South Carolina, rain totals would hit nearly 22 inches, 55 centimeters, while large numbers of communities would receive rainfall far beyond anything in living memory. The storm would spawn dozens upon dozens of tornadoes, some of which devastated neighborhoods to a level even beyond what the hurricane winds would achieve on their own. From Helene's winds, trees were ripped out from the ground and toppled; from Helene's rains, massive landslides cascaded unpredictably and, sometimes, fatally. By the time the storm finally dissipated, on September the twenty-ninth, the land it had traveled over was utterly devastated.\n\n## In Helene's Wake\n\nIn aggregate numbers, the sheer impact of Hurricane Helene is unlike any weather event the United States has endured in this decade. It is the most damaging storm to hit the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At the time of writing, the death toll sits at 227, including 113 from the state of North Carolina, 48 from South Carolina, 33 from Georgia, and another 33 between Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia. That death toll is almost certain to rise, and when it does, the names that must be added to the list will likely be removed from another one: the list of missing persons. At present, official sources place the number of missing at roughly two to three hundred, but there's reason to think that many more could be out there. Community-run lists of missing persons, maintained by private citizens in the wake of the disaster, list over 1,400 names still missing at the time of writing. A high proportion of the missing may have been swept away by floodwaters, and the hope of finding survivors is quickly diminishing. If all 1,400 missing truly are dead, then the death toll from Helene would eclipse that of even Hurricane Katrina, standing at over 1,620, beyond Katrina's 1,392. For the sake of comparison, 135 people are still officially listed as missing, in Katrina's wake. When it comes to material damages, that count still rises too. Current estimates tally damage at a value of nearly forty billion US dollars, but these figures are listed at a time when many areas still have yet to be closely assessed. Total economic losses, according to the Fiscal Times, may ultimately crest over 250 billion.\n\nBut the numbers, by themselves, don't tell the whole story—and although we won't be going through an exhaustive list of the dead, the missing, and the accounts of survivors, we'll shine a spotlight on a few. In Florida, by example, the areas where Hurricane Helene hit hardest would weather levels of damage that they haven't seen in a generation. After all, this is Florida, a place that's well-hardened to hurricanes like this…yet in this case, it was not enough. In the Tampa Bay area, over a thousand people had to be rescued from the rushing storm surge after declining to evacuate; one local sheriff's office requested that people who chose not to leave, would write their personal details on their bodies in permanent marker to help authorities identify their corpses. The island community of Cedar Key was described by one resident as being, quote, \"completely gone\". In the state of Georgia, a local meteorologist named Bob Van Dillen would rescue a woman from her partially submerged car on live television; elsewhere across the state, flooding devastated many neighborhoods and left large numbers of roads entirely impassable. Well over a dozen deaths in the state would come after people were crushed or trapped by falling trees. Georgia's poultry industry, supplying nearly half of all chickens consumed annually in the US, was devastated, in an economic blow that will be felt across America for months.\n\nIn North Carolina, the city of Asheville was inundated with incredible flooding, entirely washing out multiple districts of the city, while access to the city was cut off on multiple interstates due to landslides. Elsewhere in the state, a long section of an interstate highway was washed away, and numerous smaller towns were hit very, very hard by the flooding. The town of Spruce Pine was nearly wiped out, posing a major threat to global supply chains, because of Spruce Pine's sole US source of ultra-high-purity quartz, essential in semiconductors. Elsewhere in the state, a factory that supplies intravenous fluids to much of America was flooded and forced to shut down. The vast majority of one community, Chimney Rock, was either completely destroyed or heavily damaged by the swell of the nearby Broad River. In South Carolina, some 1.3 million people lost power, including several parts of the state that lost power completely. Tennessee's helicopter crews would log fifty-eight rescues from flood conditions, including in the town of Erwin, where a medical hospital was submerged completely. There, numerous bridges collapsed and several more interstate highways sustained heavy damage. Finally, in the state of Virginia, seventy more water rescues had to take place, while more minor damage was reported in the states of West Virginia, Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio.\n\n## Damning Failures\n\nWe describe the impact of Hurricane Helene, in such state-by-state detail, partly for the simple reason that it's important to do so. Helene, like any major destructive weather event around the world, didn't just capture headlines; it changed millions of lives, and in at least several hundred cases, it ended them. But we also describe the scope and scale of the damage, because as we turn our attention to both what went right, and what went wrong, in the aftermath, it's important to remember that this was a massive natural disaster. What Hurricane Helene was, and what it did, was entirely outside of the control of any person, any community, or any government—and by a long shot. But that same reality is what makes a careful, competent, and most of all, effective emergency response so important. People can't control what the weather will do, but people can control how they respond—and it's the burden, not just of federal disaster management agencies but state and local governments, community leaders, and any other person with the power to save, or accidentally end the lives of others, to both plan for such a response, and execute, when the time comes.\n\nTo that end, we'll start on the positive side, because, as has been the case with so many disaster management efforts in recent history, there are many elements to the response that should be regarded as a success. Across the American southeast, very few hospitals ever had to close down entirely, despite blackouts, flooding, and more. Power and water infrastructure repair personnel were on hand, ready to surge into hard-hit areas in massive numbers, and they did exactly that. The country's Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, has thus far distributed some 344 million US dollars to survivors of the storm, provided 17.2 million meals, and supplied 13.9 million liters of water, as of October the ninth. Over 3,200 people received direct assistance from search and rescue teams, and well over a hundred million dollars has been funneled to efforts to restore critical transportation infrastructure. Every state that has been impacted by Helene has been engaged in its own relief efforts. Furthermore, countless individuals took heroic action to save the lives of others over the course of Helene's devastation. In the hurricane's wake, communities are banding together everywhere; quoting one Associated Press article here, about the town of Black Mountain, North Carolina: \"Alongside a fencerow, a makeshift message board listed the names of people still missing. In other areas, mules delivered medical supplies to mountaintop homes. Residents collected water from creeks and cooked over camp stoves. And across the region, people were looking after each other.\" In just about every catastrophe in history, people respond by banding together, whether because of their work in an official capacity or simple human decency and care for others…and Helene was no different.\n\nBut despite many reasons for hope, Hurricane Helene revealed everything from neglected elements of American infrastructure, to failures and oversights in planning, to clear insufficiencies in emergency response protocol. Of all the individual items to talk about, however, perhaps none present the contrast so starkly as the missing list. At present, official counts of the missing, aggregated among the various states, put the total number in the 270-to-300 range. Private citizens, however, have put together a different list, and it's substantially longer, with the discrepancy between official and community reports of missing, being multiple hundreds of persons who are apparently not accounted for on official lists. The community lists are constantly updated with news of people who've been found, alive or deceased, but the names on the community lists don't appear to make it onto official ones—constituting a massive barrier to either finding any survivors who could still remain, or notifying loved ones of the fate of a missing person.\n\nAlso high on the list of devastating hits to the American southeast, was damage to critical transportation infrastructure across the region. One key interstate, the I-40, is expected to be shut down for multiple months after a large part of the interstate washed out. The I-26 interstate will be shut down for months, too, with the combination of washouts making it very difficult for people to navigate between North Carolina and Tennessee at all. Numerous state highways suffered severe damage, and will be closed for repairs for the foreseeable future. Several key bridges have washed out due to floodwaters, or have collapsed, due to erosion where they were supported on riverbanks. Hundreds upon hundreds of roads across the region are shut down, many of which would take weeks to rebuild at the best of times, let alone when they'll be weighed as a priority against all the other roads that have to be put back together. Now, there's simply no timeline for getting a lot of them fixed, no matter how badly local residents may need them working.\n\nAfter the roads, there were the dams, where thankfully, the news during and after Helene was not nearly as bad as it could have been. Despite several incidents of dams overflowing, and widespread fears of catastrophic failures that could have killed hundreds or even thousands of people, most dams in the affected area managed to hold…but only just barely. In the state of Tennessee, evacuation orders were issued in the city of Newport after reports of a catastrophic failure of a dam upstream; luckily, the reports were identified as a false alarm. In North Carolina's Rutherford County, the Lake Lure Dam was observed with floodwater overflowing its 124-foot-high crest, and flowing, uncontrolled, around its side walls, causing authorities to urge locals to flee to high ground. The Lake Lure Dam was last identified to be in only \"fair\" condition, even before Helene arrived, and the fact that it held was little more than luck. Another dam in eastern Tennessee was found to be on the brink of imminent failure during the storm, and many across the region had to have all their floodgates opened at once, venting out as much water as was physically possible to reduce the strain. Make no mistake, the lack of dam collapses is a very good thing…but it's nothing short of a dodged bullet.\n\nAnd with so much infrastructure destroyed, emergency organizations have been unable to reach some of the hardest-hit communities by standard means…only to realize that they have very few alternative solutions. Airdrops by helicopter into affected areas are possible, and they've delivered some of the most critical supplies, including food, medicine, and limited amounts of water. But the rest, has had to come by way of private citizens doing what they can to help. Some of those private citizens come by way of their own helicopters, dropping off whatever supplies their choppers can carry. Others have had to use large numbers of pack mules, driving their mules through devastated communities and broken landscapes in order to deliver whatever the animals can bear on their backs. The communities devastated by Helene are mountainous, sometimes remote, and accessible by only a few scarce roads—which often followed the same low paths that would be a conduit for water to move in flash floods. The process for private citizens to intervene hasn't run smoothly, either; in one instance in North Carolina, a helicopter pilot attempting to rescue desperate people in an isolated community was threatened with arrest and ordered to stop his rescue efforts. Other accounts indicate, he may have been far from the only one.\n\nThen, there was Helene's effect on those less fortunate—particularly, prisoners who were in correctional institutions at the time Helene roared through. In one prison in North Carolina, inmates were never evacuated, and had to live for five days without running water or lights, while confined to their cells with only minimal interaction with prison personnel. In Florida, a jail located in the storm's path was not evacuated, despite evacuation orders for the entire surrounding community. Nor was this the only instance in which prisoners became more involved with the hurricane than they might have hoped. In Florida, low-risk prisoners were brought en masse to help deal with post-storm debris, in a form of prison labor.\n\nUnfortunately, Helene was further complicated by efforts within the United States to turn it into a political issue. It's no secret that the US is now less than a month away from a major election, and despite the imminent risk of harm to people who don't have the information they need, misinformation has spread like wildfire. One US Congressperson claimed on social media that an unspecified \"they\" were controlling the weather to cause Hurricane Helene, while numerous officials and leaders within America's right-leaning Republican Party have claimed, either outright or by strongly implying, that disaster relief may come slower to the areas hit by Helene because those areas tend to vote Republican, rather than for the Democrats, who control the presidency and thus the executive authority for emergency response. FEMA has had to launch an entire rumor response web page to deal with the onslaught of outright misinformation, debunking claims that FEMA lacks the money to assist with Hurricane Helene, that it was turning away volunteers, and that it was asking for donations in cash. At the same time, FEMA attempted to explain elements of its disaster response that have been misconstrued, and even co-opted, online.\n\nAnd then, there's the matter of simple human error—or, some might say, acts of blatant human stupidity. In one such case, a factory called Impact Plastics is now under investigation in Tennessee after several people were killed, and more were declared missing, after being trapped there. Those workers, according to their relatives and to other survivors, were made to show up to work regardless of the incoming hurricane, and they allege that they or their relatives were denied the opportunity to leave until it was too late. When they finally got permission to go, floodwaters had already inundated the parking lot with so much water that escape was impossible. The company, at least thus far, has attempted to direct blame elsewhere. In another instance, the town of Clemson, South Carolina, was devastated by Helene, with power and water infrastructure knocked out and gas scarce…but that didn't stop Clemson University from hosting eighty thousand out-of-towners for a college game of American football, placing immense strain on the community.\n\nFinally, there's an element to the Helene response that simply comes down to a fundamental lack of readiness for disasters this big. Federally, FEMA has long tried to draw attention to its dwindling funds; as FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell described in a National Public Radio interview after Helene, quote: \"[…] we are running low in our disaster relief funds, and we went into what we call immediate needs funding in early August.\" Per Criswell, that regulatory change allowed FEMA to divert funds to urgent, lifesaving work, but it's a band-aid solution that can only keep up for a few months. Said America's Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, quote: \"We are expecting another hurricane hitting. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.\" Individual states, as well as private companies, are in a similar bind. In North Carolina, by example, repair crews were entirely unable to keep up with forecasts and projections on how quickly they'd restore power to residents, largely because of the sheer extent of the damage. As one spokesperson for the company Duke Energy put it, when discussing its hundred thousand customers in areas with catastrophic damage, quote: \"We're talking about places where the homes no longer exist.\" That's the sort of damage that energy companies are capable of dealing with, when a river floods or a tornado devastates a town—but with an event as big as Helene, that catastrophic damage is repeated a hundred times over. From power companies to road repair to food distribution and more, what Helene has revealed, most of all, is the sheer lack of capacity to deal with weather events of this size. Go town by town, and the damage that Helene caused is bad, but not unprecedented. But zoom out on the map, and the devastation is on a magnitude that these states just don't have the infrastructure to handle.\n\n## A Sign of What's to Come\n\nAs we conclude today's special episode, we've got to turn toward the future, and the major implications that Hurricane Helene brings to not just the United States, but the entire world. It's difficult to overstate just how much of a historical anomaly Helene was; after all, much of the devastation was in areas where hurricanes simply don't go. Asheville, one of the cities most thoroughly devastated by Helene, was even referred to as a haven from natural disasters in recent years, given its high elevation, cool temperatures, and distance from the sea. This part of America isn't a world away from the Gulf of Mexico, but it's certainly far enough that by the time any remnants of a hurricane get there, they should be hardly more notable than any other passing storm system.\n\nBut the reality that Hurricane Helene presented, was a very different one—and the results spoke volumes about what sorts of emergency prep had been done in the area, versus the sorts that had not. The problem wasn't so much that local, state, or federal assistance wouldn't be able to figure out how to fix the problems Helene caused, but that the scale and wide-reaching impact of such a massive disaster was previously unthinkable. In this part of the country, there's little of the appropriate infrastructure to deal with a massive hurricane, because massive hurricanes aren't a historically plausible event there. At the same time, America's broader infrastructural decay was put on full display. Thousands of American dams are known to be in poor condition; well over forty percent of American bridges are half a century old or more; and well over a third of them are in need of repair. The condition of over half of all rural interstate pavement is described as either fair, mediocre, or poor. Any one of those problems is fixable…but take them together, and they represent a broken system that simply isn't equipped to be resilient to challenge.\n\nAs for the role of climate change in Hurricane Helene, the vast majority of credible scientists and experts on the matter agree that climate change was very much to blame—not for Hurricane Helene's existence, but for its intensity. Despite the cultural connotation of climate change—and particularly the phrase, \"global warming\"—evoking the idea that the world is simply getting hotter and hotter, the reality of the phenomenon is a bit different. The simplest way to conceptualize the way it actually works, is to think in terms of energy: the issue isn't that the energy within Earth's atmosphere is hotter or colder, there's just a lot more of it. Whether an atmospheric event is a heat wave, or a blizzard, or a hurricane or a drought, there's more energy being poured into that atmospheric event…and thus, whatever event we're referring to, there's going to be more of it. Droughts get longer and drier, blizzards come more frequently and dump more snow, and tropical storms accelerate into hurricanes faster, and become more powerful than they otherwise would. Helene, or a tropical storm like it, was going to be in the Gulf of Mexico around this time, even if the climate were in its pre-industrial state. But the damage of Helene, the power, the duration, and the eventual devastation of the storm, almost certainly owed themselves to a supercharge of energy that would not otherwise have been a factor.\n\nOf course, we do want to acknowledge that in some parts of the world, particularly the US, climate change remains a divisive issue—but we'll put it to you this way. Even if humans weren't to blame for climate change, the reality of weather observations around the world indicate that however the atmosphere got so supercharged, it's certainly supercharged now. Excuse the bluntness, but in truth, the effects of that change will care very little about the political affiliation of communities that will be devastated. In this particular case, a wealth of prior research and an ample number of expert analysts have been able to generate preliminary figures on just how much of a factor climate change was, for Hurricane Helene itself. The North Atlantic Ocean, for example, is estimated to store up to ninety percent of the excess heat caused by climate change, supercharging atmospheric events in that area with more and more energy. According to data from nonprofit research organization Climate Central, the record warm waters that bred Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico were between 200 and 500 times more likely than they would have been, in pre-industrial conditions. Climate Central, by the way, released a report in May of this year that emphasized climate change's role in increasing the likelihood of extreme inland flooding, in precisely the areas Helene hit hardest. Other climate research organizations have found, preliminarily, that Helene was 20 percent wetter overall, dropped fifty percent more rain on Georgia and the Carolinas, and was 20 times more likely to dump the sheer volume of water it did, as a result of climate change. In some places, Helene delivered a thousand-year flood, a flood that, historically, would only be expected once every thousand years. But with the way weather trends are moving, similar floods will most likely be observed long before the year 3024.\n\nAs America's attention shifts from the cleanup from Hurricane Helene, to the cleanup from Hurricane Milton and more, the world's attention will need to shift elsewhere too. But in dealing with these sorts of growing disasters all over the world, it's simply not enough to take the lessons learned from Helene, and repeat them everywhere. We said it a moment ago, and we'll say it again: Climate change doesn't just make everything hot. It takes whatever major weather events happen to be common in a given area, it makes more of them, and it makes them worse. The real lesson to learn from Hurricane Helene, then, is to prepare for more and worse, whether we're discussing an area known for its droughts, its cyclones, its wildfires, or its snowfall. Disaster management can't be generalized, it can't be oversimplified, and it can't be done overnight…but it is absolutely critical, and the world can either put in the work now, or be caught unprepared when a crisis arrives.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Hurricane Helene's devastation exceeded forecasts, impacting areas not historically prone to hurricanes.\n- The storm's intensity was amplified by record-high ocean temperatures and climate change.\n- Helene revealed significant failures in emergency response, including mismatched missing persons lists.\n- Critical infrastructure, such as roads and dams, suffered extensive damage, hindering recovery efforts.\n- The disaster highlighted the need for better preparedness for increasingly severe weather events.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What was the death toll from Hurricane Helene?\n\nThe death toll from Hurricane Helene is 227, with 113 from North Carolina, 48 from South Carolina, 33 from Georgia, and another 33 between Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia. The number of missing persons is estimated to be around 270 to 300, but community lists suggest over 1,400 missing.\n\n### How did Hurricane Helene impact the infrastructure in the affected areas?\n\nHurricane Helene caused significant damage to critical transportation infrastructure, including the closure of key interstates like I-40 and I-26 for multiple months. Numerous state highways and bridges were severely damaged or washed out, and hundreds of roads were shut down, with no clear timeline for repairs.\n\n### What role did climate change play in the intensity of Hurricane Helene?\n\nClimate change significantly contributed to the intensity of Hurricane Helene. The record warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico were 200 to 500 times more likely due to climate change. Helene was estimated to be 20 percent wetter overall, dropped 50 percent more rain on Georgia and the Carolinas, and was 20 times more likely to dump the volume of water it did.\n\n### How did the response to Hurricane Helene highlight issues with American infrastructure?\n\nThe response to Hurricane Helene revealed neglected elements of American infrastructure, including thousands of dams in poor condition, over 40 percent of bridges being half a century old or more, and over half of rural interstate pavement described as fair, mediocre, or poor. The sheer scale of the damage was beyond what these states were equipped to handle.\n\n### What were some of the positive aspects of the emergency response to Hurricane Helene?\n\nDespite the challenges, there were many successful elements in the response to Hurricane Helene. Very few hospitals had to close down entirely, power and water infrastructure repair personnel were ready to surge into hard-hit areas, and FEMA distributed significant funds and supplies to survivors. Communities also banded together to support each other.\n\n### How did misinformation and political issues complicate the response to Hurricane Helene?\n\nMisinformation spread rapidly, with claims that FEMA lacked funds or was turning away volunteers. Political issues also arose, with some officials suggesting that disaster relief might be slower in areas that tend to vote Republican. FEMA had to launch a rumor response web page to address these issues.\n\n### What were some of the human errors and oversights that occurred during Hurricane Helene?\n\nThere were several instances of human error, such as a factory in Tennessee where workers were trapped and killed because they were not allowed to leave before the storm. Additionally, Clemson University hosted a large football game in Clemson, South Carolina, despite the community's power and water infrastructure being knocked out.\n\n### How did the damage from Hurricane Helene affect the poultry industry in Georgia?\n\nThe poultry industry in Georgia, which supplies nearly half of all chickens consumed annually in the US, was devastated. This economic blow will be felt across America for months.\n\n### What was the impact of Hurricane Helene on the town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina?\n\nThe town of Spruce Pine was nearly wiped out, posing a major threat to global supply chains because it is the sole US source of ultra-high-purity quartz, essential in semiconductors.\n\n### How did the community of Black Mountain, North Carolina, respond to Hurricane Helene?\n\nIn Black Mountain, residents collected water from creeks, cooked over camp stoves, and looked after each other. A makeshift message board listed the names of people still missing, and mules delivered medical supplies to mountaintop homes.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original MegaProjects video: America's Infrastructure is Being Neglected and Hurricanes Show Us How](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1Dhrqx4yC0)\n- [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/storm-hurricane-helene-florida-gulf-coast/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/storm-hurricane-helene-florida-gulf-coast/)\n- [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tropical-storm-helene-hurricane-path-maps-track-forecast/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tropical-storm-helene-hurricane-path-maps-track-forecast/)\n- [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/27/hurricane-helene-landfall-florida](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/27/hurricane-helene-landfall-florida)\n- [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/storm-helene-live-updates-rcna172604](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/storm-helene-live-updates-rcna172604)\n- [https://www.bbc.com/weather/articles/c1jdzwgepgzo](https://www.bbc.com/weather/articles/c1jdzwgepgzo)\n- [https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/how-hurricanes-form.html](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/how-hurricanes-form.html)\n- [https://www.weather.gov/mfl/saffirsimpson#:~:text=The%20Saffir%2DSimpson%20Hurricane%20Wind,loss%20of%20life%20and%20damage](https://www.weather.gov/mfl/saffirsimpson#:~:text=The%20Saffir%2DSimpson%20Hurricane%20Wind,loss%20of%20life%20and%20damage)\n- [https://www.axios.com/2024/09/25/hurricane-helene-large-size-rapid-intensification](https://www.axios.com/2024/09/25/hurricane-helene-large-size-rapid-intensification)\n- [https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-asheville-north-carolina-1a2255b9d1dd5cd9554a76b45c7a695c](https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-asheville-north-carolina-1a2255b9d1dd5cd9554a76b45c7a695c)\n- [https://www.npr.org/2024/09/29/nx-s1-5132108/fema-administrator-addresses-the-damage-done-by-hurricane-helene](https://www.npr.org/2024/09/29/nx-s1-5132108/fema-administrator-addresses-the-damage-done-by-hurricane-helene)\n- [https://apnews.com/article/helene-asheville-north-carolina-3f812f70c4d2649e2198362e9ae42b06](https://apnews.com/article/helene-asheville-north-carolina-3f812f70c4d2649e2198362e9ae42b06)\n- [https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/science-florida-hurricane-ravaged-north-carolina-rcna173256](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/science-florida-hurricane-ravaged-north-carolina-rcna173256)\n- [https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/cities-prepare-for-future-influx-of-new-residents-fleeing-climate-change-110693957661](https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/cities-prepare-for-future-influx-of-new-residents-fleeing-climate-change-110693957661)\n- [https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/10/09/fact-sheet-hurricane-helene-recovery-continues-as-biden-harris-administration-prepares-for-hurricane-milton/](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/10/09/fact-sheet-hurricane-helene-recovery-continues-as-biden-harris-administration-prepares-for-hurricane-milton/)\n- [https://www.wdhn.com/weather/hurricane-helene/florida-sheriff-asks-residents-who-refused-to-evacuate-to-write-information-on-body-for-identification-after-helene-landfall/](https://www.wdhn.com/weather/hurricane-helene/florida-sheriff-asks-residents-who-refused-to-evacuate-to-write-information-on-body-for-identification-after-helene-landfall/)\n- [https://www.tampabay.com/hurricane/2024/09/27/hurricane-helene-tampa-bay-florida-rescues-flooding/](https://www.tampabay.com/hurricane/2024/09/27/hurricane-helene-tampa-bay-florida-rescues-flooding/)\n- [https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/fox-weather-bob-van-dillen-rescues-woman-flood-georgia](https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/fox-weather-bob-van-dillen-rescues-woman-flood-georgia)\n- [https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-asheville-north-carolina-1a2255b9d1dd5cd9554a76b45c7a695c](https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-asheville-north-carolina-1a2255b9d1dd5cd9554a76b45c7a695c)\n- [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/us/helene-destruction-florida-north-carolina.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/us/helene-destruction-florida-north-carolina.html)\n- [https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2024/10/03/Hurricane-Helene-Damages-Could-Top-250-Billion-Analysts-Say?amp=](https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2024/10/03/Hurricane-Helene-Damages-Could-Top-250-Billion-Analysts-Say?amp=)\n- [https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133462/hurricane-helene-quartz-microchips-solar-panels-spruce-pine](https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133462/hurricane-helene-quartz-microchips-solar-panels-spruce-pine)\n- [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-helene-satellite-images-north-carolina/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-helene-satellite-images-north-carolina/)\n- [https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/hurricane-helene/?id=113931821](https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/hurricane-helene/?id=113931821)\n- [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/hurricane-helene-live-updates-rcna173973](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/hurricane-helene-live-updates-rcna173973)\n- [https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/04/g-s1-26383/iv-fluids-shortage-baxter-hurricane-helene](https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/04/g-s1-26383/iv-fluids-shortage-baxter-hurricane-helene)\n- [https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/04/us/helene-recovery-friday/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/04/us/helene-recovery-friday/index.html)\n- [https://www.axios.com/local/charlotte/2024/10/03/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-recovery-photos](https://www.axios.com/local/charlotte/2024/10/03/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-recovery-photos)\n- [https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/06/us/how-helene-devastated-western-north-carolina/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/06/us/how-helene-devastated-western-north-carolina/index.html)\n- [https://www.npr.org/2024/10/03/nx-s1-5134866/rumors-conspiracy-theories-helene-social-media](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/03/nx-s1-5134866/rumors-conspiracy-theories-helene-social-media)\n- [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-georgia-hurricane-helene-b2623999.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-georgia-hurricane-helene-b2623999.html)\n- [https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-congress-fema-funding-5be4f18e00ce2b509d6830410cf2c1cb](https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-congress-fema-funding-5be4f18e00ce2b509d6830410cf2c1cb)\n- [https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4915979-fema-hurricane-helene-misinformation/](https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4915979-fema-hurricane-helene-misinformation/)\n- [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-fema-interview/680136/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-fema-interview/680136/)\n- [https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz04nl32e7yo](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz04nl32e7yo)\n- [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/02/hurricane-helene-destruction-timeline](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/02/hurricane-helene-destruction-timeline)\n- [https://www.weather.gov/ilm/Helene2024](https://www.weather.gov/ilm/Helene2024)\n- [https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/01/weather/hurricane-helene-path-of-destruction-climate-dg/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/01/weather/hurricane-helene-path-of-destruction-climate-dg/index.html)\n- [https://www.wcnc.com/article/weather/hurricane/helene/interstate-40-western-north-carolina-pete-buttiegieg-rebuilding-timeline/275-3760b666-11b0-4bde-b2a3-3ae7f45c305f](https://www.wcnc.com/article/weather/hurricane/helene/interstate-40-western-north-carolina-pete-buttiegieg-rebuilding-timeline/275-3760b666-11b0-4bde-b2a3-3ae7f45c305f)\n- [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/live-map-helene](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/live-map-helene)\n- [https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/10/03/hurricane-helene-was-americas-deadliest-storm-in-nearly-two-decades?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwx4O4BhAnEiwA42SbVJ7MAXA59V31SieLxtWV2DAVuDjFDu2lsWCfuHH5LNGSbH2KTw1mXRoC338QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds](https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/10/03/hurricane-helene-was-americas-deadliest-storm-in-nearly-two-decades?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwx4O4BhAnEiwA42SbVJ7MAXA59V31SieLxtWV2DAVuDjFDu2lsWCfuHH5LNGSbH2KTw1mXRoC338QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds)\n- [https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-florida-storm-surge-0284042dade78e04e453ad821e6e15c3](https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-florida-storm-surge-0284042dade78e04e453ad821e6e15c3)\n- [https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/05/us/helene-death-toll-rises-saturday/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/05/us/helene-death-toll-rises-saturday/index.html)\n- [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/hurricane-helene-live-updates-rcna173767](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/hurricane-helene-live-updates-rcna173767)\n- [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/05/hurricane-helene-storm-survivors-experiences](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/05/hurricane-helene-storm-survivors-experiences)\n- [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1Pp41yMpPeMvZShN11xXAZdB3-6wu_cZyAB-QxgUoeEw/htmlview?fbclid=IwY2xjawFrmvRleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHUjOTdFuUedtsF8fxHSgCdQBqQyaOXupEnCno4CYU5n0fHSF98AvQPMkEw_aem_DupJ-34pYBxZxzMOS7KMgQ](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1Pp41yMpPeMvZShN11xXAZdB3-6wu_cZyAB-QxgUoeEw/htmlview?fbclid=IwY2xjawFrmvRleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHUjOTdFuUedtsF8fxHSgCdQBqQyaOXupEnCno4CYU5n0fHSF98AvQPMkEw_aem_DupJ-34pYBxZxzMOS7KMgQ)\n- [https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-asheville-f02869c7d01e68f2d7f0553abb82252f](https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-asheville-f02869c7d01e68f2d7f0553abb82252f)\n- [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/04/us/hurricane-helene-missing-people.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/04/us/hurricane-helene-missing-people.html)\n- [https://apnews.com/article/helene-asheville-north-carolina-64fe5ca1b80f22fd2fd3b7c50b291d85](https://apnews.com/article/helene-asheville-north-carolina-64fe5ca1b80f22fd2fd3b7c50b291d85)\n- [https://thehill.com/homenews/4913942-pilot-helene-north-carolina-rescue-missions-arrest-threat/amp/](https://thehill.com/homenews/4913942-pilot-helene-north-carolina-rescue-missions-arrest-threat/amp/)\n- [https://floridapolitics.com/archives/697932-in-wakulla-county-all-residents-ordered-to-evacuate-but-some-inmates-are-left-behind/](https://floridapolitics.com/archives/697932-in-wakulla-county-all-residents-ordered-to-evacuate-but-some-inmates-are-left-behind/)\n- [https://www.hydroreview.com/environmental/southeast-u-s-dams-threatened-by-helene-are-now-stable-and-secure/](https://www.hydroreview.com/environmental/southeast-u-s-dams-threatened-by-helene-are-now-stable-and-secure/)\n- [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hurricane-helene-lake-lure-dam-failure-b2621624.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hurricane-helene-lake-lure-dam-failure-b2621624.html)\n- [https://www.hydroreview.com/world-regions/north-america/lake-lure-dam-failure-imminent-warns-national-weather-service/?utm_source=hydro_weekly_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2024-07-30](https://www.hydroreview.com/world-regions/north-america/lake-lure-dam-failure-imminent-warns-national-weather-service/?utm_source=hydro_weekly_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2024-07-30)\n- [https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/27/weather/hurricane-helene-florida](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/27/weather/hurricane-helene-florida)\n- [https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/greenville-nolichucky-dam-river-flooding-saturday](https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/greenville-nolichucky-dam-river-flooding-saturday)\n- [https://www.knoxnews.com/story/weather/2024/09/29/tva-sets-douglas-dam-record-after-hurricane-helene-floods/75442460007/](https://www.knoxnews.com/story/weather/2024/09/29/tva-sets-douglas-dam-record-after-hurricane-helene-floods/75442460007/)\n- [https://www.wcnc.com/article/weather/hurricane/helene/interstate-40-western-north-carolina-pete-buttiegieg-rebuilding-timeline/275-3760b666-11b0-4bde-b2a3-3ae7f45c305f](https://www.wcnc.com/article/weather/hurricane/helene/interstate-40-western-north-carolina-pete-buttiegieg-rebuilding-timeline/275-3760b666-11b0-4bde-b2a3-3ae7f45c305f)\n- [https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-north-carolina-interstates-closed-months-hurricane-helene-flooding-1962798](https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-north-carolina-interstates-closed-months-hurricane-helene-flooding-1962798)\n- [https://www.nbcnews.com/video/aerial-video-shows-north-carolina-interstate-washed-away-by-helene-flooding-220471365678](https://www.nbcnews.com/video/aerial-video-shows-north-carolina-interstate-washed-away-by-helene-flooding-220471365678)\n- [https://www.wired.com/story/hurricane-helene-roads-flood-proof-climate-change/](https://www.wired.com/story/hurricane-helene-roads-flood-proof-climate-change/)\n- [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/05/us/politics/north-carolina-helene-recovery-roads-damage.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/05/us/politics/north-carolina-helene-recovery-roads-damage.html)\n- [https://www.npr.org/2024/10/09/nx-s1-5135530/devastated-roads-bridges-western-north-carolina](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/09/nx-s1-5135530/devastated-roads-bridges-western-north-carolina)\n- [https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/03/us/helene-recovery-roads-water-power/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/03/us/helene-recovery-roads-water-power/index.html)\n- [https://www.reuters.com/world/us/by-mule-helicopter-volunteers-deliver-aid-helene-victims-2024-10-04/](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/by-mule-helicopter-volunteers-deliver-aid-helene-victims-2024-10-04/)\n- [https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/video/mules-bring-supplies-to-hurricane-helene-victims](https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/video/mules-bring-supplies-to-hurricane-helene-victims)\n- [https://theintercept.com/2024/10/04/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-mountain-view-prison/](https://theintercept.com/2024/10/04/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-mountain-view-prison/)\n- [https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133477/as-locals-struggle-post-helene-a-south-carolina-university-held-its-homecoming-game](https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133477/as-locals-struggle-post-helene-a-south-carolina-university-held-its-homecoming-game)\n- [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/us/helene-tennessee-factory-deaths.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/us/helene-tennessee-factory-deaths.html)\n- [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/grief-anger-mix-tennessee-plastic-plant-survivors-say-permission-leave-rcna173517](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/grief-anger-mix-tennessee-plastic-plant-survivors-say-permission-leave-rcna173517)\n- [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/tennessee-investigating-plastics-factory-workers-trapped-hurricane-hel-rcna173597](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/tennessee-investigating-plastics-factory-workers-trapped-hurricane-hel-rcna173597)\n- [https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/summer-1996/conditions-and-performance-interstate-system-after-40-years](https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/summer-1996/conditions-and-performance-interstate-system-after-40-years)\n- [https://www.npr.org/2022/05/05/1096940224/dams-poor-condition-hazardous-dangerous-infrastructure](https://www.npr.org/2022/05/05/1096940224/dams-poor-condition-hazardous-dangerous-infrastructure)\n- [https://www.wired.com/story/climate-change-failing-aging-dams-us-america-catastrophe/](https://www.wired.com/story/climate-change-failing-aging-dams-us-america-catastrophe/)\n- [https://www.artba.org/news/new-data-shows-slow-steady-progress-repairing-americas-bridges/](https://www.artba.org/news/new-data-shows-slow-steady-progress-repairing-americas-bridges/)\n- [https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/summer-1996/conditions-and-performance-interstate-system-after-40-years](https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/summer-1996/conditions-and-performance-interstate-system-after-40-years)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/The_Paris_of_Appalachia_%2854229440282%29.jpg) by John Brighenti from Rockville, MD, United States / openverse, by.\n\n## Related Coverage"
url: https://megaprojects.pub/article/americas-infrastructure-neglected-hurricanes-helene.md
canonical: https://megaprojects.pub/article/americas-infrastructure-neglected-hurricanes-helene
datePublished: 2026-07-02
dateModified: 2026-07-02
author:
  - name: Simon Whistler
    url: https://megaprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler
publisher: MegaProjects
image: "https://media.megaprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,height=338,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/T1Dhrqx4yC0/hero.jpg"
type: NewsArticle
contentHash: 4151099b46f4ca83b09abfb5a500a4ba0c3b00f322bc6555af38d4315fad8089
tokens: 13175
summaryUrl: https://megaprojects.pub/article/americas-infrastructure-neglected-hurricanes-helene.md.summary.md
---

<!-- aeo:section start="introduction" -->
## Introduction

It was never supposed to be the storm of the decade. When, in late September, an atmospheric disturbance became a tropical storm, and that tropical storm became Hurricane Helene, it was thought to be just another chapter in what had been a pedestrian storm season in the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricanes are common there, they're expected, and while they're never to be taken lightly, they're a natural force that the nations of this part of the world understand how to manage. It was a significant storm, and a few hours before it made landfall, it grew into a major storm…but they could take it.

Fast forward a week, and the sheer devastation that Hurricane Helene delivered to the United States has exceeded every forecast. Hundreds are confirmed dead, while hundreds more are missing. On the scale of American hurricanes, Helene is already the deadliest to impact US territory since Hurricane Maria, and the deadliest to impact America's forty-eight contiguous states since Hurricane Katrina. It traveled further than nearly anybody had expected, devastated communities that had thought they couldn't be hit, and brought a significant portion of America's southeast to its knees.

But alongside the death and devastation, Hurricane Helene brought a warning sign: Storms, and particularly, America's very biggest storms, are changing…and America isn't ready. In this special episode of Megaprojects, we'll be closely examining Hurricane Helene: the storm itself, the devastation it wrought, and what that devastation reveals about the places it impacted most. And we'll be exploring Helene in context to one of the most major, and most critical megaprojects of all: How people formulate and execute responses to tremendously powerful natural disasters, at a moment when those disasters come more frequently than ever.

<!-- aeo:section end="introduction" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="the-hurricane" -->
## The Hurricane

The storm that would become Hurricane Helene, started out in the same way that every eventual hurricane does: as a low-pressure zone in the moisture of the tropical Gulf of Mexico. Those low-pressure zones, slowly moving westward, will interact with the ocean air, churning and sending cool, humid air upward to form rainclouds…and then, thunderstorms. As the storms grow, they rotate around their center, and as the winds accelerate, the storm becomes a hurricane. In order to even be called a hurricane at all, even a weak storm will sustain winds of seventy-four miles per hour, 119 kilometers per hour, at a minimum. A medium-strength storm's winds will sustain at 111 miles or 178 kilometers per hour. The strongest, known in America as a Category Five, will sustain winds of 157 miles per hour, 252 kilometers per hour, at a bare minimum…and there is no upper limit. The sheer energy contained in this sort of storm is nearly incomprehensible…but we'll at least try to explain it. If all the energy of a single hurricane's winds were harnessed with perfect efficiency, then that storm could match half the power-generating capacity of all human infrastructure on planet Earth.

By the time then-Tropical Storm Helene caught the world's attention, in the last week of September 2024, it was well on its way to becoming a hurricane. But even in Helene's early days, there were subtle indicators that the storm had the potential to be especially bad. At the time that Helene was forming, the waters of the Gulf were at completely unprecedented temperatures; quoting atmospheric scientist Brian McNoldy, "This is pretty amazing: the ocean heat content averaged over the Gulf of Mexico is obliterating previous all-time record highs. It's 126% of average for the date." In some parts of the Gulf, the surface of the sea was up to 89 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly 32 degrees Celsius. Not only that, but it would travel over an extremely warm area of the Caribbean known as the Loop Current, injecting the storm with a further boost of energy even as the surrounding winds in the area were nearly nonexistent. In ideal conditions, those surrounding winds would have dampened a growing hurricane…but Helene had a clear path to get stronger, practically unopposed.

Predicting a hurricane is notoriously risky business. That's largely because of environmental and weather factors that make modeling a hurricane's path and its power very difficult. In fact, the initial expectations around Helene were far from what would ultimately happen, with the worst of the damage predicted, before the storm made landfall, across the states of Florida and Georgia. It had already lashed Cuba, Mexico near the city of Cancun, and the Cayman Islands, indicating that worse was almost certainly on the way. In the stretch of open sea between Cuba and Florida, Helene was expected to rapidly intensify into a Category Three hurricane, with winds at around 120 miles per hour, 193 kilometers per hour. Even despite communities in Florida, especially the coastline, building their homes and businesses in a way that hardens them to hurricanes, such winds would still be enough to cause major damage, uproot trees, and knock out electricity and water for several days in the hardest-hit areas. The storm was expected to do its worst in Florida's Big Bend area, and impact the cities of Tallahassee, population 200,000, and Tampa, population 400,000. All in all, millions of people were thought to be in its path. But once the storm made landfall, it was expected to do what all hurricanes do on land: Rapidly drop in their intensity, returning to tropical-storm levels within a couple of hundred miles at most, and eventually peter out into scattered rain showers.

But in the hours before Helene arrived, it continued to intensify, eventually turning into a Category Four hurricane with sustained winds of 140 miles per hour, 225 kilometers per hour. It crashed into the town of Perry, Florida, at just past eleven at night on Thursday, September the twenty-sixth, and then roared inland for a bit, before turning northward. The storm's projected path had already been expected to take it up through the state of Georgia and to the Appalachian mountain range that runs up and down America's east, into communities in the states of North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky. But now, the added energy roiling within the storm promised two tightly interrelated, and very dangerous developments. Now, the storm was going to reach further inland, and when it did, it would lash the land with high winds and dump rain characteristic of a hurricane or major tropical storm. Not only that, but the storm had changed in other ways; its rainclouds were far larger and more expansive than expected, meaning that as the slow-moving storm passed over any given place in its path, that place would have to weather extreme rainfall for far longer than previously believed. If any square foot of land might otherwise have expected, say, six inches of rain…now, it would get twelve, or even eighteen.

In Florida, Helene would bring a devastating storm surge all across coastal areas, meaning not just high waves, but a swell of the entire sea, some eight feet higher than its usual levels. It was the worst hurricane hit to the Tampa Bay area of Florida in over a hundred years. Elsewhere in the state, the popular restaurant chain, Waffle House, would close down numerous locations, in a silly-sounding but actually very useful metric to indicate just how bad the damage in those areas would be. In Georgia, over eleven inches or 28 centimeters of rain crashed down on the state capital of Atlanta, the highest two-day rain total ever observed there, since record-keeping began in 1878. That water, not just in Atlanta, would flow into rivers and streams, swelling them to unprecedented crests in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee. Many of the rivers would flood to levels that eclipsed even the biggest historical floods on record. In one community in South Carolina, rain totals would hit nearly 22 inches, 55 centimeters, while large numbers of communities would receive rainfall far beyond anything in living memory. The storm would spawn dozens upon dozens of tornadoes, some of which devastated neighborhoods to a level even beyond what the hurricane winds would achieve on their own. From Helene's winds, trees were ripped out from the ground and toppled; from Helene's rains, massive landslides cascaded unpredictably and, sometimes, fatally. By the time the storm finally dissipated, on September the twenty-ninth, the land it had traveled over was utterly devastated.

<!-- aeo:section end="the-hurricane" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="in-helene-s-wake" -->
## In Helene's Wake

In aggregate numbers, the sheer impact of Hurricane Helene is unlike any weather event the United States has endured in this decade. It is the most damaging storm to hit the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. At the time of writing, the death toll sits at 227, including 113 from the state of North Carolina, 48 from South Carolina, 33 from Georgia, and another 33 between Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia. That death toll is almost certain to rise, and when it does, the names that must be added to the list will likely be removed from another one: the list of missing persons. At present, official sources place the number of missing at roughly two to three hundred, but there's reason to think that many more could be out there. Community-run lists of missing persons, maintained by private citizens in the wake of the disaster, list over 1,400 names still missing at the time of writing. A high proportion of the missing may have been swept away by floodwaters, and the hope of finding survivors is quickly diminishing. If all 1,400 missing truly are dead, then the death toll from Helene would eclipse that of even Hurricane Katrina, standing at over 1,620, beyond Katrina's 1,392. For the sake of comparison, 135 people are still officially listed as missing, in Katrina's wake. When it comes to material damages, that count still rises too. Current estimates tally damage at a value of nearly forty billion US dollars, but these figures are listed at a time when many areas still have yet to be closely assessed. Total economic losses, according to the Fiscal Times, may ultimately crest over 250 billion.

But the numbers, by themselves, don't tell the whole story—and although we won't be going through an exhaustive list of the dead, the missing, and the accounts of survivors, we'll shine a spotlight on a few. In Florida, by example, the areas where Hurricane Helene hit hardest would weather levels of damage that they haven't seen in a generation. After all, this is Florida, a place that's well-hardened to hurricanes like this…yet in this case, it was not enough. In the Tampa Bay area, over a thousand people had to be rescued from the rushing storm surge after declining to evacuate; one local sheriff's office requested that people who chose not to leave, would write their personal details on their bodies in permanent marker to help authorities identify their corpses. The island community of Cedar Key was described by one resident as being, quote, "completely gone". In the state of Georgia, a local meteorologist named Bob Van Dillen would rescue a woman from her partially submerged car on live television; elsewhere across the state, flooding devastated many neighborhoods and left large numbers of roads entirely impassable. Well over a dozen deaths in the state would come after people were crushed or trapped by falling trees. Georgia's poultry industry, supplying nearly half of all chickens consumed annually in the US, was devastated, in an economic blow that will be felt across America for months.

In North Carolina, the city of Asheville was inundated with incredible flooding, entirely washing out multiple districts of the city, while access to the city was cut off on multiple interstates due to landslides. Elsewhere in the state, a long section of an interstate highway was washed away, and numerous smaller towns were hit very, very hard by the flooding. The town of Spruce Pine was nearly wiped out, posing a major threat to global supply chains, because of Spruce Pine's sole US source of ultra-high-purity quartz, essential in semiconductors. Elsewhere in the state, a factory that supplies intravenous fluids to much of America was flooded and forced to shut down. The vast majority of one community, Chimney Rock, was either completely destroyed or heavily damaged by the swell of the nearby Broad River. In South Carolina, some 1.3 million people lost power, including several parts of the state that lost power completely. Tennessee's helicopter crews would log fifty-eight rescues from flood conditions, including in the town of Erwin, where a medical hospital was submerged completely. There, numerous bridges collapsed and several more interstate highways sustained heavy damage. Finally, in the state of Virginia, seventy more water rescues had to take place, while more minor damage was reported in the states of West Virginia, Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio.

<!-- aeo:section end="in-helene-s-wake" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="damning-failures" -->
## Damning Failures

We describe the impact of Hurricane Helene, in such state-by-state detail, partly for the simple reason that it's important to do so. Helene, like any major destructive weather event around the world, didn't just capture headlines; it changed millions of lives, and in at least several hundred cases, it ended them. But we also describe the scope and scale of the damage, because as we turn our attention to both what went right, and what went wrong, in the aftermath, it's important to remember that this was a massive natural disaster. What Hurricane Helene was, and what it did, was entirely outside of the control of any person, any community, or any government—and by a long shot. But that same reality is what makes a careful, competent, and most of all, effective emergency response so important. People can't control what the weather will do, but people can control how they respond—and it's the burden, not just of federal disaster management agencies but state and local governments, community leaders, and any other person with the power to save, or accidentally end the lives of others, to both plan for such a response, and execute, when the time comes.

To that end, we'll start on the positive side, because, as has been the case with so many disaster management efforts in recent history, there are many elements to the response that should be regarded as a success. Across the American southeast, very few hospitals ever had to close down entirely, despite blackouts, flooding, and more. Power and water infrastructure repair personnel were on hand, ready to surge into hard-hit areas in massive numbers, and they did exactly that. The country's Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, has thus far distributed some 344 million US dollars to survivors of the storm, provided 17.2 million meals, and supplied 13.9 million liters of water, as of October the ninth. Over 3,200 people received direct assistance from search and rescue teams, and well over a hundred million dollars has been funneled to efforts to restore critical transportation infrastructure. Every state that has been impacted by Helene has been engaged in its own relief efforts. Furthermore, countless individuals took heroic action to save the lives of others over the course of Helene's devastation. In the hurricane's wake, communities are banding together everywhere; quoting one Associated Press article here, about the town of Black Mountain, North Carolina: "Alongside a fencerow, a makeshift message board listed the names of people still missing. In other areas, mules delivered medical supplies to mountaintop homes. Residents collected water from creeks and cooked over camp stoves. And across the region, people were looking after each other." In just about every catastrophe in history, people respond by banding together, whether because of their work in an official capacity or simple human decency and care for others…and Helene was no different.

But despite many reasons for hope, Hurricane Helene revealed everything from neglected elements of American infrastructure, to failures and oversights in planning, to clear insufficiencies in emergency response protocol. Of all the individual items to talk about, however, perhaps none present the contrast so starkly as the missing list. At present, official counts of the missing, aggregated among the various states, put the total number in the 270-to-300 range. Private citizens, however, have put together a different list, and it's substantially longer, with the discrepancy between official and community reports of missing, being multiple hundreds of persons who are apparently not accounted for on official lists. The community lists are constantly updated with news of people who've been found, alive or deceased, but the names on the community lists don't appear to make it onto official ones—constituting a massive barrier to either finding any survivors who could still remain, or notifying loved ones of the fate of a missing person.

Also high on the list of devastating hits to the American southeast, was damage to critical transportation infrastructure across the region. One key interstate, the I-40, is expected to be shut down for multiple months after a large part of the interstate washed out. The I-26 interstate will be shut down for months, too, with the combination of washouts making it very difficult for people to navigate between North Carolina and Tennessee at all. Numerous state highways suffered severe damage, and will be closed for repairs for the foreseeable future. Several key bridges have washed out due to floodwaters, or have collapsed, due to erosion where they were supported on riverbanks. Hundreds upon hundreds of roads across the region are shut down, many of which would take weeks to rebuild at the best of times, let alone when they'll be weighed as a priority against all the other roads that have to be put back together. Now, there's simply no timeline for getting a lot of them fixed, no matter how badly local residents may need them working.

After the roads, there were the dams, where thankfully, the news during and after Helene was not nearly as bad as it could have been. Despite several incidents of dams overflowing, and widespread fears of catastrophic failures that could have killed hundreds or even thousands of people, most dams in the affected area managed to hold…but only just barely. In the state of Tennessee, evacuation orders were issued in the city of Newport after reports of a catastrophic failure of a dam upstream; luckily, the reports were identified as a false alarm. In North Carolina's Rutherford County, the Lake Lure Dam was observed with floodwater overflowing its 124-foot-high crest, and flowing, uncontrolled, around its side walls, causing authorities to urge locals to flee to high ground. The Lake Lure Dam was last identified to be in only "fair" condition, even before Helene arrived, and the fact that it held was little more than luck. Another dam in eastern Tennessee was found to be on the brink of imminent failure during the storm, and many across the region had to have all their floodgates opened at once, venting out as much water as was physically possible to reduce the strain. Make no mistake, the lack of dam collapses is a very good thing…but it's nothing short of a dodged bullet.

And with so much infrastructure destroyed, emergency organizations have been unable to reach some of the hardest-hit communities by standard means…only to realize that they have very few alternative solutions. Airdrops by helicopter into affected areas are possible, and they've delivered some of the most critical supplies, including food, medicine, and limited amounts of water. But the rest, has had to come by way of private citizens doing what they can to help. Some of those private citizens come by way of their own helicopters, dropping off whatever supplies their choppers can carry. Others have had to use large numbers of pack mules, driving their mules through devastated communities and broken landscapes in order to deliver whatever the animals can bear on their backs. The communities devastated by Helene are mountainous, sometimes remote, and accessible by only a few scarce roads—which often followed the same low paths that would be a conduit for water to move in flash floods. The process for private citizens to intervene hasn't run smoothly, either; in one instance in North Carolina, a helicopter pilot attempting to rescue desperate people in an isolated community was threatened with arrest and ordered to stop his rescue efforts. Other accounts indicate, he may have been far from the only one.

Then, there was Helene's effect on those less fortunate—particularly, prisoners who were in correctional institutions at the time Helene roared through. In one prison in North Carolina, inmates were never evacuated, and had to live for five days without running water or lights, while confined to their cells with only minimal interaction with prison personnel. In Florida, a jail located in the storm's path was not evacuated, despite evacuation orders for the entire surrounding community. Nor was this the only instance in which prisoners became more involved with the hurricane than they might have hoped. In Florida, low-risk prisoners were brought en masse to help deal with post-storm debris, in a form of prison labor.

Unfortunately, Helene was further complicated by efforts within the United States to turn it into a political issue. It's no secret that the US is now less than a month away from a major election, and despite the imminent risk of harm to people who don't have the information they need, misinformation has spread like wildfire. One US Congressperson claimed on social media that an unspecified "they" were controlling the weather to cause Hurricane Helene, while numerous officials and leaders within America's right-leaning Republican Party have claimed, either outright or by strongly implying, that disaster relief may come slower to the areas hit by Helene because those areas tend to vote Republican, rather than for the Democrats, who control the presidency and thus the executive authority for emergency response. FEMA has had to launch an entire rumor response web page to deal with the onslaught of outright misinformation, debunking claims that FEMA lacks the money to assist with Hurricane Helene, that it was turning away volunteers, and that it was asking for donations in cash. At the same time, FEMA attempted to explain elements of its disaster response that have been misconstrued, and even co-opted, online.

And then, there's the matter of simple human error—or, some might say, acts of blatant human stupidity. In one such case, a factory called Impact Plastics is now under investigation in Tennessee after several people were killed, and more were declared missing, after being trapped there. Those workers, according to their relatives and to other survivors, were made to show up to work regardless of the incoming hurricane, and they allege that they or their relatives were denied the opportunity to leave until it was too late. When they finally got permission to go, floodwaters had already inundated the parking lot with so much water that escape was impossible. The company, at least thus far, has attempted to direct blame elsewhere. In another instance, the town of Clemson, South Carolina, was devastated by Helene, with power and water infrastructure knocked out and gas scarce…but that didn't stop Clemson University from hosting eighty thousand out-of-towners for a college game of American football, placing immense strain on the community.

Finally, there's an element to the Helene response that simply comes down to a fundamental lack of readiness for disasters this big. Federally, FEMA has long tried to draw attention to its dwindling funds; as FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell described in a National Public Radio interview after Helene, quote: "[…] we are running low in our disaster relief funds, and we went into what we call immediate needs funding in early August." Per Criswell, that regulatory change allowed FEMA to divert funds to urgent, lifesaving work, but it's a band-aid solution that can only keep up for a few months. Said America's Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, quote: "We are expecting another hurricane hitting. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season." Individual states, as well as private companies, are in a similar bind. In North Carolina, by example, repair crews were entirely unable to keep up with forecasts and projections on how quickly they'd restore power to residents, largely because of the sheer extent of the damage. As one spokesperson for the company Duke Energy put it, when discussing its hundred thousand customers in areas with catastrophic damage, quote: "We're talking about places where the homes no longer exist." That's the sort of damage that energy companies are capable of dealing with, when a river floods or a tornado devastates a town—but with an event as big as Helene, that catastrophic damage is repeated a hundred times over. From power companies to road repair to food distribution and more, what Helene has revealed, most of all, is the sheer lack of capacity to deal with weather events of this size. Go town by town, and the damage that Helene caused is bad, but not unprecedented. But zoom out on the map, and the devastation is on a magnitude that these states just don't have the infrastructure to handle.

<!-- aeo:section end="damning-failures" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="a-sign-of-what-s-to-come" -->
## A Sign of What's to Come

As we conclude today's special episode, we've got to turn toward the future, and the major implications that Hurricane Helene brings to not just the United States, but the entire world. It's difficult to overstate just how much of a historical anomaly Helene was; after all, much of the devastation was in areas where hurricanes simply don't go. Asheville, one of the cities most thoroughly devastated by Helene, was even referred to as a haven from natural disasters in recent years, given its high elevation, cool temperatures, and distance from the sea. This part of America isn't a world away from the Gulf of Mexico, but it's certainly far enough that by the time any remnants of a hurricane get there, they should be hardly more notable than any other passing storm system.

But the reality that Hurricane Helene presented, was a very different one—and the results spoke volumes about what sorts of emergency prep had been done in the area, versus the sorts that had not. The problem wasn't so much that local, state, or federal assistance wouldn't be able to figure out how to fix the problems Helene caused, but that the scale and wide-reaching impact of such a massive disaster was previously unthinkable. In this part of the country, there's little of the appropriate infrastructure to deal with a massive hurricane, because massive hurricanes aren't a historically plausible event there. At the same time, America's broader infrastructural decay was put on full display. Thousands of American dams are known to be in poor condition; well over forty percent of American bridges are half a century old or more; and well over a third of them are in need of repair. The condition of over half of all rural interstate pavement is described as either fair, mediocre, or poor. Any one of those problems is fixable…but take them together, and they represent a broken system that simply isn't equipped to be resilient to challenge.

As for the role of climate change in Hurricane Helene, the vast majority of credible scientists and experts on the matter agree that climate change was very much to blame—not for Hurricane Helene's existence, but for its intensity. Despite the cultural connotation of climate change—and particularly the phrase, "global warming"—evoking the idea that the world is simply getting hotter and hotter, the reality of the phenomenon is a bit different. The simplest way to conceptualize the way it actually works, is to think in terms of energy: the issue isn't that the energy within Earth's atmosphere is hotter or colder, there's just a lot more of it. Whether an atmospheric event is a heat wave, or a blizzard, or a hurricane or a drought, there's more energy being poured into that atmospheric event…and thus, whatever event we're referring to, there's going to be more of it. Droughts get longer and drier, blizzards come more frequently and dump more snow, and tropical storms accelerate into hurricanes faster, and become more powerful than they otherwise would. Helene, or a tropical storm like it, was going to be in the Gulf of Mexico around this time, even if the climate were in its pre-industrial state. But the damage of Helene, the power, the duration, and the eventual devastation of the storm, almost certainly owed themselves to a supercharge of energy that would not otherwise have been a factor.

Of course, we do want to acknowledge that in some parts of the world, particularly the US, climate change remains a divisive issue—but we'll put it to you this way. Even if humans weren't to blame for climate change, the reality of weather observations around the world indicate that however the atmosphere got so supercharged, it's certainly supercharged now. Excuse the bluntness, but in truth, the effects of that change will care very little about the political affiliation of communities that will be devastated. In this particular case, a wealth of prior research and an ample number of expert analysts have been able to generate preliminary figures on just how much of a factor climate change was, for Hurricane Helene itself. The North Atlantic Ocean, for example, is estimated to store up to ninety percent of the excess heat caused by climate change, supercharging atmospheric events in that area with more and more energy. According to data from nonprofit research organization Climate Central, the record warm waters that bred Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico were between 200 and 500 times more likely than they would have been, in pre-industrial conditions. Climate Central, by the way, released a report in May of this year that emphasized climate change's role in increasing the likelihood of extreme inland flooding, in precisely the areas Helene hit hardest. Other climate research organizations have found, preliminarily, that Helene was 20 percent wetter overall, dropped fifty percent more rain on Georgia and the Carolinas, and was 20 times more likely to dump the sheer volume of water it did, as a result of climate change. In some places, Helene delivered a thousand-year flood, a flood that, historically, would only be expected once every thousand years. But with the way weather trends are moving, similar floods will most likely be observed long before the year 3024.

As America's attention shifts from the cleanup from Hurricane Helene, to the cleanup from Hurricane Milton and more, the world's attention will need to shift elsewhere too. But in dealing with these sorts of growing disasters all over the world, it's simply not enough to take the lessons learned from Helene, and repeat them everywhere. We said it a moment ago, and we'll say it again: Climate change doesn't just make everything hot. It takes whatever major weather events happen to be common in a given area, it makes more of them, and it makes them worse. The real lesson to learn from Hurricane Helene, then, is to prepare for more and worse, whether we're discussing an area known for its droughts, its cyclones, its wildfires, or its snowfall. Disaster management can't be generalized, it can't be oversimplified, and it can't be done overnight…but it is absolutely critical, and the world can either put in the work now, or be caught unprepared when a crisis arrives.

<!-- aeo:section end="a-sign-of-what-s-to-come" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="key-takeaways" -->
## Key Takeaways

- Hurricane Helene's devastation exceeded forecasts, impacting areas not historically prone to hurricanes.
- The storm's intensity was amplified by record-high ocean temperatures and climate change.
- Helene revealed significant failures in emergency response, including mismatched missing persons lists.
- Critical infrastructure, such as roads and dams, suffered extensive damage, hindering recovery efforts.
- The disaster highlighted the need for better preparedness for increasingly severe weather events.

<!-- aeo:section end="key-takeaways" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="frequently-asked-questions" -->
## Frequently Asked Questions

### What was the death toll from Hurricane Helene?

The death toll from Hurricane Helene is 227, with 113 from North Carolina, 48 from South Carolina, 33 from Georgia, and another 33 between Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia. The number of missing persons is estimated to be around 270 to 300, but community lists suggest over 1,400 missing.

### How did Hurricane Helene impact the infrastructure in the affected areas?

Hurricane Helene caused significant damage to critical transportation infrastructure, including the closure of key interstates like I-40 and I-26 for multiple months. Numerous state highways and bridges were severely damaged or washed out, and hundreds of roads were shut down, with no clear timeline for repairs.

### What role did climate change play in the intensity of Hurricane Helene?

Climate change significantly contributed to the intensity of Hurricane Helene. The record warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico were 200 to 500 times more likely due to climate change. Helene was estimated to be 20 percent wetter overall, dropped 50 percent more rain on Georgia and the Carolinas, and was 20 times more likely to dump the volume of water it did.

### How did the response to Hurricane Helene highlight issues with American infrastructure?

The response to Hurricane Helene revealed neglected elements of American infrastructure, including thousands of dams in poor condition, over 40 percent of bridges being half a century old or more, and over half of rural interstate pavement described as fair, mediocre, or poor. The sheer scale of the damage was beyond what these states were equipped to handle.

### What were some of the positive aspects of the emergency response to Hurricane Helene?

Despite the challenges, there were many successful elements in the response to Hurricane Helene. Very few hospitals had to close down entirely, power and water infrastructure repair personnel were ready to surge into hard-hit areas, and FEMA distributed significant funds and supplies to survivors. Communities also banded together to support each other.

### How did misinformation and political issues complicate the response to Hurricane Helene?

Misinformation spread rapidly, with claims that FEMA lacked funds or was turning away volunteers. Political issues also arose, with some officials suggesting that disaster relief might be slower in areas that tend to vote Republican. FEMA had to launch a rumor response web page to address these issues.

### What were some of the human errors and oversights that occurred during Hurricane Helene?

There were several instances of human error, such as a factory in Tennessee where workers were trapped and killed because they were not allowed to leave before the storm. Additionally, Clemson University hosted a large football game in Clemson, South Carolina, despite the community's power and water infrastructure being knocked out.

### How did the damage from Hurricane Helene affect the poultry industry in Georgia?

The poultry industry in Georgia, which supplies nearly half of all chickens consumed annually in the US, was devastated. This economic blow will be felt across America for months.

### What was the impact of Hurricane Helene on the town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina?

The town of Spruce Pine was nearly wiped out, posing a major threat to global supply chains because it is the sole US source of ultra-high-purity quartz, essential in semiconductors.

### How did the community of Black Mountain, North Carolina, respond to Hurricane Helene?

In Black Mountain, residents collected water from creeks, cooked over camp stoves, and looked after each other. A makeshift message board listed the names of people still missing, and mules delivered medical supplies to mountaintop homes.

<!-- aeo:section end="frequently-asked-questions" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="sources" -->
## Sources

- [Original MegaProjects video: America's Infrastructure is Being Neglected and Hurricanes Show Us How](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1Dhrqx4yC0)
- [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/storm-hurricane-helene-florida-gulf-coast/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/storm-hurricane-helene-florida-gulf-coast/)
- [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tropical-storm-helene-hurricane-path-maps-track-forecast/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tropical-storm-helene-hurricane-path-maps-track-forecast/)
- [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/27/hurricane-helene-landfall-florida](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/27/hurricane-helene-landfall-florida)
- [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/storm-helene-live-updates-rcna172604](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/storm-helene-live-updates-rcna172604)
- [https://www.bbc.com/weather/articles/c1jdzwgepgzo](https://www.bbc.com/weather/articles/c1jdzwgepgzo)
- [https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/how-hurricanes-form.html](https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/how-hurricanes-form.html)
- [https://www.weather.gov/mfl/saffirsimpson#:~:text=The%20Saffir%2DSimpson%20Hurricane%20Wind,loss%20of%20life%20and%20damage](https://www.weather.gov/mfl/saffirsimpson#:~:text=The%20Saffir%2DSimpson%20Hurricane%20Wind,loss%20of%20life%20and%20damage)
- [https://www.axios.com/2024/09/25/hurricane-helene-large-size-rapid-intensification](https://www.axios.com/2024/09/25/hurricane-helene-large-size-rapid-intensification)
- [https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-asheville-north-carolina-1a2255b9d1dd5cd9554a76b45c7a695c](https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-asheville-north-carolina-1a2255b9d1dd5cd9554a76b45c7a695c)
- [https://www.npr.org/2024/09/29/nx-s1-5132108/fema-administrator-addresses-the-damage-done-by-hurricane-helene](https://www.npr.org/2024/09/29/nx-s1-5132108/fema-administrator-addresses-the-damage-done-by-hurricane-helene)
- [https://apnews.com/article/helene-asheville-north-carolina-3f812f70c4d2649e2198362e9ae42b06](https://apnews.com/article/helene-asheville-north-carolina-3f812f70c4d2649e2198362e9ae42b06)
- [https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/science-florida-hurricane-ravaged-north-carolina-rcna173256](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/science-florida-hurricane-ravaged-north-carolina-rcna173256)
- [https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/cities-prepare-for-future-influx-of-new-residents-fleeing-climate-change-110693957661](https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/cities-prepare-for-future-influx-of-new-residents-fleeing-climate-change-110693957661)
- [https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/10/09/fact-sheet-hurricane-helene-recovery-continues-as-biden-harris-administration-prepares-for-hurricane-milton/](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/10/09/fact-sheet-hurricane-helene-recovery-continues-as-biden-harris-administration-prepares-for-hurricane-milton/)
- [https://www.wdhn.com/weather/hurricane-helene/florida-sheriff-asks-residents-who-refused-to-evacuate-to-write-information-on-body-for-identification-after-helene-landfall/](https://www.wdhn.com/weather/hurricane-helene/florida-sheriff-asks-residents-who-refused-to-evacuate-to-write-information-on-body-for-identification-after-helene-landfall/)
- [https://www.tampabay.com/hurricane/2024/09/27/hurricane-helene-tampa-bay-florida-rescues-flooding/](https://www.tampabay.com/hurricane/2024/09/27/hurricane-helene-tampa-bay-florida-rescues-flooding/)
- [https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/fox-weather-bob-van-dillen-rescues-woman-flood-georgia](https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/fox-weather-bob-van-dillen-rescues-woman-flood-georgia)
- [https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-asheville-north-carolina-1a2255b9d1dd5cd9554a76b45c7a695c](https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-asheville-north-carolina-1a2255b9d1dd5cd9554a76b45c7a695c)
- [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/us/helene-destruction-florida-north-carolina.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/us/helene-destruction-florida-north-carolina.html)
- [https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2024/10/03/Hurricane-Helene-Damages-Could-Top-250-Billion-Analysts-Say?amp=](https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2024/10/03/Hurricane-Helene-Damages-Could-Top-250-Billion-Analysts-Say?amp=)
- [https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133462/hurricane-helene-quartz-microchips-solar-panels-spruce-pine](https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133462/hurricane-helene-quartz-microchips-solar-panels-spruce-pine)
- [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-helene-satellite-images-north-carolina/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hurricane-helene-satellite-images-north-carolina/)
- [https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/hurricane-helene/?id=113931821](https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/hurricane-helene/?id=113931821)
- [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/hurricane-helene-live-updates-rcna173973](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/hurricane-helene-live-updates-rcna173973)
- [https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/04/g-s1-26383/iv-fluids-shortage-baxter-hurricane-helene](https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/10/04/g-s1-26383/iv-fluids-shortage-baxter-hurricane-helene)
- [https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/04/us/helene-recovery-friday/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/04/us/helene-recovery-friday/index.html)
- [https://www.axios.com/local/charlotte/2024/10/03/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-recovery-photos](https://www.axios.com/local/charlotte/2024/10/03/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-recovery-photos)
- [https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/06/us/how-helene-devastated-western-north-carolina/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/06/us/how-helene-devastated-western-north-carolina/index.html)
- [https://www.npr.org/2024/10/03/nx-s1-5134866/rumors-conspiracy-theories-helene-social-media](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/03/nx-s1-5134866/rumors-conspiracy-theories-helene-social-media)
- [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-georgia-hurricane-helene-b2623999.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-georgia-hurricane-helene-b2623999.html)
- [https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-congress-fema-funding-5be4f18e00ce2b509d6830410cf2c1cb](https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-congress-fema-funding-5be4f18e00ce2b509d6830410cf2c1cb)
- [https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4915979-fema-hurricane-helene-misinformation/](https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4915979-fema-hurricane-helene-misinformation/)
- [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-fema-interview/680136/](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-fema-interview/680136/)
- [https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz04nl32e7yo](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz04nl32e7yo)
- [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/02/hurricane-helene-destruction-timeline](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/02/hurricane-helene-destruction-timeline)
- [https://www.weather.gov/ilm/Helene2024](https://www.weather.gov/ilm/Helene2024)
- [https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/01/weather/hurricane-helene-path-of-destruction-climate-dg/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/01/weather/hurricane-helene-path-of-destruction-climate-dg/index.html)
- [https://www.wcnc.com/article/weather/hurricane/helene/interstate-40-western-north-carolina-pete-buttiegieg-rebuilding-timeline/275-3760b666-11b0-4bde-b2a3-3ae7f45c305f](https://www.wcnc.com/article/weather/hurricane/helene/interstate-40-western-north-carolina-pete-buttiegieg-rebuilding-timeline/275-3760b666-11b0-4bde-b2a3-3ae7f45c305f)
- [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/live-map-helene](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/live-map-helene)
- [https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/10/03/hurricane-helene-was-americas-deadliest-storm-in-nearly-two-decades?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&amp;utm_source=google&amp;ppccampaignID=17210591673&amp;ppcadID=&amp;utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&amp;utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&amp;gad_source=1&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwx4O4BhAnEiwA42SbVJ7MAXA59V31SieLxtWV2DAVuDjFDu2lsWCfuHH5LNGSbH2KTw1mXRoC338QAvD_BwE&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds](https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/10/03/hurricane-helene-was-americas-deadliest-storm-in-nearly-two-decades?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&amp;utm_source=google&amp;ppccampaignID=17210591673&amp;ppcadID=&amp;utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&amp;utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&amp;gad_source=1&amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwx4O4BhAnEiwA42SbVJ7MAXA59V31SieLxtWV2DAVuDjFDu2lsWCfuHH5LNGSbH2KTw1mXRoC338QAvD_BwE&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds)
- [https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-florida-storm-surge-0284042dade78e04e453ad821e6e15c3](https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-florida-storm-surge-0284042dade78e04e453ad821e6e15c3)
- [https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/05/us/helene-death-toll-rises-saturday/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/05/us/helene-death-toll-rises-saturday/index.html)
- [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/hurricane-helene-live-updates-rcna173767](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/live-blog/hurricane-helene-live-updates-rcna173767)
- [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/05/hurricane-helene-storm-survivors-experiences](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/05/hurricane-helene-storm-survivors-experiences)
- [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1Pp41yMpPeMvZShN11xXAZdB3-6wu_cZyAB-QxgUoeEw/htmlview?fbclid=IwY2xjawFrmvRleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHUjOTdFuUedtsF8fxHSgCdQBqQyaOXupEnCno4CYU5n0fHSF98AvQPMkEw_aem_DupJ-34pYBxZxzMOS7KMgQ](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1Pp41yMpPeMvZShN11xXAZdB3-6wu_cZyAB-QxgUoeEw/htmlview?fbclid=IwY2xjawFrmvRleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHUjOTdFuUedtsF8fxHSgCdQBqQyaOXupEnCno4CYU5n0fHSF98AvQPMkEw_aem_DupJ-34pYBxZxzMOS7KMgQ)
- [https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-asheville-f02869c7d01e68f2d7f0553abb82252f](https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-asheville-f02869c7d01e68f2d7f0553abb82252f)
- [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/04/us/hurricane-helene-missing-people.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/04/us/hurricane-helene-missing-people.html)
- [https://apnews.com/article/helene-asheville-north-carolina-64fe5ca1b80f22fd2fd3b7c50b291d85](https://apnews.com/article/helene-asheville-north-carolina-64fe5ca1b80f22fd2fd3b7c50b291d85)
- [https://thehill.com/homenews/4913942-pilot-helene-north-carolina-rescue-missions-arrest-threat/amp/](https://thehill.com/homenews/4913942-pilot-helene-north-carolina-rescue-missions-arrest-threat/amp/)
- [https://floridapolitics.com/archives/697932-in-wakulla-county-all-residents-ordered-to-evacuate-but-some-inmates-are-left-behind/](https://floridapolitics.com/archives/697932-in-wakulla-county-all-residents-ordered-to-evacuate-but-some-inmates-are-left-behind/)
- [https://www.hydroreview.com/environmental/southeast-u-s-dams-threatened-by-helene-are-now-stable-and-secure/](https://www.hydroreview.com/environmental/southeast-u-s-dams-threatened-by-helene-are-now-stable-and-secure/)
- [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hurricane-helene-lake-lure-dam-failure-b2621624.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hurricane-helene-lake-lure-dam-failure-b2621624.html)
- [https://www.hydroreview.com/world-regions/north-america/lake-lure-dam-failure-imminent-warns-national-weather-service/?utm_source=hydro_weekly_newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30](https://www.hydroreview.com/world-regions/north-america/lake-lure-dam-failure-imminent-warns-national-weather-service/?utm_source=hydro_weekly_newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-30)
- [https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/27/weather/hurricane-helene-florida](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/27/weather/hurricane-helene-florida)
- [https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/greenville-nolichucky-dam-river-flooding-saturday](https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/greenville-nolichucky-dam-river-flooding-saturday)
- [https://www.knoxnews.com/story/weather/2024/09/29/tva-sets-douglas-dam-record-after-hurricane-helene-floods/75442460007/](https://www.knoxnews.com/story/weather/2024/09/29/tva-sets-douglas-dam-record-after-hurricane-helene-floods/75442460007/)
- [https://www.wcnc.com/article/weather/hurricane/helene/interstate-40-western-north-carolina-pete-buttiegieg-rebuilding-timeline/275-3760b666-11b0-4bde-b2a3-3ae7f45c305f](https://www.wcnc.com/article/weather/hurricane/helene/interstate-40-western-north-carolina-pete-buttiegieg-rebuilding-timeline/275-3760b666-11b0-4bde-b2a3-3ae7f45c305f)
- [https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-north-carolina-interstates-closed-months-hurricane-helene-flooding-1962798](https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-north-carolina-interstates-closed-months-hurricane-helene-flooding-1962798)
- [https://www.nbcnews.com/video/aerial-video-shows-north-carolina-interstate-washed-away-by-helene-flooding-220471365678](https://www.nbcnews.com/video/aerial-video-shows-north-carolina-interstate-washed-away-by-helene-flooding-220471365678)
- [https://www.wired.com/story/hurricane-helene-roads-flood-proof-climate-change/](https://www.wired.com/story/hurricane-helene-roads-flood-proof-climate-change/)
- [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/05/us/politics/north-carolina-helene-recovery-roads-damage.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/05/us/politics/north-carolina-helene-recovery-roads-damage.html)
- [https://www.npr.org/2024/10/09/nx-s1-5135530/devastated-roads-bridges-western-north-carolina](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/09/nx-s1-5135530/devastated-roads-bridges-western-north-carolina)
- [https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/03/us/helene-recovery-roads-water-power/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/03/us/helene-recovery-roads-water-power/index.html)
- [https://www.reuters.com/world/us/by-mule-helicopter-volunteers-deliver-aid-helene-victims-2024-10-04/](https://www.reuters.com/world/us/by-mule-helicopter-volunteers-deliver-aid-helene-victims-2024-10-04/)
- [https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/video/mules-bring-supplies-to-hurricane-helene-victims](https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/video/mules-bring-supplies-to-hurricane-helene-victims)
- [https://theintercept.com/2024/10/04/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-mountain-view-prison/](https://theintercept.com/2024/10/04/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-mountain-view-prison/)
- [https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133477/as-locals-struggle-post-helene-a-south-carolina-university-held-its-homecoming-game](https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133477/as-locals-struggle-post-helene-a-south-carolina-university-held-its-homecoming-game)
- [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/us/helene-tennessee-factory-deaths.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/us/helene-tennessee-factory-deaths.html)
- [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/grief-anger-mix-tennessee-plastic-plant-survivors-say-permission-leave-rcna173517](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/grief-anger-mix-tennessee-plastic-plant-survivors-say-permission-leave-rcna173517)
- [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/tennessee-investigating-plastics-factory-workers-trapped-hurricane-hel-rcna173597](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/tennessee-investigating-plastics-factory-workers-trapped-hurricane-hel-rcna173597)
- [https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/summer-1996/conditions-and-performance-interstate-system-after-40-years](https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/summer-1996/conditions-and-performance-interstate-system-after-40-years)
- [https://www.npr.org/2022/05/05/1096940224/dams-poor-condition-hazardous-dangerous-infrastructure](https://www.npr.org/2022/05/05/1096940224/dams-poor-condition-hazardous-dangerous-infrastructure)
- [https://www.wired.com/story/climate-change-failing-aging-dams-us-america-catastrophe/](https://www.wired.com/story/climate-change-failing-aging-dams-us-america-catastrophe/)
- [https://www.artba.org/news/new-data-shows-slow-steady-progress-repairing-americas-bridges/](https://www.artba.org/news/new-data-shows-slow-steady-progress-repairing-americas-bridges/)
- [https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/summer-1996/conditions-and-performance-interstate-system-after-40-years](https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/summer-1996/conditions-and-performance-interstate-system-after-40-years)
- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/The_Paris_of_Appalachia_%2854229440282%29.jpg) by John Brighenti from Rockville, MD, United States / openverse, by.

<!-- aeo:section end="sources" -->
<!-- aeo:section start="related-coverage" -->
## Related Coverage
<!-- aeo:section end="related-coverage" -->